I went for a run on Saturday morning.

Running Moonee Ponds Creek Track

I went for a run on Saturday morning.

It was lighting quick for me, it felt good. The sun was shining, the air was cool and I was moving. Running past the people voting in the election, which where I am, are seas of green. This gave way to the green of Royal Park and the late autumn trees of Flemington Road, shining in the sun, which for this time of year, brings light but not heat. Ideal running conditions.

Like I’m flying. Feeling great. Quickest ever times. Wow, I think. How good is it to be alive. I am in my third recovery period back over the past two years in my running. This has been my COVID go to. First, it was a fall, two weeks shy of turning 40, and then recoveries from brain and then spinal surgery.

I have a condition called Von Hippel-Lindau Syndrome which sees my body grows tumours in my brain and spine. It’s a rare disease and over the last 15 years, I have been able to put the jigsaw pieces together of what it actually is, its meaning, and after six surgeries — three brain and three spine — I am comfortable in its relationship to me. It doesn’t define me, it inspires me to push myself along. My first brain surgery was within a year of starting Portable. I had to learn to walk and eat again, lost my hearing permanently in my right ear and continue today with constant tinnitus and facial pain. I could have stopped at that point, but I used work as an anchor to get back to doing. I remember, like yesterday, walking up the stairs of our office above the tattoo shop in Gertrude St, the morning I was released from three months in hospital, to get into work, which at the time was the Portable Film Festival. Those steps were hard, I held onto the banister, but I did it, determined to give some meaning to what I had gone through, something I could look forward to.

I just read “When Breath Becomes Air” by Paul Kalanithi last week and it reminded me of lots of things. It’s a story of a neurosurgeon who dies of Lung Cancer at 36. The book’s byline is “What makes life living in the face of death”. Paul is a beautiful writer and gave me pause to reflect on my own experience.

Through these surgeries, both of 15 years ago and over 2016, 2017 and 2021, I have morality moments of “Is this is really the end?”, and I’ve got adept at processing these moments. I want to strive for and reflect on its great meaning but I don’t always give this time the gravitas it may need. Me writing more is an attempt to better understand some of this meaning and Paul reminded me to pause and reflect.

Me running is a rejection of the thought that I can’t do these things. After brain surgery last year, I was back running in 7 weeks and doing 22km within 7 weeks of that. That was too much, too soon. I was in constant wonderment I could do it at all. I then hurt my quad and was out for another month or so. Post my stroke 15 years ago — from the first brain surgery — I am weaker in my right side. So this time coming back, after my spinal tumor removal in December, I’m taking it more consistently. 11 weeks off before running. Surgery on the first day of Summer, running by the end of Summer. Then doing it every other day, but capping at 10–11kms for now, and now reflecting on the weekend, that I’m back better than ever.

Why am I sharing this? It’s VHL Month in May so want people to be aware of this, but also remind myself what is my own answer to Paul’s book byline? Beyond running, it is the feeling of having a higher purpose, which I strive to find in my work. I often detach my personal life from my work life but they are interlinked but I see them as different spheres of me, but this is me.

Being able to be at this moment is made up of a series of so many other moments. Focusing on getting better, having to do it often, and working to develop a practice. I want to take inspiration to go into my own work life and the goals I want here too.

So I’m writing this as my truth of who I am, and what I want to be in the future. To keep going, keep striving to be better. Here is a photo from Monday morning on my morning run. Gosh it was good to do. I plan to do it more.