December 12, 2009, journal entry

Eight miles.

It has been cold this week, each of my morning runs in the somber dark of positive and negative single digit temperatures. I leave at a later time than usual so today’s run is a warmer chill, bank and supermarket signs flashing 13 to 18 degrees like twinkling Christmas lights.

It is grey today from clouds, sky’s ceiling slackening, but the cold chill is a harbinger of Winter snow to come.

The wind crouches and stretches. When I turn to head up a mile-long hill, my chin feels the chilled frosty air that collects on my black scarf, trailing me like cooled water vapor in a car’s exhaust.

At five miles, I decide to keep going and move on towards six.

Crows overhead nimbly stencil their shape on grey white cloudiness.

Grey-brown squirrels scratch streets and tree trunks, ever present as Seasons chilly rotate to Winter.

At six miles, I run to Hazel’s Creek and layer miles one on top of the other. In late summer, the farmhouse on the property disappeared though the red barn still stands surrounded by clots of reeds, and a new soft cover of orange bark pads the path. Its small pond is frozen over, and frosty curtains of cattails and tree branches sheen. My total today will be eight. I’m gonna start rebuilding the miles after my respite following my race, once again patching together routes like crafting words into sentences.

My hands become cold in my “windshield” gloves. Start to feel numb in the draft like stinging words. Still, I sketch a bold silvery line up one more hill, feeling strong despite being chilled to the bone.

~

I love how I have been running. The air I inhale runs the full height of my lungs, Earth dandling my feet, the fire in my blood and muscle creating watery sweat even in icy mist.

~

Today, I am the animated, exhilarated sky of dawn and don a shirt, velvet in blue, red, orange, purple, green, gold, and strips of diaphanous grey. My long purple skirt in gauzy layers are shadows that flicker in light, my tights teal in red Danskos. My favorite chains of silver twist and turn to my pendants of dragons, rivers, and trees, glittery patches of ice, and the silk scarf I wear is a magical, majestic purple.

~

A hundred miles of frost—
in a boat, I own
the moon
(Buson haiku)

GL, 12/12/2009. Prevail.