telemetry
Went for a run earlier for the first time in a few weeks. It’s only my second time wearing my new running shoes (that I received for my birthday) and it was a wonderful evening for a run–mild and pleasant out.
The warmer weather has the side effect that smells propagate farther. If this sounds disgusting initially, bear with me. When it was colder, a few weeks ago and likely will be in a few days, smells tended to stay closer to their source, whether it was cigarette smoke from a nearby house, flowers closer to the road or the diesel exhaust from a passing truck. But the warmer weather carries the scent to the sidewalk as I trudge by, and any given city block becomes a veritable bazaar of conjured memories and sensations, driven by the smells I pass through.
Diesel and exhaust remind me of walking from the evening church we attended in downtown Nice, under the train bridge adjacent the terminal to the McDonald’s for familiar food and fellowship with other expatriates and friends. Lavender scents (there is one lucky house on my route with the flowers) remind me of hikes up Mt. Rouge in France (properly known as the Baou des Blancs), seeing clusters nestled in crevices of bleached-white rock, covered with mosses and lichens, in between the scraggly, windblown trees. And sometimes a non-specific “Southern house” smell will waft across the sidewalk and bring back more than just discrete memories, but spans of years and periods of life here in the States.
Among it all, a bit prematurely, it will be said, is the mild-spring-night softness of the air, a welcome sensation after the harshness of the past few weeks.
There many reasons to enjoy my runs, and this is certainly among them.