jumpingfish

1. Out

It was 41 degrees, not cold by Washington, D.C. standards for October but cold for a Texan. So although I was wearing running shorts, I also had a jacket, an ear band and gloves to keep my fingers warm.

This weekend, we were supposed to run eight. I had originally planned to run up Rock Creek where Trudy and I had ridden bikes last time we were here. But on Friday Amanda had plotted what seemed a better route that went south instead of north.

I crossed Rock Creek on the P Street bridge and took a sometimes-brick, sometimes dirt trail along the top of the bluff overlooking the creek and the parkway. I crossed Pennsylvania Avenue and ran to the mouth of the creek near Thompson Boat Center where the trail turns south along the Potomac.

I ran past the Watergate, past Kennedy Center, down the marble steps between the Lincoln Memorial and the river. I ran past the Tidal Basin, under the Arlington Memorial Bridge and followed Ohio Drive under the spaghetti of 14th Street and US-1 and Interstate-395. And I finally ran along the western edge of East Potomac Park under the Cherry Trees that will be blooming six months from now.

I ran almost to Hains Point — not quite, but almost, because time was ticking away and I needed to turn back.

2. And Back

On the return, I stopped at the Jefferson Memorial. Of all the times I have come to this town, I have never been here.

I ran up the steps and walked around throngs of tourists and sat inside on the marble benches along the circumference and gazed up at Thomas Jefferson standing under that white dome surrounded by those great ionic columns.

I am not an advocate for frequent changes in laws and constitutions, but laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind. As that becomes more developed, more enlightened, as new discoveries are made, new truths discovered and manners and opinions change, with the change of circumstances, institutions must advance also to keep pace with the times. 

And after sitting there, I was late.

Around the tourists. Back down the steps. Beside a long line of people in purple walking to end Alzheimer’s. Back up along the Potomac with the wind at my back. Texting Trudy on my progress, knowing that she might be wondering if I was going to finish in time to meet her and Karen for lunch.

@jeff memorial

@lin mem

@kennedy ctr

@watergate

@rock ck pk

@P and 23rd

And finally @home.

By Washington, D.C. standards, it might not have been cold that morning. And for a serious runner, those eight miles would have been nothing. But let me tell you, the steaming, hot shower felt mighty fine.

1. Jonnie

A woman walked away from gate 10. She held a leash, and a pudgy, white, puggish-bullish dog was walking trotting along happily with her. I looked over with at the woman standing next to me. She raised her eyebrows.

“I didn’t know you could do that,” she said. 

“They were at security when we went thru,” I said. “And the dog was loose, just walking around.”

The woman raised her eyebrows higher, and we began to chat about minor, miscellaneous things, the kind of treading-water conversation you have with someone standing next to you when you stand beside the designated stanchions waiting to board a Southwest Airlines flight. Then they began boarding numbers B-31 thru -60.

As we walked down the gangway, I noticed the woman’s shoes.

“Are you running?” I asked. This was the weekend of the Marine Corps Marathon, and we were flying to Washington, D.C.

She looked back at me and smiled. “Yes! Are you?”

“No,” I said, “but we’ll be there cheering. What will you be wearing? Anything we can keep a lookout for?”

“Pink pressure socks,” she said. “Up to my knees.”

“I’m David, what’s your name?”

“Jonnie,” she said.

“We’ll be looking for you, Jonnie. Good luck!”

2. Cass

I walked to the back of the plane hoping to find two seats together.

“May I sit here,” I asked a woman seated along the aisle in one of the rows near the back. I pointed to the two seats next to her.

She smiled, nodded and stood up.

“I’m going to try to save a seat for my wife who’s further back,” I confessed. The woman smiled as she sat back down.

You see, the fair and industrious Trudy had arranged every detail of this trip, including checking in ahead of time, but our boarding passes were not consecutive. She told me she checked me in first to get the better boarding number, but she warned me that I’d have to try to save a seat for her.

