Make Way for Goats!

I haven't been blogging lately because I have been writing more offline. I have also been getting up at 5:00 every day to run. This may sound crazy to you, but I did a little life assessment. This means I tried to remember the last time I had a surplus of energy and felt healthy and could do a million things and felt happy and fulfilled all at once. I had to go back a few years to a simpler time when it was just me in a big empty house in West Falmouth, Massachussetts. The big difference between then and now? Bed time and wake up time. At that time I was waking up at 5:00 and running until 6:30. Then I would go back home, take a shower, and go to work.

In early February I decided to give this a try. Being out of shape and a good twenty pounds (minimum) heavier, I decided to shoot lower as far as time, so I settled on one hour, which was one hour MORE than what I was doing before. I chose a start date and went for it. I use my watch as an alarm clock so I don't wake up my husband with my phone, which I charge in the kitchen. I lay everything out the night before so I get dressed automatically with no thinking necessary. This is important at 5am. When you are worried about waking other people up you can't use the snooze button, either.

At 5, the world is still sleeping. Your time is your own. After 6:30, people start wanting things from you. I run on the bike path by my house. I have a flashlight, but I don't need now like I did a couple of weeks ago.

For the most part it's just me and the birds. One day there was a red jackal on the path (I turned around and went the other way because I hadn't yet read that they normally don't attack people). Over the last two weeks I have seen jackrabbits too.

Today I didn't get to finish my whole route. I was interrupted by about two dozen GOATS on the other side of the old railroad tunnel. Hilarious. There was a dog with them, so I imagine they belong to someone. There they were. Right in the middle of the road. I thought they would go away once I got closer to them, and a couple of them did move, but most of them were more interested in whatever they eating than me. When two of them did an honest-to-God Head Butt against each other, I realized that this was a turf war that I could not, would not, did not want to win. I watched them for a while, then I turned around. 

What happiness! What energy! What a day! And all it took was a bunch of goats.