Becoming Forrest by Rob Pope

Author:Rob Pope
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Published: 2021-08-31T18:15:28+00:00

I hadn’t even got going the next morning before my heart was broken in two. One of my heroes of the run, Chris Cornell of Soundgarden and Audioslave, had passed away. One of music’s ultimate men of the highway, a loner and a team player, this eternal wanderer had either reached a place to rest or to roam freely, depending on how you wanted to imagine him.

Chris Cornell and his music had taken a prominent role in the fabric of my journey. While I’d always had my goals and motivations, which were as strong as ever, I was always aware that a moment might come when it felt like it was the end. Sitting by the roadside, I’d never felt closer to the end, and I even got as far as looking at the cost of flights home. I was crying, and it made me think of the dog and then I thought to myself, Have I done enough?

I wasn’t sure. I needed to retreat into the comfort of something that I’d always found cleared my head – running. I didn’t even bother with a warm-up. The city was strangely quiet, despite it being mid-morning. Erie was a former industrial port, and street art replaced the queues of factory and dock workers these days as the city continued a steady regeneration after being one of the hardest-hit Rust Belt areas. Philly’s houses had reminded me of home, and the warehouses here reminded me of the docks in Liverpool. I was glad that this induced a sense of pride rather than longing, which would not have been in my best interests at that point.

A sign outside a local community organisation quoted Jean Vanier, the philosopher and humanitarian: ‘The belly laugh is the best way to evacuate anguish.’ I pulled the plug, at nothing in particular. It wasn’t the worst piece of advice I’d taken.

Later, weighing up my options at a cute roadside shack called Dairy Oasis, which emerged out of the sun shimmer as all good oases should, I still felt heavy inside. I tried to assemble the spider’s web of thoughts I’d created on my runs so far today. Start a new state on a clean slate tomorrow. Get to Chicago. If you want to finish then, finish. Don’t give up. Not now.

Lying on the bed in my motel room that night, I focused on tomorrow and beyond, to Ohio, and I hummed the tune of the same name by the Low Anthem. It was the first music to penetrate my mental fog – besides the haunting sound of the man on my shoulder – and it was a song that hinted at a chance of hope after loss, a message that I was now more open to. But for the moment, I’d close my eyes and return to thinking of a friend who never knew me.

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