CITY ISLAND LINES
I enjoy journeys, and I enjoy being at home. Both offer opportunity and appeal. Sometimes, I am able to combine both of these pleasures, when I wriggle into my running shoes and plunge out the back door. Of course, the delights that decorate my journey from home depend on time, season, weather and mood.
In the winter, nose-crinkling cold quickly melts into the pleasant embrace of a temperature custom-made for running. What would be a soppy sloppy slog in the heat of summer is more like a puppy dash through the snow- bounding along wildly and enthusiastically just to keep warm. Buildings are decorated like gingerbread houses, blanketed with white and twinkling with holiday lights. In the woods, the naked trees reveal secrets, and hardy woodpeckers hammer out their haunting Morse code messages. The beach is bleak but beautiful, edged with frost and driftwood. When spring arrives, some protective layers can be shed, lightening the load and easing the speed. Now houses are dwarfed by effusive Magnolia trees almost obscene in their pink and purple opulence. In the woods, blue jays and cardinals look like small sapphires and rubies tossed into the profusion of emerald buds that adorn the reborn trees. On the beach, sandpipers scuttle officiously to and fro deferring to the more imposing gulls, who glean the same briny harvest. Soon summer, languid and oversaturated with sunlight, settles its heavy humid mantle on the world. My tempo decreases, and time itself seems more sticky and sluggish. Homes are now dappled with over-worked cooling units. The woods offer slight relief from the heat, with their shade and silence, but even the squirrels seem to slow down at this point. The hot sand scorches small feet and watermelons wash up unexpectedly on the shore. And then it is autumn, a golden time of waning days and lingering light. I run like a squirrel shoring up my cache for the winter. The comforting smell of burning logs emanates from chimneys. The woods hold muffled footfalls and mulchy aromas. On the sand, a raccoon has left a long line of distinctive paw-prints that suddenly intersects with those of a large dog. Perhaps there is a story there. A little further on is the unmistakable scent of a startled skunk. Listening to my footfalls as I trot back home, I hear their asymmetric rhythm –cause or effect of injuries accrued over time. I too have experienced my seasons and the inexorable changes that they entail. Clomping through the back door, slapping the mud from my shoes and swiping the sweat from my lids, I am grateful for this journey, and all the others, that leads me back home. 1 May 2018
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