This morning I went for a long run, something I try to do once a week. Recently I've started going on a new route, which entails going south, mostly on Riverside Drive and West End Avenue, to 34th Street, before I turn around and run back along the river. I like this route because it feels like I'm mostly running downhill from Washington Heights to midtown, and then flat along the river, which leaves only a half-mile hill at the end (very steep, but relatively short). I've done this route in reverse and find it deadly because it feels like you're running uphill the last seven miles. Logically, I know that the total ascent is the same regardless of the direction -- it's a loop -- but somehow I'm certain that the geography is mutating as I run across it, which makes one direction better than the other. Or at least that's how it seems when I'm running (the right direction), when the world somehow feels more fluid and beautiful. My favorite moment is when the path going north cuts back to the river and you can see the bridge six miles away, somehow beckoning and warning. Six miles at this juncture can seem like a long way but somehow it gradually disappears if you keep going, drifting past the piers and the park benches and the other people who are out looking tired or not tired, which I sometimes think after twenty-one weeks of lockdown are the only states of being we have left.
This week it rained a lot, which in a way was a relief because it's been so hot. But I'm still tired of the humidity. I sometimes worry that August will be as bad as July.
Yesterday on my run I took a picture of the United States as we head into the final stretch of the presidential campaign.
For some reason, our hellibores didn't bloom this year but they have gigantic leaves. One of these days I want to go out and find (small) dinosaurs foraging in the hellibores.
Clio, the youngest of our three cats, is the only one who wasn't deterred by the rain. She's also constantly hoping to find small dinosaurs.
This morning, I passed someone swimming north along the banks of the Hudson. They also seemed tired -- each stroke a slow clawing motion (and they had a small buoy tied to their waist?) -- but they were determined. I couldn't imagine swimming, especially after all the rain we've had, which means any runoff from the sewage system flows directly in the river, untreated. But it would be nice to go into the water, especially in this heat. Someday, I thought, when the city stops wasting billions of dollars on policing and starts spending it on upgrading our sewer system (among a million other pressing needs), I might venture into the Hudson, but for now, I'll just imagine it when I run past the beach.
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