There is a tree by Sullivans Pond that, every year, is the first to signal with blazing yellow the coming of Autumn. In deepening September nights, Fall chooses this tree among all trees to lay herself down beneath – her icy dream whispers tremble through its leaves – her secret revelations turn them gold. This special tree is Autumn’s herald of swelling gourds and startlingly blue skies. It is the light-gathering beacon of Nova Scotia’s finest season.
As Summer wanes, each morning, in the lingering chill, as I gently stretch before a run, I’ll watch this tree, waiting for the first burst of yellow. Often, it comes all at once, unseen.
There is a deep stillness at the heart of autumn, a sense of peace and contentment that descends only after the frost touches that first tree – a final convincing consolation: even though warmth and growth will soon be lost, everything is okay. I can believe this consolation in autumn; I can feel it.
Some runners need variety. They need loop courses; they need to explore new vistas, new paths – otherwise, their running gets stale. I can understand where those runners are coming from. I too love to use a run to explore new sights. But my opportunities for novelty are somewhat limited because I don’t own a car. I could take the bus to new locales, but the amount of time and planning involved makes the thought unpalatable. Instead, I run the same out-and-back routes day after day, season after season, and I love it.
What I’ve come to notice after three years of running in Dartmouth along the shores of Lake Banook and up the Shubie Trail as far as Waverly is that the concept of “the same” is, at heart, meaningless. Sure, in a rough way, I run the “same” route – but nothing about the route is really ever the same. Nothing.
In fact, I find I get a deeper feel for seasonal changes by paying attention to how my route is different on each run. I watch for the first fragile spring flowers and waxy buds, for summer’s exuberance as the forest canopy fills in the sky (and sometimes messes with my Garmin’s satellite connection!), for that blazing yellow tree by the glassy waters of Sullivans Pond, and for the emptiness of bare tree limbs scratching the tinny winter sky. I feel an intimacy with the life that flows and changes and surrounds me along my route – and each twist and turn and uphill and downhill is now like an old friend. In fact, I’ve named most of the kilometre splits along the way – like 5k hill and 7k bay. When my Garmin goes wonky, it’s no problem – I know precisely how far from the bench in Sullivans Pond I am.
My running, then, helps me to stay in touch with the basic rhythms of the natural world, which keeps me grounded much more than the city rhythms of traffic and street lights. I do love new running routes, and I do love to explore, but I’ve come to appreciate the familiarity I have with my route. Paradoxically, though, it’s a familiarity that lacks essential sameness: it’s in a vague sense the same, but different in its essential details each time I run. Familiarity doesn’t seem to be about grasping some kind of static essence; rather, it seems to be a kind of traveling with, a following along – a long run with a friend under endless lapis lazuli skies.
My out-and-back route, then, has taught me that, at heart, the world really is impermanent – only our concepts about it seem to stay the same. Further, running in autumn has made me realize that there is a sadness at the heart of all things – a constant leave-taking, a constant departure. But somehow it’s okay. Somehow that’s the only way life can unfold.
Today, the blazing yellow of the Sullivans Pond tree is scattered among the grass and along the bottom of the pond – not only are its leaves the first to change, but they are also the first to fall – being chosen has its costs. Still, the autumn colours do have a couple of strong weeks to play with the light before all the leaves are lost… this year. I have a little time to enjoy the bright stand of birches at kilometre 8 and the tamaracks at 9.5km.
I look forward to visiting them like old friends.
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