This morning the sun took its time soaking into the park. By the time I'd made one round it still hadn't penetrated or done much good. Not like the sun with a canopy of clouds to shine through or a little mist to catch it, spread it, bring a glow to the grass and trees. No crystals, droplets, vapors, fogs, to invite the sun.
By the time I got around to the third side the sun still struggled to slant its rays down to the grass, pale green with hoar frost. I looked for the slanty tree today but I only saw a stretching of moist, mown lawn. It was gone. The scrawny, short, tree that never grew up but bent north like the post on a sundial, served as a disc golf target for me and my older son for so many years. It had a gnarled root, round like an elephant's foot that we would aim for. Or you could throw at the trunk itself, it didn't matter. The slanty tree, always inviting, didn't mind. It stood apart from the other, larger, more rooted trees, a perfect target because it bordered the open ground. Park people tended to stay up on the uplifted edge of the green, near the trees, so discs sailing the slanty tree didn't endanger them. It wobbled there proudly, out on its own, its few branches coming off its top like sticks balanced on a crooked finger. Few leaves, really. Its glory was its inviting, bulbous root, touched by round golf discs that bounced near it, tapped it and lay there like orbs around its base. We would walk up, pick up our discs, give the trunk a tap (if you didn't actually nail it on your putt), and step away, looking long to the east across "the harmonica", the next challenge, a real disc eater.
Now, a target, landmark, exemplar of stubborn non-growth for so long, the tree must have caught its last attention: the tree guys. Hey fellas, over here! Trimmers, thinners, loppers, choppers, hackers, wackers. Recently I'd seen it, still there, and wondered when its time would come. It came.
I walked out to the spot, easy to find if I didn't look for it but aimed by the trees and sky. It called to me. They left a 2 or so foot wide, irregular patch of dirt, a few chunks of bark skattered around, not even a stump. I guess the stump came up pretty easily; it never looked like it had much in the way of roots. Now the circles where the mowers spun around it for years, rings of grass dents, still marked it, dark in the center, a bulls eye to the very last. It didn't have a trunk, really, more like a big stick poked into the ground, a pin that the south wind, weakest of all around here, could set north.
It never amounted to much. No taller than 10 or so feet. I picked up a piece of the bark, about six inches long, with a curve that looked like the curve of the trunk. Now it's sitting on my desk and I'll toss it into some junk box. It will invite a memory or two over the years. I'll tell John about it. He'll know what we're missing.
Friday, October 30, 2009
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
Light
Today the sun lit the filmy morning clouds. The air had a soft, bright glow. The wind at my back as I started on the gravel. It's close to Halloween and today I jogged with ghosts. All the ones that came back to inhabit my imagination again. A man running, posessed in the ghostly glow.
The light will last about a half an hour, before the clouds drain of their pink. The air warms and shrinks and shadows darken as the sun climbs over the trees. Cars, bikes, busses. But before that, in the quiet of the morning, I run through this glowing light. Painters like a light like this, and I think this light brought so many of them to southern France. There you find light you don't find elsewhere, and it made its way into painting after painting.
I've tried making this kind of light in my yard by tacking up white plastic along the dark fence. I keep hoping it will help my garden. It does make you want to dance or spin around in the back yard. The park grass likes the glow and shines a brilliant green. I pass a woman in a red jacket with the hood up, small and steady in her gait. I've never seen her before. Later, walking, she passed me, same gait, eyes forward.
The glow has faded, but the sun hasn't come all the way up. This time a month ago I had it in the face by now, especially on the east-bound laps. By winter I'll face the dawn at this hour.
The light will last about a half an hour, before the clouds drain of their pink. The air warms and shrinks and shadows darken as the sun climbs over the trees. Cars, bikes, busses. But before that, in the quiet of the morning, I run through this glowing light. Painters like a light like this, and I think this light brought so many of them to southern France. There you find light you don't find elsewhere, and it made its way into painting after painting.
I've tried making this kind of light in my yard by tacking up white plastic along the dark fence. I keep hoping it will help my garden. It does make you want to dance or spin around in the back yard. The park grass likes the glow and shines a brilliant green. I pass a woman in a red jacket with the hood up, small and steady in her gait. I've never seen her before. Later, walking, she passed me, same gait, eyes forward.
