CHARMED CIRCLE

I gave Rock-star Rupert a break from running today, since it's sizzling and sultry and I still haven't shaved him. (I know, I know. But it takes literally all day for me to shear his locks, and I'm too cheap to shell out $100 for a groomer to do it).

I went to the high school track by myself and walked five miles. That's not impressive, I know, but I only had an hour and a half, and it was enjoyable, even with the noontime sun bearing down on me. It occurred to me to just stroll through a shady old neighborhood instead, but I've unexpectedly come to appreciate the purity of the track — its starkness and openness and, above all, its singularity of purpose. There's no crazy brick sidewalk for me to trip on, no old houses to daydream about, no intersections to navigate.

Just circles to walk in.

Circles focus me, I find. It's nothing Zen or feng shui or anything like that. It's just that the very nature of a circle is centeredness. (I had thought the nature of a circle, especially an asphalt one thrown down in a treeless plain, might be boringness, but I was wrong.)

The first time I went to the track last week, I saw a lot of people walking with iPods, and I was momentarily jealous. I thought hmmmmm ... I should get an iPod, then I can "read" audiobooks and exercise my brain and body at the same time, but after a few laps around the track I decided being plugged in would destroy my focus. It would detract from the "reading" and it would detract from the walking. Multitasking is anathema to the circle.

And background music would be, too. I'm always amused when my students get up after class and insert their earphones first thing — and I mean immediately — as though a second without external stimulation, a second in which a random thought could sneak into their head and possibly become troublesome, is to be avoided at all cost.

I can see how music might help someone focus while exercising, especially music with pop rhythms. I've been lapped regularly by runners with Top-40 tunes leaking out of their earphones (and untanned butt cheeks leaking out of their tiny shorts). But it's not for me.

The thing I value most about exercise, so far, is the sheer peacefulness of it. The sound of my breathing. The sensation of my heartbeat. The tightening in my calves. The rubbery thud of my shoes on the pavement. The slight chill when a gust of wind meets the sweat on my skin.

But, most especially, I value the random thoughts, troublesome or not, that sneak into my head and keep me company in the circle.