The gyms are closed, but the trails are open, and on Saturday, I laced up my shoes and went for a run. The sun shone brightly (as it does most days now) but the temperatures are still cool enough that snow and ice linger in the longest shadows. Along the warmest, most sheltered sections, I saw a chipmunk scurry across the path into the trees, butterflies fluttering about in golden streams of light, a small garter snake bathing in the warming rays of the sun, and a blue heron lift majestically into the air above the river, flowing parallel. I couldn't help but wonder,"What if we are the infection, and the Earth is just trying to heal herself?"

*****

I am a runner, and have been since my Freshman year in high school. You'll never hear my name in association with winning any medals, or breaking any records or once thought human barriers. But those feats, although impressive and worthy of admiration, do not make one a runner. It's something infinitely more personal and far more simple, and yet, complicated, all at the same time. I run. Therefore, I am a runner.

My legs become restless when they have gone too long between miles. My feet ache as much to feel the Earth rising up to meet them, as they do when she has met them over and over again and again, forming callouses on their soles and blisters on my toes that never seem to heal. For the Earth has never failed to catch me when I fall, as so many others have. And so, I return to her trails, and roads - the scars we have carved into her face - to feel her rising up to meet me, again.

My mind finds more clarity with each familiar step, as I reach my stride, and then

peace as thoughts, which once plagued me, fall away and I am left with only the task of navigating the terrain that lies immediately in front of me.

My heart beats within my chest, and blood flows through my veins, rich with the oxygen my lungs take in with each carefully trained breath. My entire body, makes the transition from my usual momentum to the pace of my run as easily as a fish slips back into the sea, when released from the fisherman's hook. Running is not my second nature. It is not just something I do. It is something I am. It is as much a part of me as the very body which makes it possible. I am a runner.

For two years, in middle school, I woke up early every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday to attend a voluntary "conditioning" program, facilitated by a beloved gym teacher and high school basketball coach. My Dad would take me, on his way to work, and when the season was right (so that the sun was rising during our ten minute drive into town) he would tell me how he'd painted the sky just for me. It is one of my fondest memories, with my Father.

Last night, SJ told me he wanted to watch the sunrise. So this morning, I quietly crept into his bedroom, at a quarter to seven, and woke him. Wrapped in blankets, to keep the cool morning air from kissing our still bed-warmed skin, we sat together, faces turned to gaze at the horizon through the big east facing windows in our front room.

I found myself watching him, more than the soft orange glow slowly rising above the hills, surrounding our sleepy little town. He watched the birds flitting about in the trees nearest our front windows, and those across the street in our neighbors' yards. Their songs filled the quiet where the usual sounds of a neighborhood waking up, to get ready for work and school, has faded away with the world we lived in yesterday. And then it happened.

*****

I have watched the sunrise over the crystal blue waters of the Caribbean Sea, and I have seen its first morning reflection in mountain lakes, surrounded by evergreen trees. But, for as long as my lungs alternately fill and empty of air, I will remember the magical moment when that bright golden orb first peaked over the horizon, and my seven-year-old stood in silent awe. If only for a second, I swear this beautifully chaotic world stood still. Then, as quickly as it stopped spinning, it began again.

Life is just a series of Earth stopping moments. Wake up and paint the sky.

I was a freshman in college, before I understood how accustomed to the noise around us we become. Moving from a house ten miles outside of a small rural town, into an apartment near a university, and then back home again for the holidays, made me aware of this truth.

At the beginning of the school year I found it difficult to sleep. The sounds of traffic and unknown voices, so close to my window, were completely foreign to my mind. But, eventually, I acclimated to my new environment and presumed I'd have no trouble sleeping when I returned home for the holidays. By then, however, I was so accustomed to the sounds around my apartment, that the silence which enveloped my parents' home was deafening.

*****

Last night I was reminded of this, when something woke me, just before midnight. My legs felt restless, wanting to run, as they haven't been able to for days. And although they certainly didn't help me fall back to sleep, I knew they hadn't interrupted my slumber. It was the deafening sound of small town America being all to quiet under a prescription of social distancing. 

And I suddenly understood why the people of Italy sing from their windows and balconies. My heart aches for them and the people of other nations, already hit harder by this nightmare. The silence of empty streets is temporary, but the silence of loved ones gone is forever.

This morning, the sky felt heavy - dark and overcast in a thick blanket of gray - as I desperately tried to explain to Liv why she couldn't play with her friends today or any other day in the near future. And while the clouds were able to hold the weight of the water they carried, those words were just too much for her slender little frame. With each tear that fell silently down her porcelain cheeks, my heart unraveled a little more.

"But I just got better," she whispered through muffled sobs.

*****

We'd already been doing our part. I'd kept her home and inside while she ran a low grade fever. For a week, she'd missed dance class and playing with her friends, when they came home from school. It's not easy to slow down, when you're ten-years-old and so full of passion for life and living.

But, by noon, the sun emerged from the curtain of clouds that had covered it and, even though it's still cool outside, we opened the windows for fifteen minutes to let in the light and fresh air. 

In the garden, the snowdrops are blooming, and they remind me that, just like winter, this new storm can't last forever. And when it's over, we'll bloom again, too.