Long Run on a Long Pier

The Truth: I have been feeling anxious and blue for the last week. I have not been upbeat. My happy face is upside-down. There.

Part of my commitment to keeping this blog ventilated with fresh air is an intention to let it reflect how things are with me, not how I wish they were. Not to say I'm going to go all blubbering on you (I am, after all, an adult of sorts), but at the same time I'm not going to try to tell you running always makes life rosy. Sometimes life just isn't rosy. It's felt rather gray and sad since I heard about Wanda's death, actually.

Now that I've pulled aside the happy curtain, let me tell you that I did run 16 miles Saturday. And it went well. The above is, what else, the Berkeley Pier, where I did an out-and-back about midway through the run. I've thought of doing a mile-by-mile list for you, describing 16 highlights, but I don't trust your patience to read to the end of such a list. I don't trust my patience to write it, either.

A couple of things I saw that gave me food for thought:

1) The cities of Berkeley, Albany, and El Cerrito are joining together to build a complex of sports fields just south of the Golden Gate Fields racetrack. Acres of land have been cleared and leveled, and high fenceposts that will someday hold a tall, home-run-stopping chain matrix are in place. Part of me is delighted that this space for youth sports is being created. I view it as the anti-TV, the anti-computer, the anti-cell phone, the anti-video game that every child should be exposed to. My own children spent many years in Albany-Berkeley sports, both soccer and baseball, and are undoubtedly better human beings for it.

BUT (you knew there'd be a "but," didn't you), Saturday as I ran past the project, the air was thick with the shrieks of hundreds of red-winged blackbirds who weighed down the power lines along the above-mentioned fenceposts. It is nesting time, and these birds have been ousted from their longtime habitat without so much as an oh-by-the-way-here's-a-birdhouse. Sure there are a few trees still standing near the shore (and I do mean a few), but nothing that will accommodate even half the number of birds I saw. Where will they live, now that we're paving over their home?

2) Out near the Emeryville Marina, I saw a family: mother, father, three very young sons. The father and the little boys, who looked to be about six, four, and two, were having a "race" from point A to point B. The biggest boy finished first, the middle boy second, and the father and the baby shuffled and toddled in last.

When the biggest boy finished, he turned around to the others and shouted "I won!"

The father said, "No you didn't."

The boy's eyes got big. "But I was here first!" he asserted.

"No you weren't," said the dad. "It was a tie."

None of this was my business. BUT (you knew that was coming, no?), I couldn't help but cringe. I know the father was just trying to keep the middle boy from feeling sad about not winning. But, earth to dad, the middle boy didn't win. What would be bad about saying to the biggest child, "Yes! You did win! But of course you're bigger, so you probably will win every time, especially when you try so hard. You did great, but so did your brother."

In short, what would be bad about telling the truth. I remember way too well being a child whose parents were prone to correcting my version of reality with regularity and with cheerful abandon. They did it, as did this father, with good intentions, but I think part of the legacy that created for me was a tendency to disbelieve my own perceptions.

Both of the above observations were made in a matter of minutes as I ran. Seconds, even. But they stuck with me. I didn't even have to see them on TV.

Hey, the sun is setting here, and my thoughts are turning to supper. Even an anxious and blue person needs to eat. Mmmm. I bought some olive bread. Feeling less blue by the minute here. I am so blessed!