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.

Evolution of a Carp and His Pond

My little pond along my running route is going through a transition. Too bad. Even my heron has bugged out. I should have known maybe that the carp in the pond were starving for oxygen in the heat and lack of rain, and the other day there was clear proof--the tactile odor of dead fish wafting across the gravel road. Here you see some small fish, bullheads, I think, sipping at the air, but a day later they too had turned belly-up.
Not all pictures worth looking at are pretty.

 

Blue Heron of Happiness

Rarely do I run with any devices, especially a cell phone. This morning, though, the wife convinced me to carry her iPod, which had on it some NPR Driveway Moments, including one about quadriplegic psychologist Dr. Dan Gottlieb, who told about the despair he sometimes felt and he knew others felt. But he told a story about a man who had come to see him and, when the session was over, the man strugged to get out of his chair as Gottlieb watched. "I'm glad I can at least still get out of the chair," the man admitted. "I'm glad I don't have to struggle with that," the psychologist said, and they both laughed. That story is here: "Lessons from a Psychologist, and Grandad."
As I listened I was just coming to my blue heron pond, and I slowed to a walk, hoping to see the heron. Gottleib told about his father who sometimes wished he could slough off "this veil of tears," and just then the heron rose, its wings stroking the air, quietly lifting the giant bird into the sky. He wasn't startled today, it seemed, just cautious, and I noticed the carp that usually swirl away so quickly were still lined up gulping at the air along the pond's flat surface.
Later I listened to another story of wonder, a woman whose vision had always been monocular, seeing everything as a flat surface, though she could drive and play tennis. In an unusual development, she began to develop binocular vision, and her description of seeing herself in a snowfall, rather than just observing it, is well worth the listen.
As I ran along, listening to these stories and seeing once again my random rabbit, my patient blue heron, my chorus of carp, poet Mary Oliver's book Why I Wake Early came to mind, her emphatic joy in the life around us.
(This image is from Mark Goldstein's collection of photos at PhotographyBlog.)

When a Tree Falls in the Forest . . .

Today was a day for a good long run, 9.7 miles according to G-Maps, so after much delay this morning, I finally headed out while it was still cool, about 65 degrees. Read on. I include herein a narrow brush with death, and I don't mean neglecting to bring my cell phone on the run.
I remembered to look for the blue heron that usually rises from a pond on the route, surprising me and flapping away, but he wasn't there today. In his place was a family of ducks that hustled in line out away. No dogs chased me on the way out, the lake was calm, and turkeys called to each other from the trees. A half-dozen rabbits were out and about, and only two people were free enough to gaze out over the water, one guy with a bike and a poor overweight woman who looked as though she were a figure of mud that had been dropped from on high. She was fixing her makeup. I enjoyed the jaunt through the trees, Lake Herman State Park featuring several trail sections that are like half-mile long arbors. But as I came out of one, turned, and headed into another, I hear behind me what appeared to be a tree falling. So I went back, and sure enough, a dead branch, about five inches in diameter and maybe 20 feet long, was lying across the path where I had just run. My reminder of life, the tree branch must have been jostled by my heft. But I dragged the tree branch off the path, tidied up the twigs, and carried on, bouyed by my personal reminder, knowing that branch, or the sound of it at least, was meant for me. Later, I had another kind of luck, as during my cool-down walk, I found a rolled-up, undelivered copy of today's Argus Leader lying in the park with nary a soul around. It too must have been dropped there for me. Two kinds of luck? There are many.