January 30, 2010, journal entry, Winter's Color Wheel

15 miles.

I think today is the day I shall officially visit the color wheel of Winter. In my 15 miles, I will be visiting Lincoln Park where I met my tiny hummingbird, 63 Steps, Manito, Cannon Hill, and Comstock Parks, High Drive overlooking a steep bluff, and the small marsh of Hazel’s Creek. Plenty of opportunities for the color I have watched Season’s Wheel spin, turning Autumn to Winter.

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My hummingbird’s Lincoln Park marsh pond is partially frozen, its grey ice chips meeting the smooth rocky shore. I think my favorite summer running moment was encountering the enchanting hummingbird who cast her spell upon me with her lacey wings.

The short hill before 63 Steps is steep, and even though I am running, its pitch has me feeling like I am walking in place. As I jog up the braid of stairs, my hands alternate in their own stride up the rails.

Entering a short trail, the birds’ song is extremely loud. Starlings and winter sparrows dine on inflorescent yellow, black, blue, orange, and red winter berries, moving from the tops of trees' crowns to the bottom like a violin bow on its instrument, volleying in their melee of the bird melodies.

Bare Winter branches reveal nests hidden during Summer’s green lusciousness. I wonder if the clever seamstresses of these nests will re-use them or sew new ones for Spring.

The number of squirrels scurrying, pausing to nibble chestnuts and acorns in a staccato chewing, astounds me. In one place I count at least 12, holding still like russet pine cones, then with a vigorous shake of tail, scratch up oak trees to the safety of skeletal branches.

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I see red and yellow, the oranges that hover between the two. White, black, and my silver-grey. Vibrant greens and the various shades of brown in cattails tied to water and frost-crispy sedges, and the surprise of Sun’s white reflection in Hazel Creek’s pond. I am delighted with the pink pine cone I find.

But I am not seeing purple, my very favorite color which sits in my mind in a way that sooths me like no other color.

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After pausing to jot notes in my small journal, inch-long grey feathers and the quarter-size wax paper of an honesty plant’s seedpod tucked in its back pocket, I fold its covers and slide it and my pencil in my eggplant purple Adidas jacket. My purple jacket, the one I have been wearing all Winter along and in my right-brained half-marathon.

In my right-brained run today, I realize that I am the purple of Winter’s color wheel, and bow in respect to the unforeseen pleasures I have experienced this Season on my runs.

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Eggplant Purple Adidas Jacket through BlackBerry Viewfinder

Makes me feel ridiculously happy.

GL, 1/30/2010. Prevail.