Episode 5

My eyes were closed. I refused to open them for the time being. As long as I didn’t see what was around me, I didn’t have to admit to myself that I was in a new place. Things are disorienting when I move this quickly between lives. Just when I am getting adjusted to a place-time I have to do it again. I wished for a sense of continuity. Almost anything is possible with the proper use of work over time, but I seemed to have both limitless and unusable amounts of time.

My eyes remained closed, but my ears were open. I could hear rain on a metal roof. The regular drip of a leaky gutter. The call of an unhappy crow croaking not too far away. The gentle regular crashing of waves in the distance. As much as I wanted to close the world out, it snuck back in.

Suddenly it was time to move. I sat upright, I had been laying in bed. I looked at the clock which read 6:59 and waited for a few seconds. 7:00 came up and the alarm sounded. I slammed the button on top and swung my legs out of bed. I stood up and walked over to the clothes drying rack and pulled on a pair of running shorts, an athletic t-shirt and nylon jacket shell. I grabbed the pair of socks and walked over to the bench by the door. I quickly pulled on the socks and put on the pair of wet muddy running shoes that sat next to the bench. I tied each shoe and then opened the door and stepped out under the eves of the house.

I put the point of of my right shoe on the ground and turned my ankle in three clockwise circles loosening the joint and ligaments, then reversed the direction for three more turns. I then repeated with my other ankle. It was cold outside, I was going to have to start moving soon. I jumped straight up in the air, clearing the ground by only a few inches and landed on my toes and sprung again without ever letting my heals touch the ground. Ten jumps in rapid succession and I could feel a burning sensation in my calves. I put both hands on one of the wooden posts which framed the door and leaned in with my left leg bent and my right leg extended behind me, with both feet flat on the ground. I could feel the stretch in my calf, held it for a three-count, and then switched sides. Three more rapid jumps and I was ready.

It was odd that I had been standing on the front step for almost a minute now and hadn’t even noticed the scenery in front of me. When you go somewhere often enough, or see a view enough times your mind starts to ignore it. Especially with morning routines. It is possible to drive all the way to work without taking note of any of the surroundings as you pass them. I (which I?) once knew a man who commuted to work on a ferry boat across an incredibly beautiful bay, truly one of the most scenic parts of the world, with islands covered in forested hills in the foreground and snow covered mountains in the distance in almost all directions. This was the type of view that people would vacation just to see a single time. The person I knew, as well as most of his fellow commuters did not marvel and this incredible scenery, staring in awe at the daily splendor that was their daily life. Instead they became numb to the beauty, they sat and chatted in groups, or spent the whole ride with their attention on the daily paper, or maybe a crossword.

I turned my attention outward. Wondering what scene I ignored on my daily run. The yard around the house was small, rain covered grass surrounded by a natural wood fence. There was a wet forest wrapping on all sides of the yard, tall fir and cedar trees covered with moss on all sides. The old back-country trick of knowing direction by looking for moss on the North side of a tree would useless here. The undergrowth was thick. Himalayan black berries, an invasive species to most of the Northern Hemisphere, chocked the edges of the yard. Ferns, huckleberry and salal filled most of the more shaded area under the trees. There was a path surfaced with pea gravel leading to a gap in the fence and a path into the woods.

I strode off the front step and into the rain. It was not very hard at the moment, a little more than a mist, but I would be totally soaked in a matter of minutes. I checked my wrist watch, 7:08. I ran across the yard and into the woods. The ground was mostly level at first and the path surface was flat. Easy running. I increase the pace. It felt good to having the air passing by my ears and through my hair, feeling the small rain drops splash against my face. The path led to a gazebo in a small clear area in the woods. Underneath there were two chairs and a small table with an abandoned tea cup on top of it. From the clearing the path split into several different routes, all of them much smaller and rougher than the original path. I took the one heading to the left, downhill. There were roots and rocks making for slower running. I decreased my pace to a slow jog and made my way down the hill.

The plants were now overhanging the trail on both sides. With each step I was brushing against the bushes, which dumped collected water from every leaf onto my jacket and legs. The shell kept my upper body warm enough, the water was leaking through, but it trapped enough of my body heat for warmth. My legs had water running down them, as if I were in a cool shower.

