i'll reach you in 2013-2014

After watching the game, Aaron had left to do nerd things and I had 5 hours before the sister missionaries came by. I owed a long run/walk (I think it’s supposed to be run, but the slash is there, and it’s real, so I’m taking it), so I started to get ready to head to the treadmill. And then I looked outside and changed my mind.

The air was dry with the high pressure overhead, humidity under 50%, so running wasn’t very efficient and I probably only ran 10 minutes out of 58, on the hills. I put in my contacts, strapped on my shoes, grabbed my sunglasses, and went out to explore.

There are a lot of things you don’t see while driving, like the little pink bell-shaped wildflowers lining the sidewalk. You don’t see the little cut through that leads to a beautiful little greenspace around two ancient oak trees, and you can’t trot down the trail of soft, pale sand-based soil to see the late afternoon sunlight streaming through the sprawling oak branches and imagine wedding photos between the thick trunks.

Driving over the small bridge, the concrete barrier is too high to see over while sitting in a car. On foot, you can look over at the protected wilderness area: a cypress swamp full of foamy algae and singing insects. You can cross the bridge and continue, always looking over the fence as the crawling river fades but the swampland continues, and Indian summer sunlight pouring over exposed shoulders after exiting a shady stretch. Driving, you can’t hop a curb and jog down the middle of an easement and pretend you’re not in the middle of a city; you can’t find a hidden stream and understand why you saw the deer in the parking lot at dawn two weeks ago.

In the summer, the sun is white hot. It burns the color from the world. In autumn, the angles change and the sun turns molten, and instead of bleaching, it burnishes the world in shades of gold, bringing out the slow color change of the leaves. The sky shines its brightest blue. Everything is beautiful in the fall.

I couldn’t run. I had to walk. I had to savor each moment, looking for side roads or paths to extend my time. I had to look out over the cypress swamp and the golds of the sun meeting the deep greens of the swamp and cry out to God my gratitude to be in this place, finally, after so many tears and grueling patience. Athens was also beautiful in the fall, with gingko trees like torches and the mist rising off the rivers on cold mornings against the colorful hills and trees. The memory is burned in my mind like a portrait. But I am a coastal girl and wetlands are my heart.

I’ve been thinking about finding trails, about missing nature and missing the sun and even if I’m allergic to the molds of fall and I’m sneezing my head off, how much I want to feel the dirt and roots and rocks under my shoes instead of the rubber of a treadmill or the concrete of the sidewalk. That whim is currently a full-blown raging need.

Nate will be here next week, and after a deep cold front the weather should be more seasonal. I am probably going to drag him hiking. There’s a national forest that shares his last name, and in it is Hell Hole Swamp. (There is also apparently a Hell Hole Swamp 10k in May. I might have to do this.)

Everything is beautiful in the fall.