Valentine's Day Sludge

Today, I went running during my lunch hour. It was in the 50s and sunny. It was Valentine's Day. Friends were posting those chain statuses on their Facebook wall about their significant others, when they met, how they met, why they loved them so. I tried to put that out of my mind as I was running, the only thing that seemed to enable me to put such things out of my mind these days.

I broke routine and opted to put away the headphones and actually hear the sound of my own breathing, the occasional ripple of calm Hudson water, the thump of my heavy-footed gate against the pavement. I've never been a runner who could win many style points. My form is ugly. My frame is at the mercy of gravity. I do not glide but instead clomp along. But today I didn't care. I was running.

There were a lot of puddles. I enjoyed splashing through a few of them. 30 minutes into the run and I felt that shifting of mental gears, from initial achy trepidation to a simple lightness, a confidence that I could just keep going. It was Valentines Day and I was alive and I was happy.

Then, an innocent-looking sedan drove by me and splashed a giant sheet of sludgy, mucky, snow-melty, urban-gunky water all over my body. The force of it reminded me of being knocked over by a heavy wave while on a childhood vacation in Ocean City. The water lodged deep into my right ear. (Some of it is still there.) It seeped into my eyes. I remembered noticing heaps of dog shit that has been floating around in the plowed snow mounds-turned-puddles as I walked my son to school this morning. I thought of that, plus God knew what else, lodged inside my ear, and covering my entire face. I kept running but I cursed loudly. I cursed again, more loudly. Still running, I turned around and glared at the oblivious tail lights of the sedan. Probably a 97 something or other. Corolla, maybe? Like the one I had just sold a few months ago.

A few minutes later, I could hear my breath again. By the time I finished my lunchtime run, the sludge had dried and again I felt a simple lightness. I headed in to shower, heavy-footed and happy.