I left my house about 5:30 a.m. for a run (okay, that's not weird). As I was going along, I had decided which route to follow to complete my four miles, get home, shower, get to work to make copies before class started.
So I'm slogging up the road in the semi-darkness of the morning and I pass my friend Rini's old house. Rini is my friend who died in December 2011. Something about passing her house nearly always makes me stop and walk rather than continuing to run. But this morning, I sent up a little prayer of thanks to Rini as I kept running.Then I decided to thank some other people in my life who have passed on, my sister Tammy, Earl's Aunt Lenora who died at 96 last year. Aunt Lenora was a savvy business woman who ran her own dress shop and made buying trips from Ohio to New York by train during the 1940s. I knew she'd feel compassion for me as I try to figure out how to market my novel.
As I continued to run, I thought the houses didn't look familiar. The street is a fairly well off street with stone houses set back from the street with perfect lawns. Generally, I run the other direction down the street, so I figured things just looked different from this angle.
I came to a traffic light, the place that I had planned to turn, and found out it wasn't the street I thought at all. I had crossed over the street I meant to turn on and kept going.
How could I have missed 5th Avenue? That street has a traffic light. It has businesses. It has lots of traffic and surely, even at 6 a.m. I would have noticed crossing it.
But I didn't. I had no recollection of that last block after Rini's house and the two blocks that took me on up to this intersection.
Now I've had runner's highs before, but I've never blanked out on a part of my run.
I'm torn between thinking this was a blessing or a curse. I mean, my runs will go much faster if I have no idea I'm running them, but who knows where I'll end up.
Any way, thanks to Rini and Tammy and Aunt Lenora for the great run this morning.
8 comments:
You must have been very deep in thought today, thinking about those special people who came in and out of your life. Sweet story and glad your were not harmed by your surreal moments,
Hi Paulita .. I find it weird that you are out running at 5.30 am , Ok maybe not for you ..
Yes the other things sound surreal, like you have lost a whole area. Happy you had a good run though :-)
I think that strange things happen for a reason. Maybe if you had gone your regular route there may have been something on the sidewalk and you would have fallen or a mean dog, so by going that other way, you avoided it intuitively.
Something mystical I'm thinking.
Momentary fog or spirited intervention ... Loved the story.
Being so inside yourself that the outside just passes by; immaterial at that time.
Precious.
Sometimes on our travels my husband and I become so absorbed in our conversation that we miss our turn and end up in some surprising place. Sometimes it makes for a fun detour. :-)
Like this post. Not the running at 5:30 am part, but you already know my feelings on that matter. I've definitely zoned out during a run and I love it when that happens. The only thing that concerns me is wondering how slowly I was running during that zone out time. I'm truly lazy at heart, so I can only assume that my legs take a break when I'm not consciously pushing them forward.
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