A Gray Day

On the first Tuesday in March, 1997, the weather was strange, even for a Colorado. Everything felt gray and wet. Clouds filled the sky. The air felt wet on your cheeks. The streets shone with moisture. The buildings were laden down with water. Itwas a blah day. Everything at work felt gray too. I was wandering around hoping I was doing something useful. It was the kind of day where I feel like I am gray on gray in a gray world. The Information Technology team had been working at my computer all morning. At lunchtime, I decided to leave work and go for a run in Golden Ponds Park - along the St. Vrain Greenaway. I wanted to see if I could outrun this gray mood.

I drove north on Hover through a wet drizzle. I parked in the Boston Avenue lot, just south of the big pond that's east of Hover. I ran north and then west around the pond, past the big listening stone.

I love the listening stone. It's at the top of the bank overlooking the St. Vrain river. From the path it looks like a two-person-high lump of standing stone. Then you walk round to the side that faces the river. The alcove where you sit is a polished oval of granite. It's a mosaic of pale grays and pinks. It has an oblong wooden seat embedded in it. When you sit in the stone and put your head back you can hear the river running through your ears. When you move your head forward, you can't hear it. I like to sit and put my head back. Then I put my head forward. Then I put my head back again. I love it. It's the best-kept secret in Longmont.

I ran under low-hanging cloud, under driplets of sleet, under driplets of headless chicken mind. I held a steady course. The path took me under Hover, west along the St. Vrain. I passed another pond. I headed to the wooden-slatted bridge. Ribbons of mist floated through the air in my path. I felt like I was running through a cloud. I thundered across the bridge above the ice and water. I turned west along the avenue of cottonwoods, onto the path that circles the three northern ponds.

I was rounding the corner between the middle pond and the eastern pond when I saw her - a Great Blue Heron. She was taking off from the northwest edge of the eastern pond - the pond that borders the pig slaughterhouse. Her 54-inch span of wings lifted over the water. I saw clouds, wings, water - all shades of gray - moving gray on gray. She lifted herself into the air from the water's edge. She took off from the bank just a few feet away from me. We were moving - in the same world.

A heron must live in a land of aerodynamic bliss - to go about her business with such grace, such beauty. I have seen pigeons, doves, and buildings be gray - but never a gray like this. This gray took off in front of my eyes.

I ran on. As I came round to the south end of the pond, I found myself looking for her. I looked through the branches along the shore. The soles of my running shoes pounded along the gravel path. I saw her near the south shore. She stood up in the water on one leg, big wings draped at her sides, eyes looking out over her beak. I carried off my last glimpse of her - a gray stroke of dignity - as I turned on down to the bridge.