Running Carter Mountain

The more I run the more I think of running.  When running more I often ponder over the day’s run- what it felt like, what it meant to me, its lesson and how it might improve me in all things.  When running more what I generally think of most, though, is the next run.  When.  Where.  How long.  The route.  Etc.  In Charlottesville, sitting at my desk the picture window a computer monitor partially blocks looks out to sky, adjacent rooftops and the interweaving tree branches climbing Carter Mountain.  In return, plainly, Carter Mountain looks in.  To me.

For years one of my primal desires has been to host a mountain view from home.  Now that I have it the feeling is not lost in its importance.  The current view ironically, yet by no accident, also happens to mask trails, shielded beneath its sloping landscape tree branches, moments from doorstep, intersecting their way over and through the hallows up to the ridgeline of Carter Mountain.  Virginia’s Piedmont region sunrises say hello from the east.  Sunsets from the other side force the eye over Charlottesville, west, and beyond to the Blue Ridge Mountains.

Back home, peering through the glass it is hard not to re-imagine the run.  The air.  The flowing of blood.  The energy.  The awaken feeling of loose muscles and a mind free to explore true feelings.  These memories are short; however, and quickly thoughts transition to the next run.  The run which no doubt begins with a similar, singular goal: to experience a feeling and maybe- just maybe- make it up the trail in fewer steps and with fewer breaths.

Brilliance

This October and November has produced a fall we hope for each year: slightly warm, dry and very, very colorful.  This week I say goodbye to one of my favorite trees- the red oak that shades the rear upstairs balcony outside of my home office in D.C.  In the photo below please enjoy the red colored brilliance of its leaves; the color oozing contrast against the green ivy climbing its main trunking lines.

The next photo is one I snapped this afternoon of Gaby walking along S Street, NW as we marched our way to close on our home.  The trees are mature Ginkos and- as you can plainly see- their color is spectacular.

I wish this fall would last forever.  I also wish my real camera wasn’t broken.  These pictures I took with my cell phone.  Pardon.

And since I apparently seem to be on yet another Fleet Foxes kick here lately, and since I am blogging about trees, here is a tune worth listening to.

The Journey

It’s been a long time coming.  For about three years now Gaby and I have contemplated moving away from D.C. and going somewhere greener and with mountains.  Long story short a combination of many things helped us decide to pull up anchor here in D.C. and move to Charlottesville, Virginia.  Long story even shorter the last bits and pieces of the move are almost complete and we’ll soon be living in a far different place, though fortunately not too far from those we love.

By the time we move it will be 10 years, 67 days since I first moved into this city.  Mostly it’s been a very fun ride.  I will miss this place.  I love it here.  In a small way part of me wonders if perhaps the best years of my life have passed, the sum of which has been spent as a D.C. resident.  If that is the case I am okay with it.  As I said, I love it here.

Then why the move?  The journey.  Why else?

Sadly, moving is not this easy.

5am

I am a morning person.  In case in that half second you somehow managed to get things twisted I am also an evening person.  Daylight fades to darkness.  Vice versa.  They equal me.  Despite this hybrid, in my 35 year travels I have finally surmised the perfect hour is 5am.

A blaring alarm aside 5am is the perfect hour for rising. A late niter- 11, 12, etc.- is hardly a match for the bullet proof 5am.  To rise at the hour is to conquer said ‘late niter’.  One night.  Two nights.  Three nights.  Four.  Who can’t get by?  Honestly.  On the flip side, an early night- 9, 10, etc.- delivers a rested head.  Either way, 5am is the hour.  The hour to run, rested.  The hour to run, tired.  A rested body and mind, awaken at 5am and shortly out the door, yields a run expected.  Fruitful.  The body and mind gloat in shared happiness.  Conversely, a tired corpse awakens in the darken 5am hour.  A battle ensues.  Naturally.  Always.  Shoes lace regardless and it happens.  The run takes shape.  Afterwards, the body at home on doorstep bows to an elated mind.  A day’s protocol is erected.  Proud.  Imagine still a body in bed wishing it had run?  Fuck that!

This is my argument.  This is theirs: