Adjustment

The house is quiet. I walk through the silent halls past boxes full of things that are not mine. Pictures, collections, records, books, household items- rooms full and still. The first hint of morning light is straining through the large windows, arriving only after fighting for space among the large trees and leaves of the forest. I slide into my running clothes and shoes and step outside. The air inside is climate-controlled at 74 degrees Fahrenheit, but when I leave, it’s warmer and much more humid. Similar to the house, all is still. The hum of morning insects and morning commuters in the distance fills the soggy air. I start running down the street.



My first stretch of pavement is gradually uphill through the subdivision hugging Lewis Avenue, off Main Street. I then take a right and slide past local businesses- a diner, the local fire department, local attorneys, and a roundabout with the old county courthouse standing tall directly in the center. I wave at a fellow morning running and take another right at the local elementary school. The sidewalk disappears and I’m on a tiny, winding, shoulder-less road headed for the local park with trails. My shirt has been swept off my body, my sweat is starting to thicken- and I’m only one mile into the run.



Even at this time of day, traffic is heavy. Vehicle after vehicle drives in the opposite direction of me, headed for jobs to feed their family. Vehicle after vehicle drives past me in the same direction, most driven by high schoolers or parents of high schoolers, headed to the park for morning cross country practice. Somewhere in the distance, the sun has cracked the horizon, but underneath the impressive canopy, light is still a rare commodity.



I daydream while I run. This morning, like most mornings, my mind drifts away to the badlands of western North Dakota. A zig-zagging little single-track trail carves into a hillside and disappears over a ridge. I’m running effortlessly along it, underneath the warm summer sun. The dry breeze glides over me and wipes away my puny beads of sweat forming on my forehead. I recall every creek crossing, hill, and refreshing-but-seldom shade. The smell of juniper hangs heavy over the valleys, and a western meadowlark sings its song on a nearby fenceline. There are no people.



On my run today, my sweat is starting to overtake what little dry areas I have remaining. My skin is like a salamander in the mud, and after running through two short but steep valleys, my legs and breathing labor slightly. I enter the park and head for the trails. I run past the Mathews County high school cross team, warming up and preparing for practice, staring at me as if they’ve never seen another runner on these trails. I haven’t even seen another runner here either, so it’s likely a warranted response. I run through a few impressively large spider webs and coat my glistening skin with freshly woven silk. After a short time, my watch hits 30 minutes, and it’s time to head back- to leave.



It’s hard to leave a place. My first few days in Virginia, I had difficulty with being away from my ‘homeland’ and family. However, with a positive attitude and a desire to interact with people, things started to brighten up. Through school and church I met kind, welcoming people, and was immediately accepted into tight circles. The overwhelming fear I had slowly dissipated and was replaced with a timid curiosity. I felt like a cat, who when they are introduced to a new place, may hide in one spot for quite a while, before slowly wandering around in fascinated fear. It took me more than a week before I finally left the town I was living in, but it was for a race- I needed to check out the local running scene.



As I continued down the morning road, parents were still brining their youth to practice, and other parents were driving back to town after dropping off their youth. Commuters were still appearing from their little developments, looking at me my soaked body with disinterested glances. In the quiet moments in between cars, I let my mind wander again; this time it did not rest in North Dakota. I was thinking about local upcoming races and racers I now wanted to beat. What would it take to rise to the top around here? Where are the good races? Where can a guy find some good cross country around here? It had felt good to go to a race where I knew exactly no one. Racing in North Dakota always brought some sort of expectation, because there was always someone who knew me and what I was capable of, but here I was another sweaty body at the start line. There’s still a part of me that wishes to be back in the open grasslands, but I’ve been able to focus more steadily on the world around me every day.  



As I came into town, my mind aflush with new ideas and my body aflush with perspiration, I started thinking about the day- upon returning home I had one hour to do strides, shower, change, eat, pack, and drive 10 minutes to school. I looked down at my right leg and noticed a stream of white foam coming out of my black running shorts and down the side of my leg. I guess now I can say there has been two times in my life I’ve activated excess laundry detergent in my shorts from sweat. I run past the local diner and see some old men chatting over coffee and wondered what old men at the local diner discuss here in southeastern Virginia. I turn back and head downhill to the house, the one that used to belong to Ingrid’s grandmother. She still has many things in there, and it is quiet. I haven’t seen Ingrid in 13 days, but on this morning, she’s leaving from Minnesota with a trailer full our stuff, a pickup with two confused and terrified cats, and her two parents that have graciously given us their time to assist in the move.  I finish my run and start walking. My shirt is heavy from wiped-off sweat, and my shoes make little squishy sounds from the water that had nowhere to go once my socks became waterlogged.



Everything is different here, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. Life can be just as good or better here as compared to North Dakota- trust me, I’ve been repeating that to myself for almost two weeks now. Time to get ready for school, my trusty break from the quiet loneliness of the house.



Once I head outside, ready for school, I walk up to the pickup. I look at the bug-covered ND license plates, the dirt-covered sides, and the hand-written messages on the tailgates- all etched out in the gravel dust that you can’t find among all the paved roads here. I smile. I will be ok here.  

Goin Out To Eat

In 2016, the Boston College Men's basketball team finished off their season, albeit not a very good one. After the last game, it was time to do interviews. Senior Dennis Clifford had just played his final game with the team, and he was asked what he would take away as his best memory at BC. Clifford paused, stuttered out "Probably, just like..." and tapered off. He put his head down and was motionless and silent for quite awhile. When he finally brought his head back up, his face was flushed and tears welled up around his eyes. He managed to choke out "going out to eat" before putting his head back down.

In the time following, many people made jokes out of what he had said; how can a person reduce a successful, D1 basketball career to food? In reality, it's likely that he was processing everything outside of basketball. It's easy to think of athletes only in terms of what they do in competition, or even in practice, but this ignores much of the story. A true team stays a team in all areas- competition and practice yes- but also travel, meals, class, locker room, and even the dorms or houses they share. It's likely that this man shared so many fun experiences with his teammates while eating out that he was affected most by realizing that was gone. Myself, I miss the long hours of playing foosball with my teammates in the locker room. The main idea here is that it's easy to get wrapped up in the big things, but the small things we miss a lot more.

I'm in Virginia now. This was a major change in all aspects in my life, especially the weather with it's incredible humidity right now. While I dwell in this new place, I have many times found myself wishing for or missing the little things. In terms of running, I never realized how much I took for granted wide enough roads to run on, and I definitely did not spend enough time being grateful for our chill and tame spiders back home. After a week of finding places to run in a world of skinny, winding, shoulder-less roads, I've learned that parks with trails are the best bet. After a week of covering the upper half of my body with spider webs every day while trail running, I've learned to keep my head down.

In the rest of day, I miss seeing the sky and the clouds, because the incredible size of the trees here makes that difficult; I miss gravel roads and the open countryside; and I even at times have found myself missing the blowing snow that we likely will never get here.

Leaving camp was particularly hard. With nine summers at Camp of the Cross Ministries under my belt, I find myself hard-pressed to find a summer I more thoroughly enjoyed than this one, be it the advent of lawn chairs in the front of the wellness center, where I could stop and enjoy a peaceful evening exhale, the large number of supercampers that chose to be on staff this year, the lack of shoes on my feet most of the time, or the dad-jokes that spread through camp like an infectious disease.

The little thing that affected me the most was the family atmosphere of the camp. During the first two weeks of summer, the staff spends time together in cabins during staff training, boys in one cabin, and girls in another one or two cabins across the courtyard. It's hard to understate the bonding time that comes from living in close quarters with others for an extended period of time (in fact, this summer the non-counselors had to do that all summer!) I have always looked back and missed those times of learning and fellowship. Also those first few summers for me, I would spend my weekends holed up in Prairie Rose cabin, all alone and learning about silence and peace from the countryside. I miss waking up in the middle of the night to shut the windows while thunder rumbled nearby.

Before I left this year, I took a walk, one which brought me through Prairie Rose. It was a double whammy for me, because this also functioned as the space for male staff this summer. As I stood by the back door, I looked around: dirty clothes covering the floor like carpet, unkept sleeping bags strewn across wooden bed frames, a working air conditioner uncomfortably hanging out the window, a musty boy smell wafting around. I simultaneously thought about my peace in Prairie Rose and the time of fellowship in the cabins during staff training, and slid to the ground and cried. I cried hard. They were very minor things to most people- a quiet cabin on a few weekends, and a couple weeks of time with friends, but for me it was some of my most favorite camp memories. I wept. I miss those days.

I was allowed to make my peace and say a proper goodbye. I travelled almost 1800 miles to a new homeland, full of abundant life in ways I've never experienced. My new teacher orientation has started and is a full two days in now, with two more to go. I haven't met too many new people yet, but I sure hope to. But I know that I have the ability to thrive here- North Dakota taught me that.

After our morning session today, our assistant superintendent gave us a 1 hour, 30 minute lunch break, asking us if we were ok with that. Hearing literally no objections, we picked up our things. I had resigned to go to the seemingly always-packed Chick-Fil-A by myself to use my gift card, but some teachers my age were starting to discuss going out to eat at the new Mexican restaurant in town, a very tasty one I had the pleasure of going to with family the previous week. They turned to me and asked if I wanted to go out to eat with them. I smiled- of course I would.