Relax, just relax

It's odd to write a post about a calm Oakland morning while in the Brooklyn bluster of Hurricane Sandy, but that's where I was then, and this is where I am now, and here I go.

I stayed on East Coast time the whole time I was in Cali, which is to say the entire 44 hours. That meant that I went to bed early and woke up before it was light. The day I left, I woke up at 4:30, and I wrote and packed, and then I decided to go out for a run in the dark, quiet Oakland streets. Running doesn't tend to bring me pure joy because I first have to contend with sore knees and tight hips, but as I was running along, I suddenly had the realization that I could relax. Relax while running. I don't think I ever considered this before. And as I went along, I first relaxed my calves, and then my shoulders, and then my hips, and then my quads, and then my mid back, and literally just like being in some yoga relaxation class I went through my whole body WHILE RUNNING and it was amazing. I ran along like that until my lungs got too tight, and I tried to relax them, but that didn't go as well.

But while I was running, and smelling the eucalyptus and seeing the first light start to form in the sky, I had a deep sense of well-being, which I might also be a sense of joy.