Looks like we have the mountain to ourselves
I got up at 4:30am today to go run the Bear Creek loop before sunrise. I slept shittily, given that my uncle is in the hospital with likely lung cancer and this provides me with opportunities to both help out with the family and to sort out what reasonable boundaries for my commitment with be. I spent the night mentally whirring and physically thrashing with restless shoulders, my personal version of restless legs.
It was misting so heavily my cowardly dog, Asa, wouldn’t go out to pee before we left. He’s too prettty for that. It graduated to rain as I neared the trailhead, so I traded my down vest for the rain jacket tucked in the back of my car. It was cold and drizzly, the kind of Seattle weather I’ve hit the trails in for years; the kind of weather I apparently brought back with me. I had an outdoors friend who died in a snow field accident a few years ago, an early 70′s South Carolinian who was known for his tech startup and philanthropy, but made legendary by the stories of dragging friends out in miserable conditions to execute feats of mental and physical endurance no one could rightfully call “fun.” We’d try to go rock climbing in the rain and show up to the deserted wall where he would chime, “Looks like we’ve got the crag to ourselves!” And so it was on Section 16 this morning.
The up was hard, but easier seeming. At some point I didn’t feel like I was running, just moving in whatever way it was that my legs seemed to be doing independently. I suppressed the exuberance that comes from having this sensation despite being a once a month runner. I hammered the downhill, trying to open up my hip, get some leg speed, fix the footfall of my arthritic foot. There was no rain after the first 500ft of gain, just the eerie fading out of oak and ponderosa. Asa stopped chasing phantoms in the forest and loped behind me for the last three miles.
This is what I did instead of what I planned, which was to have a belated birthday SufferFest in which I perform an off the couch slog through as many loops of this trail as I can. It is what I did so that I would be available and energetic while caring for my uncle’s dog afterward, coordinating her care, and trying to relieve my mother enough that she might have some time to herself today. Just having showed up felt like enough for me. I keep needing to proving that I can show up and run. I can get out of bed early. I can prioritize my own well-being.
I felt sorted out until I returned to normal life, because normal life is full of all the trappings of my disintegrating wellness. I feel hopeful. I’m not falling apart. Everything that has to happen this week will happen. I just need more time to hide in the hills.