“Places That Hold Us“

A letter written to Nedd Brockmann shortly after his 1600km Ultramarathon World Record Attempt in Sydney, October 2024.

Dear Nedd,

Please forgive the delayed arrival of my letter. If I am to send anything your way across both countries and oceans, then I would like for it to be something honest. Honesty is a tricky thing. She’s a lady willing, on occasion, to flirt on her terms and her terms only. I don’t find not lying particularly difficult, but telling the truth can be a whole ‘nother matter entirely.

Tonight, I’m in quite the flirty mood.

In 1966, Rubin “The Hurricane” Carter was wrongfully convicted of a triple homicide committed at a bar in New Jersey. I’ll let the film tell its own story and simply urge you to watch The Hurricane (1999), starring Denzel Washington. It’s a good fucking watch, Nedd. Assuming, of course, that you’re still recovering from your Great Battle, I imagine you’ll have no difficulty finding the time to treat yourself to the pleasantry of a miraculous story. And when done correctly, my good friend, film and story do precisely that - they remind us of the dignity, the nobility, the magnificence of human life. They glorify the human experience like no other.

In this amazing film, a brief but very important letter exchange is depicted, and it is from said exchange that I wish to share something with you today.

In the confines of prison, Rubin Carter received mail from a young man who took great interest in his autobiography (The Sixteenth Round), prompting him to write the former boxer and author a letter. Carter responded. Amongst the many lines the men exchanged, a few stood out to me, but one more so than any other:

“It’s very important to transcend the places that hold us.”

Now, here’s the tricky thing about good writing: It never stops meaning something. When a sentence speaks a universal truth, each person it encounters breathes new life into it, feeling as though the words, in turn, have done the same to them. Marcus Aurelius and his journal entries are still relevant today because the universal truths they have to offer died not with him, but instead stayed to be explored and re-explored time and time again by the human collective. In that, we are and remain to be one.

In the 1994 classic The Shawshank Redemption (in my humble opinion a perfect movie, flawless in every conceivable way), when Andy locks himself off in the warden’s office and blasts over the P.A. system “Deutino: Che Soave Zeffiretto” - a song, much like the movie, nearing perfection - inmates of Shawshank prison are all exposed to the beauty of song and melody; the beauty of a woman’s voice. The laundry rooms, the cantina, the hospital wing, out in the yard - everyone immediately stopped in their tracks, listening intently, eagerly, in amazement.

“I have no idea to this day what those two Italian ladies were singing about. Truth is, I don’t want to know. Some things are best left unsaid. I like to think they were singing about something so beautiful it can’t be expressed in words and makes your heart ache because of it. I tell ya, those voices soared higher and farther than anybody in a grey place dares to dream. It was like some beautiful bird flapped into our drab little cage and made those walls dissolve away. And for the briefest of moments, every last man at Shawshank felt free.”

Though it’s a mere moment, Red (played by none other than Mr. Morgan Freeman) describes in this scene perfectly what Rubin Carter meant with his quote above when in a letter addressing Lesra Martin.

When finishing up P61, I was lucky enough to experience a fraction of what it was you took on earlier this month. I ran a few marathons on a running track, day in and day out, occasionally through the night even. Though my freedom was never in question, I did experience a fascinating process of spiritual alchemy. You see, whenever I’d return to the track for more violent and lonely hours of running, I would always, before shuffling myself back into rhythm, look around me. In those moments, I could remember the exact feelings, visions, and memories that would travel through me at specific sections of the track. Though I’d leave and return hours later, these spiritual entities stayed where I left them. They were there, looking at me, waiting for me to come running so as to whisper into my ear songs of encouragement and threats of failure. Conveniently, when I had done what I had set out to do - when my job at the track was complete - those voices, those thoughts, those feelings, visions, and memories had gone. For as it was always meant, they came only to teach, and the completion of my task meant I had nothing left to learn.

That place no longer held me.

And then we have you.

What that fight must’ve been like I cannot yet begin to fathom. You chose to suffer. You chose to suffer in the name of those who never had the luxury of choice. You chose to suffer for legacy. Suffer for story. For legend and myth. Like a great film, your struggle reminds us of the dignity, the nobility, the magnificence of human life. Your misery glorifies the human experience for the rest of time, my friend, and it is for that very reason, above ALL, that the record means nothing! For you stayed in that fight. You stepped in that fire. You waged war upon that track, and in finishing the job, you have, as though urged by Rubin Carter himself, transcended the place that held on to you.

You have set the standard, Nedd.

Many years from now, looking back upon your life, I hope you walk a lap around that track and feel embraced by all that once upon a time was there for you to experience. By then, I can only hope the city of Sydney has built a statue in your honour;

a place to remind us all of our human capacity to withstand, to endure, to conquer.

Rest those legs, brother. I hope this letter finds you well.

With love, in admiration and great appreciation,

Your Brother, A.P.L.