Running Home

I’m running through the woods, trying to catch my breath, a stitch in my side. The trees are almost entirely stripped of leaves, and there is that smell, good rot, that reminds me of New England, where I grew up. I’m thinking about the fact that my students found my last piece of writing boring. Blah blah blah they said. They told me that I should write more about Baltimore, why I moved here with my family, how different it is from where I came from, stuff like that. I am running up a steep hill on a series of switchbacks, and sometimes I have to inhale so deeply it hurts, but I love this. This is what I like most about Baltimore, so far—Patapsco State Park. I like the woods and the river and I like the fact that right now no one is in these woods as they fall dark except for me—even though that worries me a little bit, makes me wonder what would happen if I were to keel over.

Okay, Patapsco State Park, I think. That’s one thing I like about Baltimore. I think about the fact that I’m taking my wife in to the city to eat in Fell’s Point tomorrow, how we just discovered Fell’s Point last week. I like being in close proximity to the city, which is different from where we most recently moved from, in rural New Jersey. Where we lived before we had to drive fifteen minutes to get anywhere, and it took more than an hour to get to a major city, Philly. Here, we can drive into the city in ten minutes and have museums and music venues at our disposal. I’m thinking about how I need to buy tickets to a concert to take my wife somewhere for our anniversary in February. Mostly I’m trying to catch my breath.

The trail is steep and the stich in my side gets worse and worse, and finally I just say to hell with it and I stop running. I like to run through the stitches and push myself, but, hey, I’m in better shape than I’ve ever been in my life and I don’t want to push myself too hard. People have heart attacks, you know. It takes a long time to get my breath back, and I’m walking through the forty degree woods in a sweaty t-shirt, listening to my breathing. I’m thinking about my daughter in middle school, how she recently won a short story contest and will get to read her story in public. I’m thinking about how they just got their report cards—straight A’s both—and how my daughter was shocked that kids on the bus were bragging about good grades. In New Jersey, kids used to brag about D’s and F’s. It’s a new world. Another reason I’m happy to be here.

Both my kids are interacting with people they never have before. In New Jersey their schools were almost one hundred percent white, while here they experience diversity every day. It will make them better people. In the woods, I walk past a guy in a red hoody who actually giggles once I’ve passed—maybe because I’m still trying to catch my breath, maybe because he’s high. The woods are growing darker and colder and the weather is perfect, exactly the way it should be. I love this feeling of between—between the day and the night, between the river and the road, between the city and wild nature. And the hills! We lived in New Jersey for ten years and I never got used to the fact that there were no hills around. I think about setting down roots here in Baltimore County and staking a claim on this place, of saying that this is home. I wonder what my students will think of this piece of writing. Is this as boring as the other piece? I don’t know. It’s more honest. I walk out of the woods with the sweat going cold on my skin and head home, to a four square on the edge of the city, with high ceilings and stained glass windows and, most importantly, my daughters and wife.

Jamey Gallagher