Happy Mother’s Day. A son working in Los Angeles after graduating college and a daughter about ready to embark on Manhattan for her own college experience. The nest gets more expansive as the trilling sounds lessen. Bittersweet is a new comprehension for me. The good news is when the nest is empty and I make the move to a smaller abode, I hope I am able to remain in the city in which I have always adored. I’m getting out and about more often. Living downtown, I’m able to walk out my door and grab a Starbucks Chai Tea and read the Chattanooga Times Free Press, walk to The Tivoli to enjoy the cascades of performances on a given evening, or sneak off to escape reality with a movie in the huge LEED Majestic 14 movie theater less than two blocks away from my front porch.
Today as I set off for a typical weekly trail run on Lookout Mountain, TN at the Craven’s House trail head. Getting things ready and while I was stretching, the view seduced me to take it all in. Really look at all the detail of a shiny city between small mountains where the Tennessee River runs through the middle of downtown. I’m on the rainy, tree canopied trail ready to set out for a nice run with my fellow trail runner, Ziggy, my trusty 20-month old Labrador Retriever. She and I take off for a 4 mile run and she chases the squirrels while my mind wanders about all sorts of things. Often a diversion for the uphill ascent and challenge of regulating breath, my mind thinks of the journey I’ve faced the past few years. I think of the people who have come from out of nowhere it seems, to help me or to offer fellowship. I think of the beauty the scenic city possesses. We make the two-mile mark and keep going. Briefly, I recall there is a loop back to Craven’s if I keep going. Ten miles into the run, soaking wet from rain, watching Ziggy approach her first deer and chase it into the dense green growth of the forest, I am coming full circle similarly to ending this last section of this loop on my run.
Two hours and twenty minutes, I find myself again at my SUV and the view of the city below. I am becoming the girl lost long ago slowly. And it’s the city of Chattanooga, the topography, the spirit of the people, the programs being installed and implemented are exactly the tools I needed to endure this tough journey in finding myself again.
Although not completely there yet, a precise career objective still looms, but I am full of happiness, appreciation, beauty and love all because of a place like I’ve not known before in the vagabond life I’ve lived. This place I’ve enjoyed for 7 years, the longest I have ever lived anywhere, has helped me reshape myself, face my fears, find new inspirational passions like trail running and has put a little kick in my step, especially when I walk Ziggy each weekday to greet others walking downtown and my favorite people on my mini journey to my morning ritual of reading the news and grabbing my Chai Tea. What a phenomenal city. I hope I am able to remain here the rest of my days.
On The Way To Happy 