This Side

I started the run grumbling inwardly about the clingy chill in the air and the still-dark sky even though it was after seven in the morning. I started into a stiff trot earlier than I might have otherwise, eager to push blood down into my already tingly toes and shake off a travel-weary lethargy that dug its heels deep into the tidy sidewalk as it pulled against me, begging me to turn around and crawl back in bed. I didn’t, though not because of some great self-discipline but only because I was miserable after a frustrating night with a teething jetlagged baby and the achiness of grief and second to sleep, exercise is what most improves my outlook on life. So I pulled on my tennis shoes and a borrowed beanie cap with a bad attitude and set off on the first run I’ve had in a long time. One of the first since the trail by the small mountain behind my house in North Africa months ago. 

I set off down the quiet empty streets of this pleasant unfamiliar neighborhood. The perfectly laid sidewalk was marked with lines in the cement just beyond my stride so that my sleep-starved brain went into OCD overdrive counting footfalls in each section and on each crack. One, two, crack. One, two, crack. One, crack. One. One, two. One, crack. Quickly irritated by my own compulsion though I pulled my head up and tried to take in my surroundings instead. Beautiful brick houses stood at attention, their broad entryways adorned with American flags or pumpkins. Sprinklers hissed rhythmically, spraying arches of water across wide greenish lawns; in front of one or two less modest homes ornate fountains bubbled crystal clear water over carved stone and I had a fleeting image of women bringing jerry cans to these front yards and dipping dirty plastic into marble basins full of decorative water. Imagining the look on the faces of whoever stepped out of their front door to see women fetching water from their fountain made me laugh inside, in achy sort of way. I rounded the corner of a block and found myself at the edge of a beautiful park. There was a playground and park benches and a trail that ran over a bridge and around a pond. The sky was flushing pink at this point and geese honked overhead in flight, a very different sound from the hornbills that fly raucously over our house far away. Something about the moment struck me as lovely though and as I took in a deep breath and enjoyed the pang of cold air in my hot lungs I picked up my pace a little. My footfalls landed with hollow thuds across the wooden bridge and I savored the loneliness of the moment and the fact that there weren’t a dozen small children trotted alongside me crying out Khawaja, khawaja! Adini saa! The only children I could see were climbing into big cars with school backpacks on their backs and paid me no mind at all. I eventually passed two women in brightly colored athletic gear walking small dogs in tight jackets. They said a friendly hello and I wondered if they wondered if I was new to the neighborhood or not. (Yes, I thought. Very new.) Seeing their dogs reminded me of a conversation I had just had with a dear lady who has shown us incredible hospitality in the time we have been back. She was sharing the recent heartache of losing her golden lab to cancer, despite all their best efforts to extend his life through treatments. At the time I had perked up at her story. In a season when my life feels so disconnected from those of my peers, I jumped at the opportunity to engage in commonalities. I know how you feel! We recently lost a pet dog too. It’s so hard! But when the friend asked me what had happened to our dog I balked at what I had blindly stepped into. Uh, well…he started killing our neighbor’s goats so the police had to come put him down.

Oh no! They put him to sleep?

Sort of. They were going to shoot him but because of the war in our area you can’t just go around firing guns, so they tied him to a tree and beat his head in with a metal rod.

Oh.

It was really quick. 

After a couple laps around the park I veered back off into the neighborhood down a street called “Twelve Oaks.” The street ran on a slight incline and as my breath became deeper and my strides slower, the houses all blurred into periphery and my thoughts pushed their way back into sharper relief. I thought about stuff a lot. The stuff that we had to leave behind, the wedding presents, the books, the picture frames and clothes and a really awesome lime squeezer that I had some unexplainable attachment too. All gone. And I thought about all the stuff we have been given since we have been back in the States. The clothes, the cosmetics, the car seat and toys and mountains of baby clothes (Annabelle could change clothes three times a day and I would still not need to do laundry for a couple months.) People have generous beyond my ability to comprehend it. We have new stuff. Lots of new stuff. I thought about the predicament of grieving both the loss of old stuff and the acquisition of new stuff. I tried to figure out how to explain that, both to others and myself.

Just like always I sprinted the last stretch home, trying to extend my stride enough to have just one footfall in each sidewalk square. I finished my run just as the sun was climbing over the rooftops of the red brick houses and warming up the pavement below me. I doubled over for a moment trying to catch my breath and savored feeling good. Tired but better. A run did improve my outlook on life and I was happy to be neither sleepy nor achy, at least for a while. I walked the last block back to the house feeling hopeful. But I confess, for a moment, as I walked up the drive smelling Fall and hearing a distant train, I would have done anything for a whiff of breakfast fire smoke and the sound of little voices calling from behind me, khawaja, khawaja! Adini saa..