January 20, 2013: Wind and Stars

It’s finally cold.

I set out for my beloved Sunday morning run extra early today, delayed only by sleepiness and the time-consuming layering of socks, tights, pants, shirt, vest, jacket and mittens.

You can’t imagine the place we live. An hour-long run could go be described like this: beautiful old mansion, beautiful old mansion, Lake Michigan, university, beautiful old mansion, lighthouse. Except that this morning it was windy- windy, cold, and full of stars. In this girl’s heart, “windy, cold, and full of stars” is it.

I ran toward Lake Michigan, where I found myself parallel to and nearly in sync with a big golden dog scampering loose ahead of another runner. They traced the gravel outer path and I the inside. As our paths neared a point, the man shouted to his dog, “Get over here!” He was tall and dressed in heavy running pants and a red jacket. His face was covered by a scarf or ski mask, I couldn’t tell. Made breathless by wind and pace, I called out a quiet, “Good morning.”

“Good morning!” he said, his foot-falls clomping heavy and close. “We’re the only two people out here.”

“Yeah,” I replied. And without hesitation, I added, “It’s nice.”

He laughed. At least, I think he laughed: it was hard to tell from below my stocking-cap, and from under his scarf. We ran side by side, then he turned east as I continued north.

As the loud rhythm of his steps faded, my thoughts turned in. Take away the running. If I were to encounter a stranger who said that, and in the near-dark beside Lake Michigan’s icy waves, my eyes would flare, my heart fire, my feet race me away. Yet to rebuild the scene, to add in a lion of a dog, a mess of clashing, wicking, woolly running gear, my quick smile and his frank observation, it’s fine. It’s nice, even. It’s transformed from the frightening echo of warning I imagine myself running from to an unexpected affirmation, a welcome into a brief running partnership based on hardiness and craziness and all-out love of THIS, winter.