US Grant

I will always think of this as Xtie's run, especially on a cold day in (not-quite) July. Three summers ago I had what was--in hindsight--a truly delightful month: mornings with toast and eggs and coffee and yogurt and TdF, days working in coffee shops or Van Pelt, bike rides and picnics up in the Wissahickon, dinners with gazpacho, fish, or risotto, always a good salad. Nights driving my housemates crazy watching all nine hours of Ken Burns (good ol' Ed Bearss, the awful! Barbara Fields, and... my favorite... Shelby Foote) with Ben & Jerry's, tea, + Bordeaux. But, alas, the month did not seem happy at the time. In fact, I was f%#@ing miserable. Lolo's death at the start of May hit me hard and I'd only just started to process it. They found his tumor in January and I'd spent that winter and spring schlepping down to DC/Balto every weekend I could to be with him, Tita, and Lola as he did chemo at Hopkins. The last two weeks, when he was supposed to be recovering, I was cramming for my prelims ... and then bang, bang, bang he fell, broke his hip, and his heart couldn't cope. It turned out that the last time I saw him was on Easter Monday when I wheeled him over to the hospital before running to catch the train back to Philly. Lolo dying also triggered what ended up being long journey coming to (non)-terms with Dad's family 2.0. And a difficult first year of grad school didn't help either, I'm sure. The end result of all this stuff was that, for the first time in my adult life, I felt real unhappiness. For a boy who had lived a charmed and silly-crazy-happy life until then, it was bewildering. I wish I'd had someone to talk to. But I didn't. And not understanding or knowing how to deal with all these new feelings, I took it out on the one thing in my life that was actually constant but I thought had changed... Aww, sad.

Oof. That was a little more introspective and melancholy than I expected. Don't get me wrong: every one is very happy now and stronger for it, and agrees that it was definitely for the best and all that. If I feel still feel bad, it is only for not understanding myself and for having pushed a good friend away.

Anyway, running! That summer I was obsessed with trying to regain some hops, so I used to run the mile and a half up to AM and do plyo stuff and Xtie would always continue up to US Grant and catch me on the way home. A few times I joined for a "long run" and to see the statue of the great (drunk) Union man. I paid him another visit today.