that's mrs. mediocrity to you

Timing is everything.

On Wednesday I went running. It was a hot day, not humid, not a cloud in the sky. Perfect. The trail was fairly empty, still lush and green and mostly covered in dappled shade. As I approached my second mile, I noticed a man on a bicycle coming towards me, still quite a distance away. At the same time, I saw a flash just in front of him, a bird’s wing as it cut across the path. At first I thought it was a robin, and then, no, too big. A crow?

Only it didn’t cut across, it turned, away from him, towards me. And in an instant. as it passed through a patch of sunlight, I saw that it was actually a hawk. My bird. And it was moving straight down the path, waist high, painting flight with broad strokes of its wings. It did not waiver, or veer, or act like it was lost. It kept on, headed right in my direction, glinting gold as it passed through patches of sunshine.

I kept running, although I was mesmerized. And it kept coming, straight for me. And then, when it was about fifteen feet away, it rose up over my head and continued on down the path. I couldn’t quite have reached out and touched it, but if my arms were five feet longer, I think I could have.

And here’s the thing: I had planned to go running much earlier that day, hours earlier, in fact. But things came up, I pushed my run back, minutes went by, then hours. And in the end, it all came down to seconds. Three seconds later, and I would have missed a sight that I will never forget.

A sight that is imprinted in my mind like the memory I have of my last dog, running towards me around the corner of our house, cantering like a horse, shiny black in tall green grass. He was happy in that moment, a big doggie smile on his face. His joy was evident. Two days later he was gone, suddenly and unexpectedly, and I have always wondered if I sensed what was to come, because I almost felt my mind snap a picture, recording that moment, him, just then, just there, in that spot. Forever.

And then there is the encounter I had with a bear while camping once, she on one side of the campfire, me on the other, the three men I was with, city boys, in the water. (Yes, I told them, as they ran for it, that bears will go in the water.) But they stayed where they were, and I stayed where we had all been just seconds before, by the fire. She looked at me, trying to focus through the smoke and the flames, wagging her big head back and forth. Our eyes met and she held my gaze for one brief second, and then turned and walked away.
I can see it still, in my mind.

And now, this giant, graceful hawk, flying straight down a path towards me. Golden wings glinting on and off through sun, then shade, and sun again. The white spotted belly that I followed as he vaulted up over my head.

I’m pretty sure he plucked a feather from my soul just at that moment, when I looked up and saw him silhouetted in the sun.

Because after that, for the rest of my run,

I flew.

one step at a time is the only way to get anywhere.

good shoes really do make a difference.

don’t sweat the small stuff, just sweat.

you don’t always need a destination
to get where you’re going.

you should say hello to everyone you meet.

there is no winning or losing, there is only doing.

things that are good for you really hurt sometimes.

there will always be someone who can run further
and faster than you, and that is okay.

running in circles can take you to amazing places.

being outdoors is vital, in every season.

whatever path you are on, make it the right one.

watch where you’re going, but don’t forget
to look up every now and then.

you can go farther than you ever thought possible.

you won’t melt if you get rained on.

your toughest competitor will always be you.

climbing hills might be rough, but
the view from the top is always worth it.

some days are better than others.

breathing is the most important thing in life.

blisters eventually become callouses.

when you think you can’t possibly go on,
you can always take one more step.

My garden is singing the thirsty blues. My pruners have been sitting out on the picnic table for a week. It hasn’t rained, so that’s okay, but really I should go out there and put them away. And the hummingbird feeder is broken. I meant to look for the old one and put it out for them, but I haven’t, yet. Poor thirsty hummingbirds. Perhaps today.

I started one book that did not grab me. I am five pages into another. Each time I start to read I fall asleep. I will have to try another, I want one that I can’t stop reading, so I can stay up late and pretend I’m fifteen. Man, it’s hot. Not hot in here with the air conditioning running and running and running, but man, it’s hot.

I don’t even feel like eating. Well, maybe just ice cream. A dip top. But you could never eat a dip top in this heat, you’d have to run back to your air-conditioned car, and even then it would probably be too late, chocolate would be dripping all the way to your elbow.
I might go get one anyway, eat it right at the counter while I wait for my change, so fast an ice headache rips through my forehead.

And I really should do all this laundry that is piling up on me.
But it’s too hot to fold clothes from the dryer. All my cats do is sleep, and I had crazy wild dreams last night. I hate sleeping in air conditioning, I feel like I can’t breathe, even with a small fan blowing air directly onto my face. And I can breathe, but still,
I wake up in the night feeling like I can’t, sweating even though
the room is cool. Like my body knows how hot it is out there.

I would love to get up and go outside and listen to the crickets, sit in one chair with my feet up on another, and blanket myself with cool night air. But I don’t, the mosquitoes would carry me away, and no one would be able to find me in the morning. Which could be kind of funny, I wonder where they would drop me off? Maybe the neighbor’s around the corner, when I got too heavy.

In the mornings I drink hot tea. I don’t care if it is too hot to drink hot tea, I drink it anyway. Today it will be 93º and I think I am going to go running. I love to run in the heat, there is nothing in the world as good as that kind of sweating, feeling my body release the things it has been holding onto, stress, impatience, tension.

All of that will be gone when I am done, and I will stand there,
glistening, while life drips off of me onto the ground.

And then I’m going to go and get that dip top.

Some things a girl just can’t do without.

When I run, I break everything into thirds. If I am planning to go six miles, I focus only on the first two. Once I have made it that far, I focus on the next two. I know that once I cover those, I will be two-thirds of the way to my destination, I will have already gone twice as far as I have left to go, and then the last two seem easy.

On days when I struggle, I split just the segment of path directly before me into thirds. If I make it to that first tree, then I can make it to the next one, and then the distance to the last tree will feel like nothing. I have covered more miles than I ever thought possible by breaking them into thirds.

And if my life ends up covering a fairly standard number of years,
I am now in my middle third.

The first third was a bit of a struggle, there was so much to learn, to figure out, so many mistakes to make that caused sore muscles, injuries, time waiting to repair. Sometimes I just wanted to stop. Sit down. Give up. I hadn’t learned discipline. Or tenacity. Or patience. I hadn’t settled in for the long haul.

I am past that phase now, and glad of it. I am warmed up, I have my stride, there is a rhythm to my days and I move along at an even pace most of the time. I am on the straightaway and can take time to gaze around me. I am no longer worried about whether I can make it. I’m moving close to the halfway point.

And as I move on, further down this path, this path we call life
that we live and breathe and burn through so quickly, I wonder if the last third will be the easiest one, not downhill because that hurts my knees worse than anything, but leisurely, graceful, steady. The one where I feel that I could go on forever.

Well, okay, maybe not quite forever.

But at least just to that next tree.