This is who I am (145/365)

Well, that sounds like a terribly smarmy ad for athletic shoes, doesn't it?   But as I was looking at my shoes just now I felt that way.

I wish I could have taken pictures on my run this evening.  It was gorgeous and perfect, and it came at just the right time.  While I walked home from work I was talking to my mom, and she could hear the noises from the busses and honking cars.  She asked me if I was loving the bustling city life (which I got hooked on after my first field trip here in sixth grade).   "Um, no." I said.  "Not the noises.  I tolerate them, but I don't like them.  I like City of Constant Noises, but it's stressful living here."  And I snuffled. And Mom listened.  And then I told her I needed to go running before it got dark out.

There are so many things I love about my gorgeous hometown in my Peach Blossoms and Tidewater State, but the best thing is probably our parks.  I could spend an entire summer running with my dark-haired friend and hardly have to repeat trails.  The earth is soft and the green branches hang over each path and the sunlight is dappled over us.  It's thrilling yet familiar, and I miss those trails.  But Peach Blossoms and Tidewater State does not have the other amenities that City of Bustling Noise does, like round-the-clock access to public transportation and vegetarian restaurants, so I'm here.

So I laced up my shoes and I struck out to our Steel Grey River, my soles padding softly against the sidewalk, across the pedestrian crossing to the riverfront park. I was surprised at the beauty. The trees were bursting with leaves, and the Steel Grey River looked deep, sea blue.  I broke off from the asphalt, and heard its waves against the rocks.  I found an earthen path between the ball fields and the water, and I smelled the clover and the honeysuckle.  It was the kind of experience I couldn't get most of the time in Shrimp Town, and I felt relieved. It was joyous.

My high school cross-country coach used to tell us that he felt most successful when he bumped into one of his students years later and she said she was still running.   I left off running for a little while but this fall a new friend I made encouraged me to run with her, and it stuck.  It felt like a homecoming.  Running became part of me, and running now makes me feel like me.  I'm a person who runs.  And as I looked at the little bit of mud caked on the back of my Asics, I thought, "This is who I am."