I bottomed out on the hill as the trail wound back to the right. It was relatively level running again, but the path was still overgrown. I leapt over a small creek and curved to the left again to follow it down stream. I could hear the waves more clearly now, I must have been heading towards the water. The path ended at a beach, although I could see where a route in the sand continued to the right, worn by footsteps having gone through countless times before.

I paused for a minute and looked out into the water. The waves were breaking in a regular pattern. Small waves only a few inches tall. Each one crashing on the beach and then pulling rocks and sand out towards the open ocean, creating a pleasing rattling noise. The creek flowed out to the water in a miniature delta, a single creek splitting into several trickles branching off to reach the water on their own. One large rock a couple hundred feet out in the water, covered with ferns and a few dwarfed trees stuck from the water, but otherwise the water was uninterrupted by any visible land mass. The beach stretched out straight in either direction with a short shore of sand and gravel falling steeply into the water. The tide must have been in with as little beach as was exposed. I could see that if I continued along the water to the right there was a cliff rising perhaps a half a mile in the distance above the water below.

I started running again, feet sinking into the loose ground with each step. This made the running much more difficult. With each step I could feel my foot slipping backwards as I pushed off. I was running slower than I was on the path but was using more effort. As I continued to run down the beach I could feel the fatigue building in my legs. A rubbery feeling. I did not find it disagreeable. It was feedback, letting my know that I was pushing myself hard enough that I would break my muscles enough that they would be forced to grow in response. This was the essence of running.

As I approached the cliffs I could see that they were composed of crumbling sandstone which had fallen unevenly into the water at the base of the cliff. The water was crashing directly at the base of the cliff, there would be no way to continue running below. There was a steep bank covered heavily by under growth directly ahead of me. Off to the right, up a tiny path through the forest around thirty feet from the edge of the beach was a rope coming down the bank up a cleared area in the bushes. I jogged over to it to inspect. The rope was thick, over an inch in diameter, and had evenly space knots every two feet or so up its length. It would be easy enough to grip. The rope stretched around seventy five feet up the hill along steep rutted path of mostly sand and rock. There was a trickle of water flowing down the central rut. It would be a difficult climb without the rope using hands and feet to claw up the hill. With the rope it did not appear challenging.

I took the rope into my hands and tugged on it. It felt secure. I took the first steps up the cliff and leaned back into the rope. It held my weight. I continued climbing step by step matching hand over hand. The progress was slow but steady. Several times my feet slipped when the sand collapsed under my weight, but with my center of balance leaned back into the rope, staying upright was not difficult. As I approached the top I could see that the rope was tied around the base of a large cedar tree which was around ten feet from the top of the bank. I pulled myself to the flat area at the top and inspected the knot. It was a bowline with a few extra hitches. Simple but very secure.

The path swung back to the left and shortly to the right taking it right to the edge of the cliff. I started jogging again. The bank was steep and there were no bushed between the route and the edge. I hadn’t noticed when it changed, but the rain was much harder now. Drops began collecting in my eyelashes. I reached behind my head and pulled the hood on. It had a tiny brim that I pulled low over my eyes to keep the rain out. I looked at my watch, 7:31. Was this route a loop? Was I supposed to go a certain amount of time and turn around? I thought I had been running along the cliff for at least 5 minutes. I was becoming increasingly uncomfortable in the rain. When it was just a mist it wasn’t bad, but not that it was much heavier it was soaking through my nylon shell much faster. A steady stream of fresh cold water was chilling me quickly. I had been running for a little bit more that 20 minutes. If I could run the same pace on the way back I would be back inside before 8:00. I decided to turn around.

I increased my pace. I had to focus on the ground to keep my footing. I wouldn’t want to slip here! I hopped over a root here and around a rock there. I was feeling good, running faster and faster. The hood was still down low over my eyes, keeping the rain out, but blocking my peripheral vision. I must have run by a certain low hanging branch before I had put my hood up and ducked it without even noticing that I was doing so. However, without the benefit of my full range of vision I did not know to duck. I slammed head first at full speed into the branch. I was instantly stunned and staggered to my right. One foot on the very edge of the bank. The sand underneath collapsed. A tumble towards a cold splash below. Did I know how to swim?