There are seven of us in Cyndie’s compact SUV. Carol and I are riding illegally in the cargo area, facing out the back window. There’s plenty of room and it kinda reminds me of riding around in my parents station wagon back in the 1970s when nobody wore seatbelts, baby seats with 5-point harnesses weren’t invented, and kids were more than welcome to ride in the bed of an open pickup truck…sitting on the wheelwell, chomping on an uncooked hotdog with the skin still on it. But, those were different days…and I digress….
Saturday was cold and windy — miserable running conditions. But Cyndie proposed a solution in a Friday afternoon email:
It’s going to be 36 degrees with a SW wind and a 50% chance of rain. Let’s meet at the dock, leave cars there and drive to Asbury Woods and run back. It’s 10 miles.
“Uh, are you sure this is ten miles, Cyndie, because we’ve been driving for a long time now,” Leann said. “Is this a trick or something?”
“I was just wondering the same thing,” I yelled up from the trunk cargo area.
“It’s 10 miles; I swear,” Cyndie yells back.
When we finally get to Asbury Woods, it’s spitting snow. Two miles into the run, it’s a flat-out flurrying. Big, fat, fluffy balls of snow are falling fast.
Most of us are bitching about it, but it is gorgeous. It’s the kind of snowfall movie producers try to recreate in California studios.
“No, just look,” Carol says. “Isn’t it just beautiful?”
“Yeah, it is….in November,” I quip.
At West 26th Street, we can barely see in front of us and by Peninsula Drive, the wind is whipping the bits of snow and ice into our faces. I give Dan the car keys and he goes out ahead, eager to pick up his pace. I know it’s hard for him to run this slow; he’s stayed with us long enough.
The snow continues to pelt us. Nobody is talking now.
“We’re the hell is that 6th Street turn?” Robin asks.
We make the turn and, with the winds at our back again, breathe a sigh of relief. A few blocks into Frontier, the snow is gone and the sun is coming out. Blue skies and puffy clouds abound.
“Man, Frontier gets EVERYTHING!” I joke about the residents in Erie’s swankiest neighborhood.
We run past mansions on the lake. We each have our favorites. There are some houses that are just stunning, but I could never live there. Such excess. Such a waste.
We’re running in the middle of the road as we round the corner near the bluffs that overlook the lake. We say hello to a man on the sidewalk with a small dog and a young boy who is still in his pajamas. The boy, about 5, begins to run on the sidewalk next to us. We laugh and encourage him.
His pajama pants are so big that he’s stepping on them. I worry he’s going to trip and fall. But, he doesn’t. He races us to the end of the block (he wins) and keeps going around the block. He doesn’t stop until we cross the road to turn onto another side street.
Before we go, Robin and I run over to high five his little navy-blue-ski-gloved hand. Ski gloves. In April.
“Way to go little man! You ran with the ladies this morning,” she says to him.
We leave him with breathing heavy, with a big grin on his face. As we turn, I look back to be sure his grandfather is near. The boy is already running back to him, laughing, his pajama bottoms filthy from being stepped on.
We let the wind push us all the way back.
It’s exactly 10 miles.
____________________________
About Just Write
“What ends up revealing itself when free writing is that everything has meaning. That is a magnificent gift of writing. If we write from a free heart-gut place, our souls start speaking.”