I watched nervously as passengers continued to walked towards the back of the plane. And then there before me was Trudy.

“It’s my wife!” I said to the woman, relieved that I didn’t have to tell anyone they couldn’t have that seat.

The woman got up. Trudy sat down. We buckled ourselves in and leaned back in the seats.

“I met a woman who is running on Sunday,” I said to Trudy.

The woman in the aisle seat heard this and leaned forward. “Are you two running Sunday?”

“No,” said Trudy. “We’re visiting a friend.”

“But we’ll be out there on Sunday cheering,” I added. “What will you be wearing? Anything we can keep a lookout for?”

She smiled and said, “Pink or chartreuse socks.”

“I’m Trudy.”

“And I’m David.”

“I’m Cass,” the woman said.

The plane passed 10,000 feet, and they told us we could turn on our electronic devices. I pulled out my laptop. Trudy read a book. And Cass turned the pages in a runner’s magazine. 

3. Postscript

On the morning of the marathon, Trudy made coffee and we walked down the hill to Rock Creek Park. We found the perfect spot along the route somewhere between mile 6 and 7. We watched the wheelchairs and then the first men and then the first women go by. We watched and cheered as the stream of runners grew to a pack. We watched them run up the hill, and we watched them as they ran down the other side of the street.

We cheered and clapped next to a stone wall near the bend in the creek with a perfect view of the runners coming around a corner and under an arching span of the P Street bridge and disappearing around another bed under an arching space of the Q Street bridge.

And although we cheered and clapped from the leaders until the 4:30 pace team passed us on their way up the hill, we never did spot Jonnie or Cass, which is of course no surprise. Still, we did see many pink and chartreuse socks.

It was supposed to be his responsibility to figure out the whats and how-muches of the appliances. He’d be living there, after all, so it seemed reasonable to assign the task to him. (We offered to underwrite it.) But the three-day weekend came and went. And the columbus day sales. So on the day the tenants left, there was no plan for appliances.

Washer and dryer, sure. But no fridge?

So up steps the fair and industrious Trudy. “I’ll leave work early,” she announces. “Where’s the measuring tape?”

My role in this enterprise was to fetch the measuring tape. And Trudy, as so often happens around this place, would handle the actual solving of the problem.

Later that morning, I call him and suggest that he should offer to go with. 

They greet me in the evening when I get home. They are laughing and tell me to listen to my voice mail. It seems that I had missed a report.

They had gone to the condo to take measurements. She had given him the tape measure and found him in the kitchen dutifully measuring height, width, depth. But it was a bit awkward, because you see the space was not empty. He had to reach around and reach back and reach over to get the numbers right. He had to reach around … wait for it … the refrigerator that the previous tenants had left. Indeed, they left all the appliances behind.

“Ben,” Trudy said. “Ben! You don’t need to measure it. We don’t need to buy a refrigerator. We don’t need to buy anything. Everything’s already here!”

In celebration, they went out for pizza and beer. 

My brother writes short notes.

• Too cool, he said when I wrote about Mauna Kea.
• Nerd alert, he said when I wrote about Landau and Curie.
• Bad ass! he exclaimed when I wrote about Trudy’s tumble on the trail.
• Yay! he wrote when I wrote about our running class and our first run in the drizzle.
• Good job, he said when I wrote about running time trials.
• And, Yes, he wrote just now, after I asked, “Do you hear him?“

I like these notes. And I really, really liked this one. Because my brother does hear these things … um … even if I really was posing the question to a certain someone else.

I need to go outside. It’s morning. It’s dark, and Mars should be rising in the east, a bright red dot above the horizon. Above Rigel.

I need to go outside. It’s early morning, and although it’s muggy and warm, the ground is soft from a light drizzle last night.

I need to go outside. It’s Saturday before dawn. The long run class starts at 7:00, and if I don’t leave in about 10 minutes, I’ll miss the throng when it gathers and stretches and looks at today’s route map and start off down the street.

So … I need to go.

Outside.