Sunday Long Run: Checking in with La Mer

I forgot the temps dropped overnight:  by the time I saw morning light,  we were in the 60's, but a clear sky allowed the sun to brighten and warm the air through a chilly breeze.  I drove and staged just east at the new Publix, so I could pick up a few things after,  and ran down Sheridan to pick up the the road to Dania Beach blvd and the long lazy stretch to the beach.  It was just cool enough - but not too chilly for me,  as I tried to get a gait going,  still stiff from Saturday's nice Griffin loop. 

Traffic was light,  and my half-asleep head meandered around the landscape,  the hedgerows along the waterway,  a 'dragon-boat 'with crew heading south as the light sparkled off the intercoastal,  making a pit-stop at Dania Beach before picking it up again down Surf Road.
I'm having nostalgia attacks on these runs-  how many more times on THIS route,  seeing THESE little landmarks I have come to know and cherish all these years living here?  I'm sacrificing many little treasures, as we all must when we move- or change....we all lay down what has become so familiar,  knowing we are picking up new, hidden treasures which wait for us in our new 'place' - whether a home or in our awareness and understanding.

So beneath the nostalgia of losses was excitement, anticipation...the road is leading me....to what?  I have an idea- but there are many new runs in front of me - still to the beach- following meandering side streets -except it won't be my cherished Griffin loop or Dania Beach runs any more. 

There was a charity walk at North Park.  Despite the people traffic, I had an amazing rhythm going as I headed into my last pit-stop and took in the ocean....

watching the quiet colors of morning bleed into air and water while the palms swung in the breeze.   Hollywood gave me my career, my home and a place to help my parents exit this world.  I've packed and sorted the million little items of my life into their boxes and wait now to land in the next place....I inhabit this transitional zone like the beach itself, eroding my old dreams,  disappointments and losses into the wide mouth of the crashing surf, taking it all away to churn up again - with new dreams and ambitions- some place else. 

As I headed back west to the car,  I had more energy and speed than I've felt for some months!  Was I catalyzed by the changes?  Did my feet know more than my head,  pointing themselves with confidence ever forward?  Leaving things,  no matter how hard, will always comes with sadness.  But what I've gained has served me well:  after all,  it was here I became a runner!