4:35 a.m. I pull into the parking lot. It’s been 805 consecutive (almost) days on my daybreak walk at Cove Island Park. 805 days, like in a row. 800 days from now, will I still be doing this?
Ingrid Rojas Contreras’ “The Man Who Could Move Clouds: A Memoir” is pumping into my head. “The grooves of thought that surfaced, the tracks our minds insisted running on, catching always at the same places.”
I strap on the backpack.
I walk.
There’s a deep pull in my right calf. What the hell is that? I keep walking. Stop. Reach downward, feeling the back of my leg, careful not to let the weight of the backpack tip me over. It’s tender. Wow. WTH is this?
I walk.
But, I can’t shake it. Mind scurries in search of the root cause of This. Ah yes.
Leg cramp, 1 a.m. Deep leg cramp, that just won’t let go. I roll over, but it won’t release its grip, tightening and tightening. I struggle to get up, then get upright, then apply full pressure through the grip.
It begins to ease.
I sit on the edge of the bed, breathing heavily.
I replay yesterday’s intake:
- Couldn’t have been the 4 pieces of Susan’s birthday cake.
- Couldn’t have been the 4 packages of Welch’s Mixed Fruit Gummies. Yummy gummies, fruit juice coating my teeth and tongue, slithering down my throat.
- Couldn’t have been the 3 bottles of Zero Sugar Snapple Lemon Tea. Zero-Sugar. Right.
- Couldn’t have been the heaping bowl of Vanilla Bean Häagen-Dazs ice cream topped with chopped nuts and Stonewall Kitchen Raspberry Syrup. Flashback, way back, to the DQ Sundaes, dripping with strawberry sauce. But this Stonewall stuff, this syrup, is altogether at another level. If there was a God, there is no doubt he bathes in this.
So, back to the leg cramp. I turn to slide under the covers, and there she is, sleeping. She’s got her eye mask on. She has her ear plugs in. She hasn’t shifted, she hasn’t moved, her soft snore continued uninterrupted through it all as she dreamt about bunnies playing in the grass or some sh*t like that.
And here, like 2.5 feet from her, a mere 3 minutes ago, her husband of almost 40 years is freakin’ dying. I’m mean DYING. He’s rollin’ around moaning, I mean MOANING. It could have been a heart attack for God sakes. Take all that bloody sleep gear off, get your ass up and give me CPR or Something.
I listen to her soft snore.
Till death do us part.
I was seconds from that.
Notes:
- Photos: DK @ Daybreak. 5:15 am, July 19, 2022. 71° F. Cove Island Park, Stamford, CT. More photos from this morning’s walk here.