The glow has faded, but the sun hasn't come all the way up. This time a month ago I had it in the face by now, especially on the east-bound laps. By winter I'll face the dawn at this hour.
Monday, October 26, 2009
Wrecks
Today I saw a sleeper on the west side of the park. A red bundle in the front seat of a grey pickup. Park and snooze. On my walk lap from the other side I watched the sleeper start up, eyes open, lights on, back up and head out the way it must have came in. West to who knows where. This is the parking, isolated part of the park. Lovers meeting, lunches dropped out the window, the occasional condom or tampon, one dropped out before the other after, I suppose.
You see a lot of cars and trucks at the park. Joggers and dog walkers parked, waiters, phone talkers now. Usually people park and walk to the university. They park and love, visit, eat. Then there are people who wreck and park, walk away with wounds. Wrecks usually happen at two places: the concrete overburden slab over the culverts where streets dead-end at the jogging track. Here street ends and park starts. If you don't stop you're in the park before you know it. But not before a barrier-non-barrier lets you know. A bridge for joggers like me; a front end masher for cars and truck drivers not quite paying enough attention. Not from here.
Most happen at night, as you would imagine, next day only marks, white chips, paint scrapings, yellow and white glass: evidence in the concrete. It gets you right at about the middle of your front tire, bottom of your bumper, about where the steering rods attach, if you're not in the air by then. Today I loped over about a 4-inch tire scrape across the concrete. Just as deep and dark and scarry as you could imagine. Looked like a car, the concrete edge chipped away clean and white where it smacked. and then the ground the park torn, ripped up, dug into about 30 feet in the grass. The car gone now but its evidence left there, a chunk of grass pulled up and dropped that has taken, now, a week or so to wash away. Probably when you think about the trauma of that person's jolt, that whack into the park, the sudden running out of street, it will take a lot longer for that memory to wash away than it will what happened when this wheel and bumper and undercarriage dragged across the concrete. It will be gone in a few months.
I remember another wreck a few years ago on the other side, the southbound on Hanover. I saw the truck parkedn on the opposite side of the street, one tire missing, just the rim there and it scraped and muddy from rolling and digging. I backtracked the scrape across the street, to where it hit and had been driven out of the park, back across the road, limping, parked across the street and left in the cold, wee hours. Let's come back later. Okay. The big pickup painted in camoflage, stood out on the street. It had hit the concrete non-barrier barrier, flown I think, because you could see other dark tire marks a good 15 feet in where it landed. They must have been really flying. until they flew. And then down into the park along the drainage sluice, one tire still uselessly braking. Then a lot of churning up, a lot of muddy turning, backing, up a lot of indecision, eyes straining, tires spinning, trembling hands, of let's get out of here, of holy shit stuff going on in there, and then finally, they could limp out, the truck finaly bouncing and slamming off the curb back on the street, its off road adventure at an end across the street parked and then off on foot, picked up, who knows. Come back and get it the next day.
This on a Sunday morning. I enjoyed reconstructing the event. I thought to call the city, but figured it would get called soon enough. The sleeper today had parked carefully, out of the traffic, and left quitetly, having to turn twice to check out of the park motel.
You see a lot of cars and trucks at the park. Joggers and dog walkers parked, waiters, phone talkers now. Usually people park and walk to the university. They park and love, visit, eat. Then there are people who wreck and park, walk away with wounds. Wrecks usually happen at two places: the concrete overburden slab over the culverts where streets dead-end at the jogging track. Here street ends and park starts. If you don't stop you're in the park before you know it. But not before a barrier-non-barrier lets you know. A bridge for joggers like me; a front end masher for cars and truck drivers not quite paying enough attention. Not from here.
