Progymnasmata

This weekend my family and I traveled south for a weekend vacation. I won't tell you where we went, but I will tell you about something that I did and the memories stirred from it.

So, without fail, every other day, I go for a four-mile run. Rain, snow, vacation or routine. . . . I run.

For many years now, I've run the roads of my northern home and have familiarized myself with the trees and vegetation along my route: quaking aspen, red oak, jack pine, red pine, white pine, long-toothed aspen, alternate leaf dogwood, red and silver maples. . .are most of the trees that grow along the roadsides here. Throw in a few white spruce and black spruce (in the lowlands) and balsam firs and my woods are pretty well named in this short list. The northern climate is hard on life; the trees that grow wild here have to meet the challenges of extreme cold and poor soil. Few can do it successfully. The woods, even at the peak of summer, are sparse.

Only a short distance (150 miles) to the south, however, the climate is much more nurturing. And biodiversity flourishes there.

Inderlude: A FlashBack
Some years ago, when I lived and worked near my Walden, I spent much time in the woods of the East Coast, USA. I made it a part of my life to know the trees by name. Names bestow life and meaning to almost anything so honored to have one. Without a name, the trees and I are truly nothing. End Interlude

So, back to my vacation run. The woods there were composed almost exactly like those I frequented in my East Coast days: More oaks (white, black, red, pin) -- young American Elms, cursed by history to die young, grew with a surprising fecundity next to the dead carcasses of their brothers and sisters along the road I ran. Grape vines looped through the branches. The tough and hardy jack pine, was almost no where to be seen (his dominion being elsewhere). And fewer pines in general gave the woods a jungle aspect. A rich understory of sumac made woods dense and dark.

As I ran past these woods, I thought back to my running in the East, past these same trees communities now many miles and many years away.

Those days in the East were fertile and thick with youth and new experiences. And running past a living woods that hearkened me back to that time was like peering into an old photograph and having the people in the image suddenly sport about and make sound.

It was refreshing to run past those old woods. But I did not stop to wander them. I had to get back to my family.

Like a quick, crisp swim in a cold lake, I loved the flush of emotions I felt as I ran past that old forest. I was on vacation.

But the best part of that run? Like the swim in the cold lake, the best part is getting out, getting warm, and moving on.

"Did you enjoy your run?" my wife asked.

"Daddy, done nunning?" my young child asked.

"Thoroughly enjoyed it. And I'm done for nunning today. Now, who wants to go to the water park!?" I replied.