Tim and I are delighted to have a guest blogger. We hope to have more. Look for some on guest posts relating to music and art in the coming weeks.

Cathy’s post, Why I Run, is about more than running. It is about community and having a sense of place. It is about loving where you are, no matter where you might be. Enjoy.  Cathy is a librarian and resident of Somerville.

Shepard Fairey mural in Union Square photo by Jonathan O'Toole owner of Grand

In my teens it seemed as if I would forever be stepping on Andre the Giant’s head. Clearly it was graffiti; the ubiquitous sticker or stencil of this man’s gigantic head spared no lamppost or street corner in Harvard Square. But I was too caught up in buying Depeche Mode CDs to fully understand what I was really seeing: a massive graffiti art campaign of the ’80s.

Shepard Fairey, the artist responsible for branding Andre’s head into my memory, well beyond when I stopped watching him wrestle on Saturday mornings, is about to have an exhibit at the ICA in February. In the meantime, he is spreading his street art around the area once again and recently installed a mural on the building that houses Grand, a great gift and home furnishings shop in Union Square. It is now the latest bit of eye candy I pass by on my Rocky Run – the 5K loop of my life in Somerville.

The run usually begins in front of my new home on Beacon Street, a place I still pinch myself for living in after almost two years, after a lifetime of drifting around the city of my birth wondering if I’d ever be able to drop anchor. I usually start running up Beacon to Porter Square, past the smell of burgers wafting from O’Sullivan’s and the guy I often notice sitting on the bench in front of Petsi’s Pies with a coffee. I thump sidewalk grates that seem out of place, this being Somerville, not Manhattan. This is the time, these first few minutes, when I’m usually dreading the endeavor. My muscles are fighting my will, the tree roots are tripping my rhythm, and my joints could use a squirt of oil.

When I reach the top of the street I turn right onto Somerville Avenue, glad for gentle slope in the pavement. I’m beginning to warm up and hoping to hear one of the few hip-hop songs on my Shuffle, specifically Missy Elliott, explaining to me, yet again, why she’s a smooth chick. Off to the left, just two traffic lights away, is my gym, Healthworks. My gym. The place that helped me lessen the burden of an incredible amount of weight I had been carrying. How much, you might wonder? A lot. More than you could reasonably conceive. A shitload, essentially. It’s a place that’s broken me down and made me mighty. Even after eight years I can still be brought to tears when I think about what’s been left behind on spin bikes and treadmills. Heavy bags and hand wraps. Dumbbells and jump ropes. Sometimes my run starts here, after a spinning class, when I really want to feel invincible. I love that I have the option.

Somerville Ave. is still the Somerville Ave. of my childhood: gritty. I run around soapy sidewalks from the car wash, broken glass, and litter. At the moment, construction paraphernalia guides me along my run, reminding me that change is coming, as if I needed it.

I run by Conway Park, where I tried out for little league as a fat 8 year-old tomboy who only knew she liked Fred Lynn because he was a lefty (I didn’t make the team), and the ice skating rink beside the park, where I used to skate not-very-well. An eternity ago, my brother and I walked home from the rink on a cold-ass, slushy, winter afternoon fighting about something that eventually had us flinging our skates at one another, until someone pulled over and told us to stop.

It’s 42 paces across Milk Row Cemetery and I’m just hitting my stride at the Ellis Island of supermarkets: Market Basket, with it’s perpetually jammed parking lot and sawdusted floors. For many years my Saturdays involved mandatory trips to Market Basket with my mother, where I would be instantly separated from her, the woman who blew past everyone on a mission to get the fuck out of there as fast as she could. An ocean of aisles between us, I would eventually call out, “Ma?!?,” only to have a bunch of ladies looking up from their shopping carts to see if I was their kid.

Things begin to change at this point and my run starts to mean something more than the distant past. Behind the cemetery and beside Market Basket is the building that, until recently, was home to the Somerville Boxing Club. The boxing club uses an historic ring, supposedly the oldest active ring in the world, that has the memories of Joe Louis, Sugar Ray Robinson, Muhammad Ali, Rocky Marciano, and Marvin Hagler reinforcing it’s aluminum frame. I was standing in this ring when Papa Ray, a former professional boxer-turned trainer told me I had a beautiful jab. It’s also the ring where I bloodied someone’s nose for the first time in my life and hugged it off at the end of the round.

The past is wicking away and the present is right in front of me as I run by the new mural, enjoying the flat path and breath of fresh air it affords me. Union Square. I look to the left and can see the space where the farmers’ market is held on Saturdays. I think about how my guy and I go every week and how much we love the routine. But I’m turning right, onto Washington Street, past one of my favorite cafes, Sherman. Some days I might be tired enough to run in and get a sip of water if it’s a particularly hot day, or I might be thinking about how just hours before my run I was sitting inside, with a latte and a book, enjoying a much needed hour of peace for lunch.

Before I know it, I’m up and over the hill by the brand new Argenziano School, which use to be the old Lincoln Park Community School my friend Ellie went to, wishing the run was over but still having to reach the Wine & Cheese Cask, where I am rounding third and heading for home. Past the used car lot that haunted me as a child, the clown-like creepiness embedded in its dirty white paint and soiled, rainbow-colored plastic flags. I’m panting now, running faster, telling myself to run as fast as I can until the sidewalk turns from old, chewed-up concrete to new.