Most happen at night, as you would imagine, next day only marks, white chips, paint scrapings, yellow and white glass: evidence in the concrete. It gets you right at about the middle of your front tire, bottom of your bumper, about where the steering rods attach, if you're not in the air by then. Today I loped over about a 4-inch tire scrape across the concrete. Just as deep and dark and scarry as you could imagine. Looked like a car, the concrete edge chipped away clean and white where it smacked. and then the ground the park torn, ripped up, dug into about 30 feet in the grass. The car gone now but its evidence left there, a chunk of grass pulled up and dropped that has taken, now, a week or so to wash away. Probably when you think about the trauma of that person's jolt, that whack into the park, the sudden running out of street, it will take a lot longer for that memory to wash away than it will what happened when this wheel and bumper and undercarriage dragged across the concrete. It will be gone in a few months.
I remember another wreck a few years ago on the other side, the southbound on Hanover. I saw the truck parkedn on the opposite side of the street, one tire missing, just the rim there and it scraped and muddy from rolling and digging. I backtracked the scrape across the street, to where it hit and had been driven out of the park, back across the road, limping, parked across the street and left in the cold, wee hours. Let's come back later. Okay. The big pickup painted in camoflage, stood out on the street. It had hit the concrete non-barrier barrier, flown I think, because you could see other dark tire marks a good 15 feet in where it landed. They must have been really flying. until they flew. And then down into the park along the drainage sluice, one tire still uselessly braking. Then a lot of churning up, a lot of muddy turning, backing, up a lot of indecision, eyes straining, tires spinning, trembling hands, of let's get out of here, of holy shit stuff going on in there, and then finally, they could limp out, the truck finaly bouncing and slamming off the curb back on the street, its off road adventure at an end across the street parked and then off on foot, picked up, who knows. Come back and get it the next day.
This on a Sunday morning. I enjoyed reconstructing the event. I thought to call the city, but figured it would get called soon enough. The sleeper today had parked carefully, out of the traffic, and left quitetly, having to turn twice to check out of the park motel.
Saturday, October 24, 2009
First Geese
Today a rose-colored blush floated in the west under the pale blue, cloudless morning sky as I started along the north track. Out in the center, to the west side of the green swale gathered a flock of Canadian geese, about 20 of them, the first of the season.
I had heard them before I saw them. If you live in West Texas you learn to identify the calls, like the squeak of a gate hinge in the sky. From near and far you can hear their honking, random and raucous, something they can never get as organized as their flying. Sounds never in synch. This morning, on the way to the park along the north sidewalk of the street, I heard, through the trees to the southeast, the calls, close and loud and so unmistakable that I could turn in the direction and wait. Then they burst over the dark leaves of the trees, right over head, then turning west. I turned with them happily and watched them reorganize their V, disturbed by the turn, and make for the park.
I got there after they did and saw them again as I strode the north leg of the track, losely gathered, pecking, indistinct against the grass. They must have seen the open park and took it as a breather, not a real stop. Maybe some bugs; no water.
I didn't see them very well, tending to watch the track come at me. Focused. I hit a stride today. Legs, arms, breathing, head all working together at a constant, sustainable rate. The feeling of riding my body rather than being inside pushing it. I relaxed, and let it carry me.
The geese must hit a stride too, wings, neck, breathing, feet dragging in the wind. Eyes front, the wind hissing rythmically along the ears. And for the geese, the locking of stride to stride, a little off the wing of the one in front, catching puffs of air and pushing them along to the next in the V, or in the case of the last, letting the last of the used clump of air expand and equalize and drift off, no longer goose compressed.
I feel this stride, a little of it, this morning, quiet puffs of gravel and dust sounding from my shoes. Leader and last in my V. The geese didn't look winded: a sign, I think of a real stride, that it's almost stopping or resting. It allows a stop and an effortless restart.
And so they left the green for some dark wet water they imagined just ahead. Honking, wings digging in, they lifted off as I turned away from the track this morning. The air had lightened and the western rose drained into the higher sky blue, darkening it as the sun touched my shoulders.
I had heard them before I saw them. If you live in West Texas you learn to identify the calls, like the squeak of a gate hinge in the sky. From near and far you can hear their honking, random and raucous, something they can never get as organized as their flying. Sounds never in synch. This morning, on the way to the park along the north sidewalk of the street, I heard, through the trees to the southeast, the calls, close and loud and so unmistakable that I could turn in the direction and wait. Then they burst over the dark leaves of the trees, right over head, then turning west. I turned with them happily and watched them reorganize their V, disturbed by the turn, and make for the park.
