Jolly Holiday
I went out this morning for my first sunrise run of the year.
I'm no stranger to early-morning workouts, mind you. Summer training finds me on the road as early as 4:30 in the morning and winter training finds me in the gym at an equally ungodly hour. It's taken until the first week of May this year, however, to find the gumption to hit the pavement at the break of dawn.
I'd forgotten how perfect early morning running really is. Surreal, I'd even go so far to say. I wasn't more than a mile down the road when I was struck with the impression I was in the middle of the movie Mary Poppins when it goes from real-life to animation. You remember that part, right? When I was a kid, I wished over every birthday cake I ever ate that I could play in an animated world like that, even just for one day. And then I blew out the candles and opened packages of socks and underwear instead.
As I headed out that morning, the sun was barely peeking over the eastern horizon, illuminating the sky in subdued watercolor hues. The clouds were wispy, gently floating in the cool, crisp morning air. For just another hour or so, the atmosphere would be absolutely silent except for the sound of the chirping bluebirds and the red tulips opening their delicate petals to greet the azure sky. I think the birds could have been singing a Rob Zombie tune and it would have been the loveliest melody ever heard.
As I climbed the butte behind my neighborhood to run the farm hills above it, I saw six bunny rabbits casually sunning on the side of the road. (They weren't just regular rabbits... they were bunnies.) They eyed me cautiously then scampered quickly away before I could get too close to them. I startled a mallard duck out of the stream I was running alongside, fascinated by its brilliant colors as it flapped its wings in retreat. Even the farm horses grazing in their pastures seemed extraordinarily regal.
As I ran, lighter on my feet than I'd been in a very long time, I marveled at the sheer resplendence of it all. It may have taken thirty years, but I finally got my chance to play in an animated world. As the song goes, happiness was blooming all around me.
I'm just glad Dick Van Dyke didn't show up doing a tap dance in those creepy penguin pants.
