Like the Snow Melting

I am thrilled that it's finally Spring again. 

This season is intoxicating. I have lunch fifth period and I just went on a walk. I went straight out the big front doors and wandered the streets surrounding the high school for forty or so minutes before my Pavlovian sense of the impending bell brought me back.  

The flowers are blooming on the trees right now. And Ohio's warm humid air makes it possible to smell them without stopping to. The aroma hangs in the air, lingering on the tip of your tongue, so strong that it's a taste. 

As well as bringing flowers and severe senioritis, Spring also ushered in my birthday. I turned 18 this Sunday. I was still awake at our prom-after party, but very tired since I'd gotten up at 6 am on Saturday morning. Some girls from church and I ran CAP City Half-Marathon together. Several Chinese fire drills and one horror film after midnight, I finally got to bed after 23 hours straight of activity.

They say the effects of sleep deprivation are a little bit like being intoxicated. What better way to usher in adulthood than feeling incredibly hung-over?

Just Finished my 3rd Half! So that's one-and-a-half marathons? right?

Washington Crossing the Delaware - In Style (from Prom)

Katherine and I went to Spring Flea to celebrate my birthday today. It's an open air market which appeared for the weekend in a parking lot off Third Avenue. It had a Woodstock vibe with clothing retail out of hippie VW's. We bought cake pops there because they seemed festive (Unfortunately I couldn't fit 18 candles onto mine - not to say I didn't try).

And another less exciting mark of the season that AP exams begin. I have my first one starting tomorrow. My last AP tests I'll ever take. This spring which is full of so much freshness and beginnings, but it has a lot of endings too. Endings like the snow melting and the last of the Christmas lights reluctantly coming down. 

I'm leaving Ohio in about a month now, high school will be over and I'll be starting at BYU in the fall. 

Peanut Butter Sandwiches

Sometimes, friendship is as simple as saving that peanut butter sandwich. When you are both full of strength in your legs, but left with empty heaving bellies, one can turn to the other. Without question you tear the sandwich in half. It doesn't matter to me which side you take both say to the other. Because it's not about self.

It's about the concrete steps that you sit on together, chilly on your butt through your leggings. It's about the sunshine and the remnants of conversation strewn between the both of you and the miles you just traveled - free as the steps you pound out on the sidewalk and as rambling as the paths you run.

*For about a year, my friend Sam and I would run together every day. Long runs, to prepare for cross country season or long-distance track. There was always a peanut butter sandwich - actually given to Sam by Emma (another friend) during lunch because she didn't like them. It became tradition for Sam and I, every day to wait until after our tiring run to split the sandwich in half and share it - continuing our conversations. 

Runner

Can you imagine if stars only happened only once every fifty years? We would all probably just stand outside, staying up all night to watch them. We would soak them up with awe.

When I run they are always there though, so instead of peering curiously at them, I let them peer down at me. I focus on my ragged breathing - in through my nose, out through my mouth. I focus on the rhythm of the music pounding in my ears and try to keep my feet in tempo, even when my legs are aching.

I adore running on the snow, where my feet are the first feet to ever fall. It makes me feel like an explorer of a new fantastic world. I feel like an astronaut on the moon - "one small step for man..."

I think that if I could run to the moon, I would. If I could run all the way to the stars up in sky then I would. And once I was there, in distance space on my star, I would turn around to look at the earth. Imagine seeing earth for the first time in your life like that like a cut out circle from black construction paper. I think I would just stand and stare at it. I would soak up that picture of earth in awe.