running

The writing, ah. The writing. I did get some done. Except I'm wanting to be writing something for the Naughty Thoughts Book Club reading I'm doing, and all I've written about so far is making tea.

God, people, get your minds out of the gutter.

Note to self: stop reading books set in Edinburgh, because you suddenly start writing things like "I'm wanting to be writing..." without thinking that you can't do a Scottish accent for shite. Shit, right. For shit.

What did I do today besides precious little writing?

This morning, I was the belle of the ball. I went down the street to have a visit with Ruby and Fiona and Grace and Grace's mom. We jumped around on the beds for a little while, and then gathered ourselves for a trip to McNabb.

Who should come look? Who should put them in the swing? Who should push them on the swing?

Yes! Auntie Megan!

We drew letters in the sand, I spotted Ruby as she climbed around the school bus, explained to her what basketball was.

"It's so tall!" She pointed at the net above my head. "It must be for big kids."

She seemed a little doubtful about the throwing a ball in there part, and looked at me like I was some kind of nutbar as I tried to mime dribbling.

Which, like the Scottish accent, I can't do for shit and had no business mucking with.

Ninety minutes later some switch - I believe it was labelled "hunger" - got flipped and they would only look at the ground and dolefully whisper "Mama." So, I was a passing fancy, but it was lovely just the same.

Then the moment I'd been waiting weeks for finally arrived.

My shins told me to go fuck myself. Out for a run in the mid-afternoon sun, my limbs cold from the wind, face hot from the sun. At the end of the first song, I stopped and tied my shoes up tighter, which often tames the shin splints. Halfway through the second song, I thought, if this were an asana, I'd have pulled out by now. A few bars into the third song, I had to call it.

Done and done.

I limped a bit, sat a bit, watched the water a bit. The pain eased off and I walked slowly home, gritting my teeth up the Empress stairs. On the way back, I was thinking, well, I'm getting tattooed tomorrow, so I won't be out running for a few days anyway.

Sitting at my Archipelago 6 hours later with my shins throbbing, I'm not sure when I'm going to get back to running.

Better get that bike fixed up, and pronto.

The timing of winter runs is annoying. To catch a little light, I leave earlier. And end up in rush hour people and traffic patterns, the north south lights long long long.

At the base of the War Memorial triangle, I met the only other runner I saw out this evening. She got to her side of the street first, was keeping time and her heart beat up to whatever was in her ipod, swinging one foot out to the side, bringing it back, the other foot, back. I did the same, but my knee up, knee up, knee up, knee up.

For 30 seconds.
For one minute.
For 30 seconds.
For two minutes.
For a light change, though not for us.

Swing, knee, swing, knee.

I started to feel like we were waiting for the handkerchief to drop, the gun to go off, so we could race into the middle of the street to bump chests, lock horns, tangle earbuds: Foot Swinger vs The Knees.

The image struck me so suddenly, I looked at her, started laughing. She was watching me, laughed too, drew up her shoulders and hands, palms up, dropped them again.

The light changed. We took off, passed each other closely. No bumping, just grinning.

I worked from home today because my office was being fumigated. We're above a restaurant and we have cockroaches. I was the only person completely in favour of spraying, I think. Every one else is worried about cancer, and fair enough, but they are all also the people who call me every time they see a cockroach. I love my co-workers, and that's honest, but fuck me, I am tired of killing their cockroaches.

Part of the reason I get called in is that I've gotten blasé about the roaches. They - my coworkers - started calling me the Terminator after I used a metal ruler to behead a roach that was only half under S's desk. The small ones I kill with my bare hands, a thoughtless reflex.

Back in the day, when we started finding them - rather, when they started showing up in my office, which is directly above the kitchen - I'd scream and jump around, shaking my hands in the air like I was trying to brush them out of my psychic space. I'd grab for the nearest a book or something else solid and heavy to smash them.

That stopped a few months ago. Why bother and fuss with finding stuff when you can just slam your fist down and be done with it?

That's why god invented soap, as far as I'm concerned.

The cockroaches are how I could take what I think might be this season's last run along the river. It was warm this afternoon, maybe plus 2 or 3, and the snow was melted and mushy, the top of the ice was water. It was slick, slow going.

By the time I'd reached the 5th willow, where I turn around, I was about two minutes behind in my playlist. I knew I would be, knew that if I wanted to end where I normally do, with enough time to walk and cool down, but not enough to get cold, I'd have to turn back much sooner. But my wet feet carried me forward, my brain churning through songs I could add on at the end, to end me in the right place without missing the spots I needed to see, at least one more time before next spring.

There are two of them. The first is an old one, at the top of Parkdale Avenue where it loops onto the Parkway. The second I've only discovered as my lungs have gotten stronger, about a half click before the 5th willow. Both because you come around a corner and the river opens up in front of you. Goes from a bit of water, the other shore just there, a stone's swimming throw away, to oh. Oh.

Expanse.

Is the word that always hums in those moments just as I catch the difference.

In those spots, the river is always at its most, whatever that is that day: calm, crested, brown, slate, green, mist. The smell is always fresh water, dead and fertile or whipping clean. Humans have built around and over and through the river, but not stopped it.

It cracks my chest big and wide and perfectly, tenderly, open, every single time.