There is something about waking up at 6 a.m. to run that makes the world seem more tactile. I have been living in my town for a couple of months now but never paid much attention to it. I know the quickest route to work, where to get Chinese food, which supermarket is best for produce (Russo's) and which is good for everything else. However, I have come to believe that driving is much like watching television, the places that we pass by (viewed through a pane of glass) are not real to us. They are images much like a televisions and most likely I won't stop unless I already know the place exists.

Running through town at 6 in the morning changes that perspective.

Partly I think because I am not interested only in my destination. Thinking too hard about how long my run is could cause me to give up. Endurance was one of the aspects I wanted to develop by running though it seems slow in coming. So rather than worry about getting to the corner of Pine street, I notice the details about the streets I am on.

A couple of quick observations are in order to show that I am not just making this up. First, I notice the trees more. So many of them hang low over the sidewalks, leaves pushing into my face as I try to duck my head beneath them. I get a bit annoyed by some of the trees but am constantly amazed at the number of them. The same thing goes for a footpath along the river. It is fairly well kept but the small purple and white flowered shrubs on one side and the broad leaved bushes on the other keep creeping out like they are exploring, and deciding if they can reclaim their space.
I also run by a day labor office that doesn't open till 6:30, but every morning people are milling around at 6, waiting and hoping for a job. They usually stand in groups of 1 or 2 and sometimes 3, smoking cigerattes but with no coffee. They don't tend to socialize much because they are all competing for the same spots every day.
And finally, even though it is the middle of summer, I am always shocked that the sun is so high and hot at 6. I keep expecting that I will wake up one morning to a cool dawn, but it hasn't happened yet. Maybe I need to get up earlier...

I also feel that I should start connecting myself with the blogging community -- though a definition of that would be hard to nail down. I spent a couple of hours last night reading blogs that discussed web logs as social software. A very interesting idea that I think I will have to research some more.