I started 2012 the same way I have started every year for at least the last 15 years--with a run, of course, but this time I tried to do it with Bella's prompt in mind and see it for the first time.  This wasn't easy since I know these hills so well.  Up, down, back, forth, here, there, gone, home, mile after mile after mile.  Grey asphalt with cracks, sometimes a pothole, always a smattering of pebbles and leaves, corners patched and painted by public utilities.  Today I stood at the bottom of the first hill and wondered what it was I wasn't seeing that wouldn't look like grey asphalt to me and Bella.  Well, nothing at first because the only way I ever looked at the path was to look down on it from 64 inches about the earth.  This time I got down on my belly and looked out at the path ahead from three inches above the earth instead of down at it as usual.  It turns out that asphalt isn't grey at all.  It is blue, golden, chocolate, rose, cream, russet, purple, and it works like a mirror of shadow and light.  It also doesn't lay upon the earth.  It rises and falls like waves and at each crest more of the distant horizon is revealed.  All these years have passed and I never noticed I wasn't running the hills; I was riding them.