Weekend Wander
Where did this week go? Friday already. Race weekend again already. Springtime already. Yesterday it was 82 degrees at The Jesus Crack House. I guess winter is gone, such as it was. As much as everyone else seems to long for spring I am always sad to see winter go. No more running on my lunch hour (too warm not to shower). No more open windows at the office. No more sleeping in on the weekends (too hot to run at midday). No more mosquito-free cocktail hours, coffee breaks, or hot tea interludes on the deck. No more sassy wooly hats and magic scarves. No more scraggly, craggly monochrome photos. Stuff is already blooming and greening and budding and the morning humidity will only climb higher and higher. The tornados will be here soon too. The flooding will come after that. Of course we will get flowers and lush lawns and baby wildlife as well, but still, no one really appreciates what winter was when spring is already seducing us. As the sun was setting yesterday I saw this battered moldy piece of cardboard blowing across grass that already has green roots showing. I hated to see winter blown away so soon with it. Bye bye gray days. Bye bye bare branches. See you again in nine months or so.
Tomorrow is a trail race (my favorite) and then a full day of adventure and exploring (more favorites) so I am packing up Peaco for his first day trip of the year and planning to enjoy an unstructured excursion in a city I usually just coast through. Kind of exciting to just go with no plan and see what happens; my kind of vibe. AppleJack and I did this in Dallas one day when we first started dating. We started out on foot with no map and no plan and happened across the most amazing little underground chapel. There was a weird white stucco bubble above ground but below there was a tiny little honeywood cove where people could go to pray or meditate or just escape the pressures of the city. It was completely soundproofed. There was softly filtered sunlight from a skylight and it operated completely independent of a parent religious organization. It was a blissfully calm all-comer's haven tucked right in between the highrise life of downtown Dallas. I doubt we would have found it unless we were wandering.
In St. Louis we found the coolest little French bistro that had more varieties of Bloody Marys than there were seats in the place. In Eureka Springs we went for a run and found a writer's colony tucked into the side of a mountain. In Oregon we found the gravesite of an unknown person that had died on the beach and been buried by Good Samaritans. In Fayetteville we found an odd little bookstore in which we assumed foot massages were being given in the front window. Remember the episode of Seinfeld in which George goes to see Tor, the holistic healer? It was that kind of place. Those massages turned out to be reflexology treatments going on in the front window. The staff was very condescending. We assumed it was because we didn't look New Age enough to be serious customers (we weren't!) so when AppleJack picked up a Buddhist dorje and joked, "Hey look! A miniature double egg beater!" the clerk rolled his eyes and turned his back on us.
Oh, and then there was the time we found Mitchell's Folly (shudder), a very disturbing curio shop that sold only creepy and macabre items in varying stages of rot and decay. It was manned by a freaky dude who refused to acknowledge us at first because AppleJack whispered to me that he looked like a serial killer (he looked worse than a serial killer). When he did speak to us he gave us a serious case of the willies and sent us upstairs to see an "art gallery." We obliged just to be polite and remove ourselves from his presence but at the top of the stairs we discovered that the art gallery was really just a bunch of headless baby dolls, taxidermy projects, and old dentist chairs. We had no idea that old man Mitchell had followed us and cornered us up there until we turned around to find him standing behind us and telling us to step out onto the balcony where there was a hidden staircase to a second gallery. The second gallery was full of sun-bleached skulls, some ratty old rugs and a French horn. We wanted out but quickly realized that there was no way out except back the way we came and old man Mitchell was on the balcony blocking our path. We ended up bailing out through a garden alley to the street below with goosebumps and hearts pounding.
Tomorrow we will wander again. I'm not expecting any chapels but that's the great thing about wandering--you don't really expect anything. You can't be disappointed if you have no expectations. It is time for me to go get it started with one of my birthday massages so I will leave you all with wishes for bliss and adventure for your weekends too.
(c) 2012, ACG
I love going on road trips or sidewalks or forest paths to nowhere in particular. I have always had the greatest adventures when I let go of plans.
Reply to this