I am grateful I can run.

The blinking cursor.  I haven't tried to write anything in ages.  Now I have a baby monitor of white noise humming in front of me.  Someone is moving.  Are they waking up?...no.  Babies are sleeping.

Here's the thing.  I love running trail.  And it makes me want to write.    Where it's like, this run, right now, under these trees, with this stifling humidity will be completely forgotten and only experienced now.  Of course, this is how almost all of the entire universe functions, but, still.  It makes me want to write to try and capture it for a few more moments. 

At the end of the street where ...No, I take that back.  It's not how the universe functions.  Those stars we see - they are the light rippling out from their original source, to be experienced again by us.  And anyone else who may be out there.  So, maybe writing about a run is like that.  If we can remember the stars, maybe it's okay to remember my runs.

At the end of the street where I live there are 72 acres of vacant land with a few miles of trail cut in that at least one of my neighbors mows regularly.  This is lovely.  Before he moved in someone less dedicated mowed them less frequently and all the shrubbery was really hard on the shins.  There's one stretch of trail that reminds me of Mike n Don's trail at Farmdale Reservoir in the Illinois River Valley.  (My heart still yearns for that Brigadoon-ish bit of God's country.  Such a special place.)  With pine trees all around and a blanket of pine needles on the ground, it feels sacred.  Not nearly as spectacular as Mike n Don's, but it has the same spirit, and no commute.  And on a hill where there has been some erosion and the red soil is so plain to see - I pretend it's not the red earth of South Carolina, but the red rock of Moab.  It makes me run faster.  Of course, in the summer, the creepy kudzu takes over a good bit of the trails down the hill.  They don't remind me of anything accept a horror film I would never watch, their long viney arms reaching, always trying to trip me up!  On the days I dare, that's when I practice my high stepping.