Tuesday, September 23, 2014

My Blue Heron Returns

There's a joy in seeing your life come around again, circle back to something you once thought was lost but returns in an unlikely moment.
I've mentioned my blue heron pond, where I used to run past often as I headed out to Lake Herman. Running in that part of town is rare now, and although I've seen herons elsewhere since then, it's never the same as when, early in the morning, I could come around the corner onto the gravel road, approach the creek, and see my blue heron rise out of the water and gracefully and elegantly wing his way into the sky.  It was like seeing the world find me again.
But I seldom run past the creek any more, and the blue heron hasn't followed me.  When I do go by, he's not there.  But I look for him, with expectation, a kind of longing for a past that isn't there any more.
So, on Sunday, as I was out for a long run, preparing again for the Twin Cities Marathon, I was out that way, coming from the opposite direction from where I once did.  As I approached the creek, I didn't have the heron in mind at all.
As he rose up from the creek and pointed himself in the direction of the sky, I felt my heart rise with him, Maybe it was that I'd already put in 11 miles and feeling the effects, or maybe it was my sense that luck had turned my way again.
But the heron was there for me, lifting both of us into something higher, something better.