RUNNING

i appreciate that scooter recounts tales of jogging, for i am about to share one, too.

i've been running a lot lately, my rule of thumb is to run until i get too tired to run anymore, and then i stop. i live right beside the wetlands of the eastside, where salmonberries and lemonbalm and nettles grow like it's going out of style. thankfully the skunk cabbage went out of style; those enormous armpit-smelling, poisonous green leaves finally sunk beneath the overgrowth of the meadow that seemed to have replace what wetland i thought was

anyway, i was jogging the other day, round 3 pm and a huge snowy-gray owl flew right through the trees in front of me. i couldn't believe it was real, don't snowy-gray owls only come out at night? there she was, big as a kite, flying gracefully from one tree to the next. didn't think too much more of it after that.

a few days later i'm walking to the trail entrance and there's a buck standing right at the entrance, staring at me. he is still, not moving even as i get about 20 or 30 feet away. a biker rolls by me and asks if i know where the entrance to the wetland trail is. i point ahead and smile. he says thank you. he gets off his bike and heads towards it. the buck has not moved or stopped staring at me. i ask do you see that? he says no. i ask are you kidding? he looks confused. we walk closer to until we are literally 10 feet away and he says, oh, yeah, it's mating season. the buck looks through me as though he's on fire and turns around and disappears. i start running down the path because i don't want to trip out on bike bro anymore

these lasts weeks in olympia are filled with all this detached and heavy animal spirit shit, i don't really know what to make of any of it except my head is pretty clear and i'm going to miss those stinky wetlands a lot