By Sara Etgen-Baker
Dallas Branch

When the alarm sounds, I want to continue sleeping. Instead, I slide out of the warm sheets and peek through the blinds. Graceful flakes of pearly lace dust the tree-lined trails adjacent to my home. Although the mercury hovers just below freezing, today is the perfect day for a solitary winter run. Quietly I don my winter running clothes, head downstairs, and step outside.

Daylight has not yet turned the slumberous, dark blue clouds to their morning gray. I hesitate, not wanting to disturb winter’s peaceful silence. I zip up my running jacket, fleece beanie secured over my ears. With my gloved hands cupped over my mouth, I blow warm air into them. A few stretches and then I jog toward the wooded trails.

When my stiff legs beg me to turn around, I ignore their cries. Their complaints will not last. Only my footfalls crunching the snow break the silence. As I run along, nary an animal crosses the winding path. Their tracks in the snow indicate they’ve been here before me. The nippy air frosts my breath, mixed with my footfalls they soon create a rhythm.

With no thought of time or distance, I sprint past fallen trees along the creekside. Unaware of speed either, just movement, I pass an icy pond cloaked by barren, frost-covered trees, skeletons trembling in the brisk wind. Winter’s tranquility and purity envelope me. Gazing into the distance, I imagine how the woods looked a hundred years ago. Transported back, I see Henry David Thoreau standing outside his cabin near Walden Pond.  He isn’t there, of course. Only mile after mile of glorious solitude.

Throughout the seasons I run alone along these woods — quiet and sacred, every bit as wondrous as Walden Pond. The only sounds are birds chirping, squirrels collecting nuts; and my feet gently landing on leaves, pine straws, or snow. The pitter-patter of raindrops hit leaves and fall onto the underbrush. Sometimes a light rain cools my perspiring body and soothes my spirit.

Regardless of the season, a meditative cadence springs from the union of measured breaths with repetitive, metered strides. My attention drifts and my mind wanders without inhibition. Running gives me that mental freedom, a special solitude. Sure, I run because I love it. It’s good exercise and it allows a much-needed mental break from preoccupation with unimportant, external things.

But I run for another reason: Running makes me a better writer. Running frees my fictitious ghost self and clears a space for my creative mind. While running, I enter a new state of mind, writing not with pen and paper but in a different context entirely. I construct narratives and characters and sometimes even write my first draft, frequently rushing home so I don’t lose the storyline forming in my head. Running deepens my focus. The steady accumulation of miles often mirrors the accumulation of written pages.

Whenever I suffer writer’s block, get stuck on a sentence, or labor too long over some structural detail, I lace up my shoes and go for a run. When I return, I’m a bit sweatier, more tired, but more charged to run with my words.

A recent discovery: There’s a long tradition of writers leaving behind pens or screens to stride along roads, tracks, and trails. The notable British author, Jonathan Swift, reportedly ran half a mile up and down a hill every two hours. Louisa May Alcott once wrote that in a former life, she must’ve been a deer or a horse because running was such a joy. Thoreau claimed when his legs began to move, his thoughts began to flow. Like Swift, Alcott, and Thoreau, I am compelled to run, if only to find my writing mojo.

Now and then, weather keeps me inside. Without my run, I often feel a little unsettled, unable to write meaningfully. I’m not quite sure why. For a long time, I attributed that dullness and edginess to the stale feeling of being indoors and inactive. What I’ve come to understand is something else. When I run, I’m free and living in the present. And it’s only in the present that my creativity flourishes. Thoughts come to me in their own quiet way, and I write authentically from some place deep inside.

Some runners run to win a race. Some writers write to win a contest.  Competition, their motive. I applaud and respect their choice. While I admire their discipline, their drive, their guts, and their tenacity, competition is not my motive for running or writing. I run to let go, to give myself over to something bigger than me. I run for the good of my soul. My feet glide; the words flow; and I experience a sense of completion, joy, and even catharsis. And I’m content, running with my words.

Sara Etgen-Baker, a Dallas Branch member, was ignited by a teacher’s unexpected whisper, “You’ve got talent.” After another career, she returned to writing. Her memoir vignettes and personal narratives appear in “Chicken Soup for the Soul,” “Guideposts,” and “Good Old Days Magazine.”