Running in Place

These images are from the last year +, from my daily runs (or walks) in and around my neighborhood. They begin during the first days of our Covid confinement. They continue to the present, when at least here in NYC, we find ourselves less restricted but still trying to find the new contours of what gives shape to our world.

I picked up running as something more than a hobby about 10 years ago, during a stretch of agonizingly static under- and unemployment. I grew up an athlete and a dancer (the muscle memory, of everything you can do on a court with a basketball and the pliés and relevés of classical ballet, is permanently imprinted) and felt that running was for people who couldn’t do real sports. But when you’re broke and have some time on your hands, running emerges as the inevitable option. Running also, crucially, allowed me a break from the straitjacket of my anxieties and immediate concerns during this period.

You need that when nothing else is moving. Like this past year.

Since I started writing this, New York has rediscovered some of its pace. But the tempo is still irregular. And we are all still isolated, or just drifting a bit and waiting to feel the momentum. And some parts of the city are still hollow shells – visits to which stop you in your tracks.

I still rely on my daily run or walk in my neighborhood to ground me. And the stillness of a photograph of something completely apart from yourself.