Day 4: Swimming on two feet

Day 4, Week -5 / 10:15AM

10 miles, Camp Sawyer Trail off of Millbrae

Completed in approximately 1hr 30m

In the rain.  With Ninoy Brown of FOBBDeep.com

I enjoy running by myself, but I would like to run with more people, often.  When I caught wind of Ninoy Brown training for a half-marathon, I jumped at the opportunity to accompany him on one of his long runs.

‘Rain or Shine’ he said.

It was raining.  Pretty hard I might add.  I got up this morning thinking how drenched we were going to get, and wondering if a cold would follow thereafter, I wasn’t going to miss out on another day of training, much less flake on a friend so I layered, even brought a garbage bag in case I wanted to cover myself up in it, and headed to the Sawyer Camp Trail.  Full of sloping, rolling hill, mossy trees, large bodies of water, and deer, the trail provided a nice canvas for the sounds of our feet ambling, leaves rustlings, frogs croaking, and lungs wheezing.

Mr. Brown and myself were at a comfortable enough pace to tackle the 9 – 10 miles and still talk about work, and running around the world.

Running that path alone is great, I imagine attaining a zen-like trance that would most likely carry me miles and miles, but pairing up to encourage and marvel at scenerery wasn’t so bad either.

I skipped out on yesterday’s run to recoup from the Center for Asian American Media’s kickoff party, and to make sure I attended the screening of Manilatown is in the Heart: Time Travel with Al Robles.  The screening was at the Koret Auditorium at the SF Public Library.  It played to a modestly attended group comprised of some veteran cultural and community workers.  Al Robles’s birthday was on that day too, so after the screening we had birthday cake.

The film was a mish-mash of time periods with Al’s presence being featured.  Al’s poetry and essence was mostly captured on the film.  I was more impressed with the breadth of material that Choy had accumulated over time.  I have a mild addiction to watching formless footage, or time capsule footage — it feels mostly unadulturated, and sincere in it’s emanations of the qualities, and Choy’s footage of the manongs in Delano was no exception.  There was no reason to, but I teared at viewing that footage.  There’s a quality of continued humble and modest fraterity and love between the manongs… that their solo efforts to make a life in the United States isn’t in vain.

I’m bothered that Al doesn’t get the recognition he deserves.  The labor of love that is asking and listening, documenting, and advocating for the senior populations is a thankless task, but it’s necessary for the well being of any group of people…

I’ll stop this rant for now because it isn’t getting anywhere… but here’s a poem by Al Robles…

THE STRUGGLE OF THE MANONGS This place of the manongs This place of Pilipino farm workers Showed me where to follow Found imprints of Vera Cruz’s foot And hands in the trees, in The grapes in the soil Deep in Agbayani Village Beneath the trees grapes fallen We begin the long struggle The long jouney I awoke to the croaking sound Of fighting cocks Behind manong Candio’s house And soon began heading toward The backyard The shrill sound clearing my mind Circling around the treetops Like ravens Following the early summer morning Each step I took got deeper into the past Of the manongs It led us far, father across The road, the beginning of resistance The beginning of revolutionary struggle Autumn midnight In Agbayani Village The spirit of the Pilipino farmworkers. Finds its own way Their struggle with the Chicanos Is to go to battle For the poor farmworkers There is fire in the vineyards, In the fields on the road There is fire in the vineyards To give…we must walk with the Pilipino farmworkers Ablaze in summer cool in winder Anytime, man! Anytime, man! And your face will fear nothing Before the grapes ripened again We will rise up like fire Get rid of the rich white grower’s greed Voices on fire rise up!

(a poem about Philip Vera Cruz) No disheveled weathered grass-minds Lay dead around the rich grower’s ground Who will touch us Who will cripple us We will not sit still New struggles spring up bursting Flows over the fields Thunder cannot move us Let us all go to Delano Deep in Agbayani Village Let the fish swim deeper Across the fields Into the mouth of the manongs On arrival I saw poets cried down the grapes Our conversation Our love of the Pilipino Chicano farmworkers We still come back to Delano We still live by our struggle We still live by our poetry of resistance In the dark hours across the Delano vineyards The struggle against the white grower’s goes on I know the things of the manongs I know the lives in deep melancholy dreams Empty pockets soaked in old weathered work clothes Yet their life of struggle belongs to us I saw manong cardac and manong Willie And manong Candioand manong LaCuesta All of them…all of them… Circling around us Laying out things of the past Marks of brown feet Hidden dreams and memories still fermenting Whispering overhead shadows darken The face and chill the heart of poets © Al Robles