I got there after they did and saw them again as I strode the north leg of the track, losely gathered, pecking, indistinct against the grass. They must have seen the open park and took it as a breather, not a real stop. Maybe some bugs; no water.
I didn't see them very well, tending to watch the track come at me. Focused. I hit a stride today. Legs, arms, breathing, head all working together at a constant, sustainable rate. The feeling of riding my body rather than being inside pushing it. I relaxed, and let it carry me.
The geese must hit a stride too, wings, neck, breathing, feet dragging in the wind. Eyes front, the wind hissing rythmically along the ears. And for the geese, the locking of stride to stride, a little off the wing of the one in front, catching puffs of air and pushing them along to the next in the V, or in the case of the last, letting the last of the used clump of air expand and equalize and drift off, no longer goose compressed.
I feel this stride, a little of it, this morning, quiet puffs of gravel and dust sounding from my shoes. Leader and last in my V. The geese didn't look winded: a sign, I think of a real stride, that it's almost stopping or resting. It allows a stop and an effortless restart.
And so they left the green for some dark wet water they imagined just ahead. Honking, wings digging in, they lifted off as I turned away from the track this morning. The air had lightened and the western rose drained into the higher sky blue, darkening it as the sun touched my shoulders.
Friday, October 23, 2009
Park Rules
Today a long fibrous cloud trailed aslant across the western sky like a piece of pink cotton candy. It watched me cross in the early morning light using my new rule of avoiding intersections. When I can see lights on cars, I make myself walk twenty or so feet from the intersection. Then I cross, always, always facing the oncoming lights. No guarantees, though. The face can only face in one direction at a time. The ears have to make up for the other two hundred or so degrees.
The twenty-foot rule is a month or so old. Other rules took years to establish and, through obedience, have lasted. First-foot rule: start running as soon as the first foot hits gravel. The crunch triggers the run. This rule governs stopping too: only stop when the foot hits gravel again on the other side of a concrete drainage culvert (the track has four of these, plus four sidewalk access slabs). These slabs and culverts mark sections for stopping and starting.
And so on. Never walk past anyone; always jog past. Never jog or walk clockwise. It's always: west, south, east, north. Some go counter to this, and I always give them a nod when first passing, then I can ignore them. I follow them as a kind of ownership of my trips, running and walking the pea gravel. My park, my jog, my rules.
Of course, the park has its own rules. No bikes on the track. This gets disobeyed regularly because kids can't resist hoping up on the track on their way somewhere else. The park does not attract kids: no climbing structures, padded surface, swings, tables and benches for parents and sitters, no pavilions, courts, or diamonds. Just a broad stretch of open green that attracts adults: owners, fliers, throwers, watchers, sun bathers. Nothing of bright plastic or metal to attract young eyes and muscles.
Two redwood poster boards display the park rules. No alcohol, no weapons, no driving, no bikes and so on. No golfing: a rule that gets broken often by young men who just can't resist the broad, open parade ground in the middle, it's look all that of a course, only lacking a dab of smooth manicured green on the far end with it's irresistable little black cup. Scofflaws, they get out there to drive and pitch. Crossing the open, I frequently find lost balls. I golf out there, but with disks, and not any more. My shoulder gave out from too much whipping around. The driving, aiming for trash cans and tree trunks did it in. I miss catching the southwest wind, so dependable and uplifting.
Besides it says, "No golfing" on the rule board. Well, on one of the boards. The other one is partially covered up by a piece of cardboard duct-taped on. It reads: "Found (underlined) Two brown and white puppies (puppies underlined)." And a phone number. The signage covers the lower 6 or so rules. Next to it there's a car key somebody found and left on the redwood ledge. All three waiting for their owner to wander over to the sign, looking for a rule to follow, and finding. "Hey. Look honey! Here's our puppies!!" Or, "Here's my key. Dang, now I have two of them."
The twenty-foot rule is a month or so old. Other rules took years to establish and, through obedience, have lasted. First-foot rule: start running as soon as the first foot hits gravel. The crunch triggers the run. This rule governs stopping too: only stop when the foot hits gravel again on the other side of a concrete drainage culvert (the track has four of these, plus four sidewalk access slabs). These slabs and culverts mark sections for stopping and starting.
