Half-asleep, you step out into the morning. Sunlight sparkles on the lake’s surface. The view is your daily reminder that two years ago, you left the wilds of Brooklyn for a lakeside rental fifty miles north of Gotham. It still feels very strange—and very lucky.
Shaking off the brain fog, you wait a few seconds, impatient, while your GPS watch performs a mind-blowing miracle: connecting with distant satellites, radio beams traveling 25,000 miles there and back in a blink, just so you can have an eye in the sky tracking your dinky little wake-up jog.
And then you’re off—legs stiff as you clomp past your next-door neighbor watering his wilting flowers. The two of you exchange unpleasantries about the current heat wave.
Soon, you make another connection as the first Monarch of the season flutters by, looking for milkweed jet fuel to continue its long migration to breeding grounds in Mexico.
Down through the swampy section, your new picaridin insect repellent is doing its job holding off the skeeters and other nasties. No critter connection there, thank you very much!
Around the bend, on a half-submerged log, a hulking turtle is sunning herself, no doubt side-eyeing you with her beady peeper, making sure you’re just passing by.
Up a rise and around the next bend, you run into an impish spaniel named Brenda and her human. One of them has been chasing frogs down by the creek and is covered in mud; the other soon will be, once she tries to administer a bath.
Around the corner, the white Mansard-roofed 1890 house comes into view like a Victorian wedding cake (you’ve heard it actually was a wedding present from father to daughter). Out front, you glimpse a favorite sight: the house’s 140-year-old limestone-block wall with its sturdy remnants from equestrian days—a large iron ring for tying up, and a wide paving stone extending over the top of the wall near the walkway that once assisted riders with mounting and dismounting. Not for the first time, you wish horses still ruled the roads instead of lead-footed commuters in cars.
Up the next hill, a tree service crew is bringing down a maple. A portable roadside sign at the end of the driveway says “FREE WOOD CHIPS.” You pause to speak to one guy, then another, expressing interest in getting a pile. The second guy smiles and says “Great!” and you give him your address. But he doesn’t type it into his phone or write it down, so after taking off you wonder if you should double back and get a phone number or something.
Then you forget about it as you reach the base of the sharp 400-foot hill that is today’s challenge—one of your favorite old friends from many runs. It’s a friendship that is always painful, but never toxic.
At the top, you make your turnaround for home without stopping to suck air, forcing yourself to recover while still moving.
You’re on autopilot now that you’re heading for the barn.
But at the bottom, two electric company bucket trucks have arrived, as hardhats continue their weeks-long work lining the two-mile road with new, taller telephone poles. You stop and risk ridicule by asking some dumb questions, which they take in stride. Here’s one thing you learned: the new poles go into the ground only about six feet and are held in place by tamping and guy wires—no concrete. With a wave and a thanks for the excellent download, you click your watch back on and head for the final stretch.
At the last turn, a squirrel in the middle of the road waits until you’re almost on top of it to juke right, then dart left into the bushes.
Back at your door, you see the faces of your own two critters. There’s drooling and panting—from both them and you. It’s hotter now, and they’ve been waiting forEVER for your return, ready for their own morning ramble.
With your best two pals leading the way, it turns out to be the perfect cool-down after your short but friend-filled wake-up jog.
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