We Run this Town

I was out the door of our Merida apartment at 5:30 AM. Under the sky dark with few peeks of stars, estrellas. I begin my pdaily run here. I love leaving from my door. Something I could do in Alaska. Something I miss dearly. Our home in CA has steep hills in both directions from my house. And after the first mile, the traffic could kill me.

Here I start running, a few steps from our apartment. I’m off the curb leaning to the right and down the dark street. I’m dark. I leave my headlight behind since Terry suggested it. Who wants a dead headlamp? I don’t. But Terry changed his mind last week after he saw the picture of the coral snake I came face to face with. But now this gives me something to prove. Really I don’t need a headlamp. I’m not afraid of a snake. At least not that one. It was dead.

This is my 17th day running this route. just before dawn, I run this town. The streets are crappy, but so much better that the streets of Santa Cruz County. In Corralitos, there are no street lights. Here there are the yellowish lights that we once had in the US, now replaced by the favored halogen and LEDs. They have robbed us of our stars.

Most of the houses are large and walled-in. The walls come up to the streets. Garage doors are huge, most are slated, so you can peek into the interior. During the day, you can glimpse someone hosing down the garage floor or lifting heavy weights in their home gym. You hear the exaggerated grunts of the Cross Fit régimen. Power and money are right here on these lackluster roads, for six miles and beyond. With ever thicker layers of walls, gates and security. Something there is about a wall. What are they walling in? And what are they walling out?

This early you hear a relay of dogs barking. It starts with one that sounds like a squeaky toy passed on to serious guard dog. “Stand back.”

Soon I see my first figure. The dark outline of the runner’s bob. “Buenas Dias.”

“Buen Día” and a clear thumbs up under the street light.