And so on. Never walk past anyone; always jog past. Never jog or walk clockwise. It's always: west, south, east, north. Some go counter to this, and I always give them a nod when first passing, then I can ignore them. I follow them as a kind of ownership of my trips, running and walking the pea gravel. My park, my jog, my rules.
Of course, the park has its own rules. No bikes on the track. This gets disobeyed regularly because kids can't resist hoping up on the track on their way somewhere else. The park does not attract kids: no climbing structures, padded surface, swings, tables and benches for parents and sitters, no pavilions, courts, or diamonds. Just a broad stretch of open green that attracts adults: owners, fliers, throwers, watchers, sun bathers. Nothing of bright plastic or metal to attract young eyes and muscles.
Two redwood poster boards display the park rules. No alcohol, no weapons, no driving, no bikes and so on. No golfing: a rule that gets broken often by young men who just can't resist the broad, open parade ground in the middle, it's look all that of a course, only lacking a dab of smooth manicured green on the far end with it's irresistable little black cup. Scofflaws, they get out there to drive and pitch. Crossing the open, I frequently find lost balls. I golf out there, but with disks, and not any more. My shoulder gave out from too much whipping around. The driving, aiming for trash cans and tree trunks did it in. I miss catching the southwest wind, so dependable and uplifting.
Besides it says, "No golfing" on the rule board. Well, on one of the boards. The other one is partially covered up by a piece of cardboard duct-taped on. It reads: "Found (underlined) Two brown and white puppies (puppies underlined)." And a phone number. The signage covers the lower 6 or so rules. Next to it there's a car key somebody found and left on the redwood ledge. All three waiting for their owner to wander over to the sign, looking for a rule to follow, and finding. "Hey. Look honey! Here's our puppies!!" Or, "Here's my key. Dang, now I have two of them."
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
Happy Birthday Park
Today rain filled the track. It dripped from the trees and filled the concrete strip of curb. I dropped in and out of the track, avoiding the mud and the flying gravel. This dark October day the park gets ready for its birthday by taking a drizzle bath.
On the 28th of this month all the old friends of the park will come back. The tall cowboy, walking, at last, for his health, and his encouraging but sullen daughter will come back. His boots dusty and wobbly on the track. The tilt-head runner, lover of asphalt, will pass me yet again. My best friend, who looked bigger than I had thought from behind, will be there, smiling as I pass him. He didn't jog regularly and stayed big. The brown lost dog who growled and snarled at me, and his timid friend will come back. He will grin like a dog and NOT BITE! All the stray, lost dogs will come back with happy wishes.
The moms will all come back, jogging off their pregnancy pounds with their babies in their three-wheelers. The mowers will gather, the sprayers, the waterers, the trenchers, the smoothers, the trimmers under the soaring hawks, their offspring back to the nests. They will shriek and dart into the tall trees.
The saggy drug dealer and his mis-matched, college student clients out in the middle of the park, a cloud of blue candle smoke hovering over them, will pass cake and ice cream and smile broadly. Lost Dog Woman and Lost Dog Driver will tear off their anxious masks as their dog shows up, playing with his friends, ears flopping, reunited at last. The fashion show woman, tall and graceful, will stride and pivot on the concrete drainage slab that justs out into the park. Her imaginary admirers along the runway will clap and flash bright camera lights.
The woman I bonked on the head with the golf disk will come back and forgive me. All the disk and frisbe throwers and catchers will fill the broad green to sing the song. My old friend now in New York will come back and jog with me, stride by stride, and we will open a present under the elm tree. All the walkers will come back, the gardeners, sun bathers, kite flyers will come back. My daughter, running with me, and my son, loping ahead of me. They will come back.
On the 28th of this month all the old friends of the park will come back. The tall cowboy, walking, at last, for his health, and his encouraging but sullen daughter will come back. His boots dusty and wobbly on the track. The tilt-head runner, lover of asphalt, will pass me yet again. My best friend, who looked bigger than I had thought from behind, will be there, smiling as I pass him. He didn't jog regularly and stayed big. The brown lost dog who growled and snarled at me, and his timid friend will come back. He will grin like a dog and NOT BITE! All the stray, lost dogs will come back with happy wishes.
