In the Morning

It’s early morning, and I’m awake, sort of. I’m lying in bed, languid with missed sleep and the nugatory failures of parenthood that although small, feel monumental. I’m flicking through Facebook, the inertia not lifting.

I gather myself up out of bed and drink a coffee. I want to move. I pull on some shorts and lace up my shoes, the only way out of the fog is to run. 

It works. It almost always works.

My route takes me through treelined streets, sleepy houses, people on their way to work. I pass a dump truck, fetid with layers of decay, packed with garbage rotting in the heat. Men dig through yesterday's waste in bare hands and flip-flops. There’s a rat, dead and flattened into the road.

There are great towering trees forming an arched canopy above me. I run though dappled light, pockets of streaming rays flash as I move. I think about how much beauty there is in this city, despite the struggle and the decay. 

When I’m running I’m thinking most clearly about the kind of human I want to be. I’m thinking of art, and living, and projects that I want to make. 

People will tell you that you can’t run in Jakarta. And maybe you can’t run the way you can run in New York or Zurich, through a park, around a lake, down a trail. Jakarta demands compromise. I must rise early, before the streets are fully choked. I must accept the occasional low-lying cloud of diesel smoke, a mob of scooters, a squashed rat, the smell of garbage. 

Run through that, and I’m rewarded with clear thoughts, a beam of light, a leaf so tenderly translucent that I can’t quite believe it’s real.