Funny Tree Crashes
Sometimes God hands you a funny moment, as if to say--laugh, God damn it!
So I am running this morning. I listen to power songs that make me run harder: Puddle of Mudd, Maroon 5.
The streets are laden with fog and even though it is midmorning, the lamps burn ghostly balls of hazy light overhead. The electricity is wasted, though, as the incandescent glow cannot penetrate the heavy clouds. My footsteps thudding on the asphalt in this gray world seem to echo straight into oblivion.
Fall hovers again, retaining its mild chill even as summer struggles to press down from above, leaving the air heavy and humid, oppressive. My legs feel cold as the air rushes around my pumping muscles, but still a trickle of sweat falls between my shoulder blades. My body can't decide which zone to address so it kicks back and ignores temperature-related impulses. I am half hot, half freezing.
About a mile into this particular path, I approach a lengthy steep hill. This grade, about 1/4 mile in length and inclined to the point that you run as if stair stepping, kicks my ass every day. Only once have I tackled it all the way from base to peak, and that was a month ago, before all this happened, before I became so heavy and tired all the time that even walking such a hill became more taxing than my body could manage.
But today it is cool, and although I have endured three difficult emotional days, I start trudging up, refusing to let my footsteps slow to a walk, but lift my knees with brutal drive.
Halfway up I think I might collapse in a heap, but a man--a fine-looking man--steps out of his van touting electrical services and leans against his bumper to watch. This is more than enough motivation for me and and although I feel ungainly, breathing ferociously and contorting my face in pain and determination, I keep going. He watches me as I pass and I feel his eyes on me even after, so I take on the entire hill until I reach the stop sign at the top and decide enough!
I want to laugh out loud that I have conquered the demon path again, but a quick glance proves he still is watching so I press on around a corner and out of his view. I hear a door slam and figure he's finally moved on with his job.
I take another turn and go down a silent street, old and unfashionable, with enormous trees overhanging like an evergreen arch. Leaves fall in leisurely paths from the molting branches and into piles on the street. I jump in a few but the fog and dew have rendered them wet masses, so the satisfying crunch is replaced by a soggy sucking sound.
I intend to pick up running again at the base of the hill, but just keep walking, listening to Etta James' song At Last and trying not to remember how I had downloaded that song in January, when Elias swore his wife would not return to the states, and our time had come. I keep walking even along the flat segment of my running path, unable to beat the heaviness that has descended once again, and trudge along the gutter by the curb.
The houses along this street are all worth half a million or more, large and imposing with enormous lawns. I duck around several groundskeeping service trailers, the drone of industrial mowers breaking the silence of the morning. The fog is burning off and the lamps extinguish one by one, almost in tandem with my arrival. A young Hispanic man pushes an oversized mower before him, muscles bulging from a red shirt with the sleeves torn out, a thatch of thick black hair ruffling restlessly from the jet of exhaust coming off the back of the machine. He smiles at me and we lock eyes. I return the smile, tipping my head in a shy flirt. He keeps watching me until the mower abruptly stops and he smashes into the handle. The mower crunches and splatters red petals as it careens over a short stone border, into a flower bed, and crashes into an oak tree.
I do not burst into giggles or in any way acknowledge the gaffe, just wave and walk on, not daring to turn around as two other lawn workers dash to the scene of the disaster. Only when I turn into my own yard, pass the carport and cross between the stone pillars to my entry way do I sit on the ground and howl with laugher.
So I am running this morning. I listen to power songs that make me run harder: Puddle of Mudd, Maroon 5.
The streets are laden with fog and even though it is midmorning, the lamps burn ghostly balls of hazy light overhead. The electricity is wasted, though, as the incandescent glow cannot penetrate the heavy clouds. My footsteps thudding on the asphalt in this gray world seem to echo straight into oblivion.
Fall hovers again, retaining its mild chill even as summer struggles to press down from above, leaving the air heavy and humid, oppressive. My legs feel cold as the air rushes around my pumping muscles, but still a trickle of sweat falls between my shoulder blades. My body can't decide which zone to address so it kicks back and ignores temperature-related impulses. I am half hot, half freezing.
About a mile into this particular path, I approach a lengthy steep hill. This grade, about 1/4 mile in length and inclined to the point that you run as if stair stepping, kicks my ass every day. Only once have I tackled it all the way from base to peak, and that was a month ago, before all this happened, before I became so heavy and tired all the time that even walking such a hill became more taxing than my body could manage.
But today it is cool, and although I have endured three difficult emotional days, I start trudging up, refusing to let my footsteps slow to a walk, but lift my knees with brutal drive.
Halfway up I think I might collapse in a heap, but a man--a fine-looking man--steps out of his van touting electrical services and leans against his bumper to watch. This is more than enough motivation for me and and although I feel ungainly, breathing ferociously and contorting my face in pain and determination, I keep going. He watches me as I pass and I feel his eyes on me even after, so I take on the entire hill until I reach the stop sign at the top and decide enough!
I want to laugh out loud that I have conquered the demon path again, but a quick glance proves he still is watching so I press on around a corner and out of his view. I hear a door slam and figure he's finally moved on with his job.
I take another turn and go down a silent street, old and unfashionable, with enormous trees overhanging like an evergreen arch. Leaves fall in leisurely paths from the molting branches and into piles on the street. I jump in a few but the fog and dew have rendered them wet masses, so the satisfying crunch is replaced by a soggy sucking sound.
I intend to pick up running again at the base of the hill, but just keep walking, listening to Etta James' song At Last and trying not to remember how I had downloaded that song in January, when Elias swore his wife would not return to the states, and our time had come. I keep walking even along the flat segment of my running path, unable to beat the heaviness that has descended once again, and trudge along the gutter by the curb.
The houses along this street are all worth half a million or more, large and imposing with enormous lawns. I duck around several groundskeeping service trailers, the drone of industrial mowers breaking the silence of the morning. The fog is burning off and the lamps extinguish one by one, almost in tandem with my arrival. A young Hispanic man pushes an oversized mower before him, muscles bulging from a red shirt with the sleeves torn out, a thatch of thick black hair ruffling restlessly from the jet of exhaust coming off the back of the machine. He smiles at me and we lock eyes. I return the smile, tipping my head in a shy flirt. He keeps watching me until the mower abruptly stops and he smashes into the handle. The mower crunches and splatters red petals as it careens over a short stone border, into a flower bed, and crashes into an oak tree.
I do not burst into giggles or in any way acknowledge the gaffe, just wave and walk on, not daring to turn around as two other lawn workers dash to the scene of the disaster. Only when I turn into my own yard, pass the carport and cross between the stone pillars to my entry way do I sit on the ground and howl with laugher.
posted by Helena | 7:35 AM
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