The moms will all come back, jogging off their pregnancy pounds with their babies in their three-wheelers. The mowers will gather, the sprayers, the waterers, the trenchers, the smoothers, the trimmers under the soaring hawks, their offspring back to the nests. They will shriek and dart into the tall trees.
The saggy drug dealer and his mis-matched, college student clients out in the middle of the park, a cloud of blue candle smoke hovering over them, will pass cake and ice cream and smile broadly. Lost Dog Woman and Lost Dog Driver will tear off their anxious masks as their dog shows up, playing with his friends, ears flopping, reunited at last. The fashion show woman, tall and graceful, will stride and pivot on the concrete drainage slab that justs out into the park. Her imaginary admirers along the runway will clap and flash bright camera lights.
The woman I bonked on the head with the golf disk will come back and forgive me. All the disk and frisbe throwers and catchers will fill the broad green to sing the song. My old friend now in New York will come back and jog with me, stride by stride, and we will open a present under the elm tree. All the walkers will come back, the gardeners, sun bathers, kite flyers will come back. My daughter, running with me, and my son, loping ahead of me. They will come back.
Monday, October 19, 2009
Two Ladies
Often I see two people walking or jogging together. These two ladies make quite a pair. One of them has a butt so big it takes over her T-shirt tail. It bunches up over her and creases at the waist. Her shirt makes a jostling white laundry load as she walks. Her friend does the power walk, arms up, elbows working, heals and toes. Her butt says determination. They talk incessantly and wave their hands around. Laundry Load talks more and isn't really listening to her radio.
I leave the path when I pass them. Like other couples, I don't see their faces, just their rears. Sometimes they go single file when they hear you behind them. I have a little kick in the dirt that signals my approach, if I use it. This day I didn't with this pair. I hop off the track and feel the solid, black pavement under my shoes while I overtake. This zone belongs, in my memory, to the outside jogger. A silent, radio-free tall man in his 50s easily whom I used to see. He never jogged in the track. Always outside it on the pavement. He tilted his head as he went and never looked up. I tried it, thinking he did it to over come the hammer of the pavement on his feet. Like a wince.
I guess people have things they do for pain. I used to feel it more in the afternoons in the hot sun at about the second turn. Real desparation all over your body as you trudge and hope for a second wind. Breathing can help. I take a really deep, two-stride long one and my oxygen levels fill back up. It pulls me in. The body has ways of adjusting. I tried the head tilt too and it worked. When I hop into the outside jogger path I do the head tilt for this fellow.
This day there's only one lady, Bunchy Shirt lady. "Where's your friend," I wonder. But I don't ask, of course. There's nobody there where her friend was. She has her radio plugged in and listens now. I stay in the path, to her left, as I pass. For just an instant I'm in her friend spot. Then I'm gone and she can watch me head off. She was singing along to the radio.
I leave the path when I pass them. Like other couples, I don't see their faces, just their rears. Sometimes they go single file when they hear you behind them. I have a little kick in the dirt that signals my approach, if I use it. This day I didn't with this pair. I hop off the track and feel the solid, black pavement under my shoes while I overtake. This zone belongs, in my memory, to the outside jogger. A silent, radio-free tall man in his 50s easily whom I used to see. He never jogged in the track. Always outside it on the pavement. He tilted his head as he went and never looked up. I tried it, thinking he did it to over come the hammer of the pavement on his feet. Like a wince.
I guess people have things they do for pain. I used to feel it more in the afternoons in the hot sun at about the second turn. Real desparation all over your body as you trudge and hope for a second wind. Breathing can help. I take a really deep, two-stride long one and my oxygen levels fill back up. It pulls me in. The body has ways of adjusting. I tried the head tilt too and it worked. When I hop into the outside jogger path I do the head tilt for this fellow.
This day there's only one lady, Bunchy Shirt lady. "Where's your friend," I wonder. But I don't ask, of course. There's nobody there where her friend was. She has her radio plugged in and listens now. I stay in the path, to her left, as I pass. For just an instant I'm in her friend spot. Then I'm gone and she can watch me head off. She was singing along to the radio.
