personal trainer

transition

What I left:

What I came home to:

OBX

I am sitting in a diner named Grits Grill along the Outer Banks in North Carolina (OBX for those in the know). It is early in the morning, so breakfast is served. It is the off-season, so the tables and booths are full of locals. It is the south, so they know one another and say, "Hey Ya'll," (pronounced with at least four syllables) when someone they recognize, or have never seen in their life for that matter, comes through the double glass doors. It is really the south, so the grits are white and creamy and tasty with nothing added and the waitresses wear t-shirts with "No Grits, No Glory" emblazoned on the back.

This is a typical coastal tourist town. The colorful beachfront homes are raised over garages and topped by small decks facing the ocean. Most of them appear empty except for the occasional carpenter working to get the premises ready for the seasonal flood of northern sun worshipers. The stores that sell t-shirts (4 for $20), surfboards, swimsuits, shells, bumper stickers, ships-in-bottles, postcards, and flasks of sand, are open, but their expansive parking lots are empty save for a single car parked near the front door. I can't help but think of some high school dropout manning the silent cash register and wishing he or she was sitting behind a desk in school conjugating verbs. Sand piles up along sidewalks, fills nooks and crannies, and buries unused steps that lead toward barren beaches. If OBX was in Arizona there would be tumbleweed blowing between the parked boats and under the signs over empty businesses that read, "C'yall in April."

Despite all of this deadness, there is an ever-present sound that is like the distant hum of a small plane. It is the beating of the ocean on the cold beach and I am keenly aware of it. On Monday I was in Cowtown, Ohio. It was midwinter. There was snow on the ground and ice on my windows. In a short ten hours I was transfigured from slogging through snow to sifting through sand. From hearing the scrape of shovel on concrete to listening enraptured as surf met shore all nightlong. As soon as possible, I am walking down the beach in absolute solitude...literally miles of the OBX shore all mine...the changing colors of the sky and sea, the shuffling head-down stroll looking for shells and sea stuff, the curvy walk as one plays tag with incoming surf, the longing glance "out there" and the desire to wander, the trolling dolphins, and the constant, steady rhythm of the waves beating back all rival sounds. I drink in great draughts with all my senses knowing this is but a little oasis in a great, beckoning-day-after-tomorrow winter desert that will reclaim me like the forest an abandoned campsite.

Which brings me back to the Grits Grill. An older couple greets a middle-aged pair of ladies as they are seated a couple tables away. The chatter quickly turns to the day's events and the ladies announce they are headed to a distant metropolis large enough to sport a mighty fine mall they can't wait to stroll and peruse. The older couple voices their pleasure at the prospect and announces that said mall possesses enough floor space to accomplish their daily walking regimen. In fact, they would like to move to an apartment over a mall so they can walk and shop everyday. The middle-age ladies voice their pleasure at such a prospect as walking, exercising, and shopping all at the same time. They talk as if there is no place else to walk. As if there are not miles of empty beach a few hundred yards away. "If I lived here," I am saying to myself, "I would be on that beach everyday."

Really?

entomology

Jay and I attended the Scarlet & Grey Ag Day at The Ohio State University today.  Along with the rest of his fifth grade class, we learned all about corn-based plastics and fuel, soy, making ice cream, and lots of other stuff, to include bugs--the latter by far the biggest hit with the guys and maybe two girls.  The keeper of the bug zoo at Ohio State is a guy named George.  He came to the classroom armed with a case full of plastic containers crawling with some of the most amazing bugs in the world.  We saw the world's largest cockroach, a tarantula, a black widow, a tanzanian scorpion, stick bugs, hissing beetles, and the giant african millipede (pictured here).  They crawled, flew, hissed, layed eggs, and emitted odious smells to our great delight.  The words "intelligent design" and "magnificent creator" danced around my mind as the kids ooohed, aaahed, and screamed.  But this was design that went far beyond simply intelligent...it was extravagant, creative beyond belief, excessive, mind-boggling, eye-popping, exponentially diverse, and you fill in the adjective.  What a great experience!