Groundhog Day

I've been getting up pretty early every morning, but this morning I found myself awake before 7:00 a.m., the lights lining the walkway still burning, the sky just beginning to turn pink.  So I went out and did my Tai Chi before sunrise, and then watched it rise out of the ocean in a perfectly clear sky.

The surf was very calm and the air was mild, and I walked up and down the beach a little ways just savoring the peculiar, magical, slightly misty pink and lavender light all around, the colored water washing in gently and the shells gleaming.  The only other person out was a woman and her dog, disappearing over the dunes into an adjoining house.  So very peaceful!

This is Groundhog Day, and I don't know what the weather was like where Punxsutawney Phil was, but I don't think he would have been frightened by the sunshine on this mild and cloudless day.  He might have even basked a little bit out on the beach.

It was Martha's idea to preview the Cocoa 5-K course, so we drove to the Convention Center five minutes away and did exactly that.  I have always  marveled at how runners can remember a course run in the past down to the tiniest detail; it all came back to us, including that winding sidewalk (not as long as I had remembered) and that long, straight, flat stretch down Evans Street, lined by pretty residences backing right up to the sound and shaded by big live oak trees.  It is a beautiful course, except for that 0.68 mile on the sidewalk.  Martha fell hard back in September and her knees still feel it, so she was wary of every little change in elevation at the sidewalk cracks, every water valve cover in the road, every tiny pothole, marking in her mind where they were.

We returned to a beautiful, mild, sunny day, so mild that we sat out on the balcony; and then we got our little folding chairs and walked down to the beach, and sat there all afternoon, just the other side of the dunes, reading our books.  My new Tana French books arrived yesterday - I love buying books from one of the few independent bookstores left - and I have been engrossed in The Likeness just as I was with Into the Woods, which Martha has now begun.  These books are very addictive!  The interesting thing is that, unlike most "murder series," the point of view of the characters changes with every book.  The narrator of the new book was a supporting characters in the last one, and sheds in retrospect a sightly different perspective on what happened. 

But I must say no more!  Martha must be kept in suspense until the final stunning revelation!  Shhhh!

And now as I am writing this I feel that slightly wonderful glow of perhaps getting a little too much sun.  I am glad I was not frightened by my shadow.