A Journey of a Thousand Miles

The running feels so easy, even on the hills, I am delighted to the point of ambitious optimism. I will do this every day, I predict (without pressure). The neighbors will see me and wave and smile. They will know me.

The mixture of emotions threatens to drown me, swirling, stinging. As I head down into the first valley where the stream is, I welcome the green cool, the humid gathering. The memories of J on her bike here just last month cause my heart to constrict. It's OK, though, right? As soon as the house is gutted and the rebuilding starts, we can bring her here with her bike all the time. It may be cold by then, but I want her to think of this as her neighborhood. I don't want her to get attached to the townhouse circle, packed with possible playmates though-it-may-be. To have her miss another house a year from now will be too much for me, for all of us.

Leaving behind the bramble and ferns, I crest the second hill on the loop and take in the smell of pines. I scoot under their shade and enjoy the crunch of dead needles under my slapping shoes. I gaze up the next hill, looking for the familiar giant poplars on my left. I memorize their gray trunks, wanting the feeling of belonging to greet me. I think of the discomfort of mosquitos, the disquiet of a house dreamed up by a couple who exploded their lives apart, and I pray I can find home in the remains of a tragedy - a tragedy on the end of which God stuck an exclamation point by introducing a lightening strike to a gas line with a pinhole leak.

I look up into the trees that hug the houses along the road. Gypsy moths have set up their tents in boughs that now droop heavily overhead. Their population is sparse compared to the parasitic bag worms I used to see in Woodbine, the interlopers who killed their hosts, and ruined their homes by living there. While I note that, in contrast, the gypsy moths simply mar the lush landscape, and only for a time, I refuse the impulse to dismiss them as unseemly. After all, who am I to disdain a creature who can only survive by opportunistic means?

I turn down 'my' lane. I stop at the turnaround point, bending to pull up delicate weeds protruding from among the wet mulch and shards of glass. The generator prods me to check on the fish pond before I turn and resume my run back....home.