Simple pleasures are best and few match that of showering with Norah Jones. Sweaty and aching after a hard run up a steep hill, Norah soothes and relaxes the muscles so that you are ready to repeat it all the following day.
The run itself was not the real issue, it was structuring the day, every day. Working from home and trying to do many things at once was and is a mess. Making a sustainable lifestyle is not easy when you have to fit in with other people, and having chosen to live somewhere for its environment working the nine to five seemed like a waste of an opportunity.
You know what is good for you, but you can’t always do it. I do mornings, but coffee and breakfast are my thing. I need time to ease into the day. I am relaxed in my own company but avoid contact with others. Lunch time is a good time for exercise, a good break in the day with the promise of food after. This works well on short winter days, but the summer is hot. Summer is the only time I get near mornings. It is a time I find difficult to tolerate physical exercise. On the few occasions I have managed to pull on my cross trainers I have enjoyed it, leaving home comforts is the hardest of challenges. An unscientific but reasonable analysis of the year demonstrates that there are optimum seasons in which one can run, climb, cycle, ski, drink or eat. Each is overshadowed by the desire for the next, and so the cycle continues.
When I am out there I feel strong. I have the world beneath my feet, I am master of my clock. I am better than everyone else still sleeping, wasting the day. The houses that fall away on the hillside are quiet for now. It’s all mine, all of it. Like water I flow into unoccupied areas. Have you seen how much of it is around? No, perhaps you are looking at the wrong times. Time and place, place and time, they change each other. My place or your place, my time or your time, how big is this world anyway?
So I come back to my apartment and take Norah into the shower. Norah occupies number 2 in my play list, I must shower a lot, which must mean I exercise a lot or I am very hygienic. Either way it’s a good thing. My shower is small, there is just enough space for Norah and myself, our time together is brief but it is the end of my time, yes you heard me right. I have tried to organise my freedom but looking around I wonder what other people are up to. They all have their own stuff to sort out, none more important than the squirrel gathering nuts for a cold winter.