Sunday, October 18, 2009
Dogs
On Sunday, today, I only saw two dogs. The more behaved one first chased a squirrel over the grass but then sat still while it got its leash put on or maybe back on. The next dog, a white wolf hound, had just rounded the courner. The owner obeyed the leash law in force in the park, and re-connected her dog. Not that the second dog didn't behave, but the first one amazed me by sitting still, ears up, while it got re-leashed. Some dog.
Dogs do get special attention at the park. They put up a sign above the doggie bag dispenser that pretends to talk in dog language to dogs. The sign encourages you to pick up after your dog. And most people do. You see them with their dogs and doggie bags of poop. When they don't and the dogs crap in the middle of the track I usually will stop and kick it over with gravel and dust and then kick it into the street. Eventually dog crap disappears. Maybe another dog comes along and eats it. I don't know.
Parts of the trail show dogs prints more clearly than other parts. Where the water puddles on the track you find dog prints that can last for days, or before the next rain. Today the guy with the white dog decided to cut across the park. When he and his dog emerged from the grass they crossed the concrete bridge that covers the drainage ditch. Their prints showed wet on the concrete, paw and shoe, where they came out of the grass. They headed east and I passed them heading west. I know the impulse to cut across the middle of the park. Sometimes, when the sprinklers are quitet, I do it too. I like to feel the street and track recede, the uneven tufts of grass, mud, sticks under my feet. Out in the middle you're isolated and it gets quieter. You've got space all around you. I love that feeling.
Whenever I'm by myself away from home, like at a hotel or visiting someone, I do my jump. If I'm taking a bath or changing clothes, just at the point when I'm naked, I'll do a little jump. Just enough to get my feet off the floor or the carpet. Sometimes I try taking the tiniest jump I can. But even though it's the tiniest jump, I know that I've separated myself from everything. Totally "just me". Then I land again and can put on my pajamas or whatever. I started doing this as a little kid and I still do it. If I'm in a new place it's a way of reconnecting with myself.
Walking across the park you get the same feeling: being yourself by not being in the middle of everything. When you come out you have grass clippings on your shoes and socks and, in the wet grass, you leave prints on the concrete for a while. Then they fade as you walk along the sidewalk, back home.
Dogs do get special attention at the park. They put up a sign above the doggie bag dispenser that pretends to talk in dog language to dogs. The sign encourages you to pick up after your dog. And most people do. You see them with their dogs and doggie bags of poop. When they don't and the dogs crap in the middle of the track I usually will stop and kick it over with gravel and dust and then kick it into the street. Eventually dog crap disappears. Maybe another dog comes along and eats it. I don't know.
Parts of the trail show dogs prints more clearly than other parts. Where the water puddles on the track you find dog prints that can last for days, or before the next rain. Today the guy with the white dog decided to cut across the park. When he and his dog emerged from the grass they crossed the concrete bridge that covers the drainage ditch. Their prints showed wet on the concrete, paw and shoe, where they came out of the grass. They headed east and I passed them heading west. I know the impulse to cut across the middle of the park. Sometimes, when the sprinklers are quitet, I do it too. I like to feel the street and track recede, the uneven tufts of grass, mud, sticks under my feet. Out in the middle you're isolated and it gets quieter. You've got space all around you. I love that feeling.
Whenever I'm by myself away from home, like at a hotel or visiting someone, I do my jump. If I'm taking a bath or changing clothes, just at the point when I'm naked, I'll do a little jump. Just enough to get my feet off the floor or the carpet. Sometimes I try taking the tiniest jump I can. But even though it's the tiniest jump, I know that I've separated myself from everything. Totally "just me". Then I land again and can put on my pajamas or whatever. I started doing this as a little kid and I still do it. If I'm in a new place it's a way of reconnecting with myself.
Walking across the park you get the same feeling: being yourself by not being in the middle of everything. When you come out you have grass clippings on your shoes and socks and, in the wet grass, you leave prints on the concrete for a while. Then they fade as you walk along the sidewalk, back home.
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