cloudy with a chance of disaster

 

“You can’t stay on the computer and write all day,” he stands at the top of the stairs holding a baby turkey under his arm.

No, technically I believe I can.  

Besides that bird is doing little to help your authority.

“Damn, I knew you were coming up here to say that.” It’s 5 something and I have been writing since the other 5 something.

“You need to go running.” he says carrying off Thanksgiving Dinner trusting I will do the right thing. Then I hear why he believe that, “You might get lucky and catch rain at the end of your run if you leave now.”

Did he say rain? Oh I love running in the rain. 

Right, write, wrong, run, right. Do you have any idea how hard it is to put on a sports bra with a broken arm?!

I stumble down stairs in my running clothes. 

The threat of rain cancels Kilo, the dog with a subtitle that reads: please don’t add water or loud noises.  The distance I’m thinking about going cancels the old man Moses, that leaves, well, me…me & the homeless.  And the drug dealers, ‘and the mother rapers and there was all kinds of mean nasty ugly looking people…Mother rapers, Father stabbers, Father rapers!’ 

Okay it’s not that bad really. QUESTION MARK. DEAD BODY.

Colby hands me a red box movie at the door, “Do you mind returning this on your warm up.”  Ah yeah, I kind of do. I’m not walking to 7/11 it’s a whole half block out of my way. And P.S. F.Y.I. I don't really warm up I just pretend to when you are watching me.

“Sure.” Smile. Grit teeth. Blink eyes. Revel in selfishness & suck up relationship. I'm not really this big of a jerk but running is something very important to me, something not to be tampered with.  I am a special breed of runner. I am a point runner.  I pick one point & run from it. I get as far away as fast as I can before one of three limiting factors kicks in: childcare, bladder, or brain.   Then from there I slowly make my way back to the point I fled. With any luck it is a complete circle when I am too tired to take another stride.

She’s off. 

Rain drop. 

Redbox. 

Now I’m running, drop, drop, drop. Pass my street heading up 1700 south (wait that is down 1700 south) turn on the J trail. Skunk, tree, homeless guy, railroad tracks, homeless guy, guy fishing, drop, drop, drop.  Through the golf course (EMPTY), river crazy full, family of bikers squinting in the rain, underpass 2100, underpass highway, Peanut Butter the world's meanest goose (that’s a whole other story) long slow straight away, new tracks line, park with homeless, synagogue, more new tracks line, scary guy on bike, nature preserve loop.  

Drop, drop, drop. Down pour. Down pour. Lightening.  Hissing geese with babies, oh, how cute, shit not cute!!! 

RUN. 

Skunk, cat, horses, black birds, bull frogs, cat tails, beavers, strange old man with an umbrella- weird. 

THUNDER.

I’m soaked rounding the corner, The Return Corner, it happens in the strangest places, the moment I realize I am as far out as I am going to go, step one is away, step two is back, ending the Leaving & starting the Returning. I can be in the middle of a conversation with Oprah about my book 'Yes Oprah, I feel you were too hard on James Frey...' or about to score the game winning goal, day dreaming vanishes replaced by Ozzie, ‘I’m coming home.’ 

Run. 

The events in reverse add more rain & the lightening over my shoulder & at the last underpass insert scary guy in trench coat.

Here is one of those great adult moments when I prove who I am.  The song from The Disney version of The Legend of Sleepy Hallow ‘head for the bridge with all your might’ running through my mind.  Are you joking the plan is run full sprint in the dark past this guy?!?!  Yep. That’s her plan; beat at the end of a long run, in total isolation, medical id, broken arm, and I'm going to run for my life.  Oh wait, that's nothing new, it is ALWAYS the reason I am running.  

So, I’m running because that is what scared people tend to do & because it helps me to bypass the need for insulin. Because some guy with a turkey under his arm told me to.  I’m alone because my dogs are too smart to go out in this with me. I have a broken arm because I failed wood stacking 101.  And now I am about to do something really stupid because of a song stuck in my head says ‘when you reach the other side his power ends…’  That’s me in a nutshell. 

The rain is getting worse & the lightening is closing in & the ‘bridge’ is between me & my point; my point? What is my point, oh yeah, I’m coming home.  

RUN.

River, bridge, rocks, spider webs, darkness, the man, rocks, river, the light at the end of the tunnel.  Scary guy in trench coat under the bridge behind me, not so scary guy with a turkey somewhere before me.

And if I time it right, like I did back at the underpass, I can be on the computer writing before he notices I’m back…