Walking Again

So I find myself walking every day, wishing I could be running, but trying not to lose any fitness in the meantime.  The visual acuity in my right eye is gradually returning.  At first it was like this:

But day by day it clears more and more, and my left eye is already nearly 20/20.  So what a beautiful, clear world it is as I walk and walk and walk around Highlands!

I realize, as I did back in February and was also relegated to walking, that there is an entirely different perspective for a walker to discover.  The world does not whiz by (although that may be an exaggeration at my pace these days) so much as it approaches in stately procession.  These beautiful rhododendron, right on our regular running route on Smallwood Avenue near Harris Lake, are just arresting in their beauty:

And I was able to get off of Horse Cove Road, where I am accustomed to running right down the middle, and walk on this quiet, shady pathway instead. ducking my head often to pass under low-handing branches.

Who would even know that this pathway exists?  Perhaps a runner should deliberately take at least one day a week and simply walk where he normally runs, looking at the world in a more intentional and mindful way, appreciating its beauty at a slower and more close-up perspective.

And are there any city runners out there, stumbling upon this blog, green with envy?  Yes, I am thankful that I live here in Highlands, and don't have to pound the sidewalks alongside busy streets. 

More Bitter Medicine

Close followers of this blog (which I number in the low single digits) may remember my post on February 25, four days after cataract surgery, in which I bemoaned Doctor's orders that I could not run for many days; the layoff turned out to be ten days, but I managed to walk nearly every day and went to the gym frequently, so that I did not lost much fitness.  In fact, it might have been a good thing for this aging body to rest from the strain on joints and ligaments for a few days.

That's how I will look at it, anyway, following cataract surgery this morning on my right eye - oculus dexter.   Dr. Secosan pleaded with me not to use any Latin, but I really wanted to find out what O.D. and O.S. (oculus sinister) meant on those arcane-looking eyeglass prescription forms.  Surgery went well, and I only pray that this eye will recover as well as the left eye did - 20/25 vision and (more importantly for this glaucoma patient) pressure of 10 or 12.  There is a chance that the filter created by my 1997 trabeculectomy surgery, which has kept that pressure so enviously low with no medication whatsoever, could close up as the eye over-reaches in its effort to heal the small incision made for the cataract removal and lens implant.

There is a greater lesson in that - can we heal too much, I wonder? - but I'm not going to try to unravel it now.  Now I only want to do what the post op instructions instructed me to do:  "Spend your first day relaxing at home:  Watch TV, read, or talk to a friend."

Tomorrow I will start walking miles and miles and miles.

Mother's Day

Yesterday we had Martha's Mom and Dad down for a pre-Mother's Day luncheon - the two mothers posed on our deck as the first few sprinkles of rain appeared, forcing us to eat inside:

Today, Mother's Day proper, Martha and I took off in the Mini in a long ramble, beginning with a picnic lunch on the Davidson River, then past Looking Glass Falls to the Cradle of Forestry and a one- or two mile hike, up to Pisgah Inn, a drive down the Blue Ridge parkway, back down Highway 215 to Rosman, and finally ending up at Whitewater Falls. 

What a glorious day!  And my fit wife and I walked up that trail at Whitewater Falls and down all those steep steps, then back up again, barely out of breath.

It's nice to be in such good shape - from running and everything else we do - that we don't hesitate when we approach a new trailhead.  Because new trailheads lead to new adventures, and new sights like this lovely waterfall!

Home Again

The weather in Highlands, when we returned home, was ideal for running - bright, cloudless blue skies, temperatures in the 80s, and all the hostas twice as tall as when we left.  And the lawn - it is summer again when I wrestle once again with what I call "lawn" but is actually a wide variety of plant matter mixed with various types of grass.

Yesterday I went up to run after completing the usual post-vacation errands - paying bills, doing laundry - and caught up with Derek, Skip, and Morris.  It is nice to run with friends again!  And to be back in Highlands, rambling around in a lazy 6-mile run circling back around Lower Lake Road, where it is shady and green and cool.

Our beautiful Town!  Dressed, for May, in a thousand shades of green - absolutely  beautiful.

And in our bed at night, there is absolute silence here in our quiet little valley.  Except . . . what is that distant, rhythmic, faraway noise?  I sometimes think I can still hear the crash of the ocean at night . . .

Departure

This is our last morning here, and we had some surprises.  I was drinking my coffee on the deck when I noticed a fit young man running by wearing a camel-pack.  Then I saw him again - or was it another?  It turns out there were several of them, and then a woman or two.

I realized that an event was going on, and a brief search on my computer informed me that we were watching the OBX Ultramarathon, which began at the Corolla Lighthouse this morning at 5:00 a.m. and ends in Kitty Hawk - 50-K (31 miles), and exactly ten times farther than I raced last Saturday.  The sun is up now and it is a little warm, and these athletes have my complete admiration.  How humbling to see them out here, running in sand, for such a long distance, with only the occasional quizzical glances from oceanfront dwellers like ourselves, and no applause at all!

While we were still watching the runners, Martha spotted some porpoises out in the surf, leaping and glistening in the morning sunshine.  We both tried to take some photos, and I even tried a movie on my phone, but with no success.  I have never been able to photograph these magnificent creatures - they look like little dark spots on the camera.

But to us, they loomed large in the morning surf, a fitting end to our little vacation our here.

So now I will shut this blog down for a couple of days, pack up the computer, and head back up the road to Highlands.

The Big Sky

Last night we had these delicious crabcakes with hushpuppies and spinach at Martha's kitchen:

And while we were eating, we were treated to this spectacular display outside the window of pink cloud and ocean, just while the sun was setting - it had been cloudy and rainy most of the day, and suddenly the sky seemed to open up and everything was transformed with purples and deep pinks.

This morning, the sky looked like this at sunrise - you could tell the sun was rising, but it was back behind a veil of thick thunderclouds, which made a kind of crimson tapestry all along the horizon:

There is a ragged line of cloud out to sea over the nearby pier, and whitish sky beyond that:

The ocean is just immense here, of course - we listened to it all night, with the bedroom window open.  But the big, big sky is always changing and always new.  In our narrow little valley in the mountains, way back in Clear Creek, we sometimes forgot how big the sky can be.

Seafood

One of the delights of staying here is the fresh seafood.  It's plentiful, healthy, low-fat, low-carb, and loaded (I like to imagine) with good things like fish oil.  Last night, Martha prepared bay scallops (caught just a little way up the coast), lightly sauteeing them with spinach, with a serving of tomato pie, a specialty of Dockside 'N Duck.

Tonight we're going to have crab cakes, freshly made at Dockside 'N Duck.  With food this fresh and close at hand, and an excellent chef in Martha, we seldom go to any of the fine restaurants here.

Today's weather was like yesterday's - a little bit of sun teasing us out, and then showers off and on most of the afternoon.  (This does not interfere with the consumption of seafood, however, or the reading of British mysteries!).  It was the perfect afternoon to go up to Corolla to see (in between the rain showers) the Currituck Lighthouse and outbuildings, the little Island Village with its bookstore, and the Whalehead Club with its little arched bridge, a photograph of which hangs in our house.  Every year we end up going here and taking the same photos, but I never tire of this place.