jumpingfish

The marching band was practicing as we ran by. The director was running them thru their routine over and over again, sometimes just playing the music, sometimes playing while marching.

On the other side of the high school, a team from Austin Fit was jogging around the track and doing core exercises on the far turn. When they saw us congregate, they moved their jogging to the outer lanes.

“Today we do 3200m time trials!” Jen told us with a gleam in her eye. “Run the first 1600 meters just below comfortably hard,” she said. “Then run the next 800 just beyond comfortably hard.” And that brought us to the last two laps. “And do that last 800 meters uncomfortably hard, and finish stooping over trying to catch your breath.” 

Ok, I’m dubious. I’m not good at pushing beyond comfort. Still, this will probably be good for me, I’m thinking, trying unsuccessfully to convince myself. I have a hard time imagining that the end of 3200 meters will ever arrive. I’m picturing some kind of singularity, and I’m starting to psych myself out.

“On those last two laps, you’ll be hurting, but you can tell yourself, I can do anything for 800 meters.”

Um… no. I can pretty much guarantee that on the last two laps I won’t be telling myself that. But there’s no time to wallow in this kind of thinking, because in moments we’re all standing at the starting line. Go!

So we run. We run hard.

That fact that Greg passes me twice and the Level 2 runners also lap me doesn’t diminish from how hard I run. I’m not stooped over, but it takes a walk down and up the straightaway before rational though returns. And amazingly enough … here we are on the other side of that singularity.

As we jog back, my brain falls into some kind of reverie, some kind of la-la-land that I don’t come out of until after I pull into the driveway and clamber thru the front door and drop my stuff at the foot of our bed.

And now I lie here in the pitch black of past-midnight four hours later. The reverie is gone, but sleep won’t come. 

Is this what Tuesday nights are going to be like?

After the week’s long run which frankly was not that long.

Sitting on the floor. On a pad. Sweating. Stretching. Rolling out a sore rectus femoris. Other Rogue runners all around sitting and sweating and stretching and rolling and talking.

They’re all talking. I’m not. I’m in this post-run euphoric zone, happy to just sit and sweat and stretch and roll.

Somewhere to my right two guys are chatting about their training. One is on the floor; the other is standing. They haven’t seen each other in a while, and they’re talking about what’s been going on.

“I had a great run today,” one of them says. “I haven’t run 20 for at least four months.”

I remember a time long ago when 20 was a great run. When seven seemed like a day off. When my body was a machine, albeit a middle-pack machine. I remember that, but that’s not me now. Back of the pack Joe, I am. And quite content to be there.

Because silently sitting on a pad, sweating and stretching and rolling out sore quads is entirely sufficient.

“Shi*!”

I turned around. The guy next to me had pulled his phone out of his dufflebag and was staring at it with a frown.

“That can’t be good,” I said.

He looked at me and shook his head and put his phone back into the dufflebag which he put into his locker.

“No,” he said. “Nothing good ever comes from reading your email on the weekends.”

The listing said that the unit was empty. And the original asking price was very interesting, although later in the day price bumped up. Still, we were curious, so we went to take a look.

Unit 4 was at the end of the complex in the dark shade of some Live Oak trees. It was hard to see the number at night. When we did find it, there was no key in the lockbox.

Alex knocked on the door, but no one answered. He locked louder, and still nothing. So he turned the door knob, and the door opened. He’s a real estate agent, and he figured someone else was looking at the unit, too. So he stuck his head in slightly.

“Hello?” No answer.

“HELLO?” Still nothing.

So he slowly walked in. “Hello, hello! Is anyone here?” No one answered. So we went in and looked around.

It was a small place. One bedroom. One bathroom. A small kitchen. A tiny dining area where you might be able to fit a minuscule table and four chairs.

The floor was tiled. (No carpet is always a bonus, although this tile work was a bit odd.) And there was virtually no furniture or anything else. The listing said that the unit was empty, after all — yet it wasn’t. The lights were on, and there was clearly someone staying there: a small bed with a computer on it, four or five hangers with clothes in the bedroom closet, a few things in the living room. And a dog.

Let’s call her Madeline.

There in the middle of the tiny dining room, little Madeline stood quietly looking up at us. She was old, standing on thin, wobbly legs, her muzzle gray. She was clearly as confused as we were, and although her tail was tucked, she walked up slowly to greet us. Her eyes shined.

There she was, a small, old, fragile dog in this small, mostly empty condominium all by herself with no one home. There was a pad on the floor in a corner of the bedroom that was clearly for her, and there was some dog food and water in the kitchen. But otherwise she was alone in this place with the lights on, a computer on the bed, a few clothes in the closet, and with the front door unlocked.

“This is odd,” Alex said. 

I picked Madeline up so that she wouldn’t feel spooked by us walking around. She didn’t complain. By this time, another real estate agent had arrived and was looking around, too. Madeline watched the others from my arms. I whispered that we were ok, that it was ok, that there was nothing to worry about. She leaned against my chest.

On the way back to the car, we passed an old woman in a white robe coming back slowly from the swimming pool. We turned and watched her walk into Unit 4.

I wonder what Madeline said.

1. A Spider

There was a spider on the leaf. A tiny green one with huge green claw-like front legs. It sat motionless on a leaf as we watched. It sat motionless even as we approached. I pointed at it, but it did not move until I crossed some threshold just millimeters away from that tiny thing. With my finger descending out of the sky above its head with only a short air gap between us, the spider decided that it had had enough, and it dashed to the other side of the leaf.

2. A Bee 

There was a honey bee flying among the blossoms. They were long, orange-red, trumpet-shaped blossoms, and there were many of them around the spot where I stood watching. The bee would land on one flower and crawl to the open bell on the end, often causing the trumpet to flip one way or the other, yet the bee would hang on during that flip and peer into the blossom’s end. And after only a moment, it would fly directly to the next nearby blossom.

3. Another Bee

There was a bigger bee guarding that plant. It was a solitary bee that I know from the yard. It’s a territorial thing, sometimes chasing off Guinness when he barks at it, sometimes chasing off other bugs that come to close. But the honey bees didn’t bother it. It flew from blossom to blossom, hovering in the air beside each one much in the way of a Humming Bird. 

4. Wanting More

Although the heat had been brutal for several months, there has always been something blooming out here, and there are many places for spiders and bees and beetles and flee-flies to call home. Sometimes in the slanting light of late day, if we are sitting in just the right place at just the right time, we can see silken threads blowing in the breeze or gnatty things buzzing above the bushes. And there are sometimes spiderwebs in the branches. And the Solitary Bees do sometimes climb into and out of the solitary bee hotel. But there should be more of them about. More silken threads. More beetles in the leaves. More bees on the flowers. Even though this is a good home for those who come, there are just not enough of them about.