Where Has The Time Gone?

Reposted from http://www.avonwalk.org/goto/Paul_Willett
Originally posted July 8, 2010

It's been a really, REALLY busy couple of months and my training is going great! But while I've got a whole list of things to write about and blog posts half-written in my head, the time to actually get them written & posted has been scarce, and for that I apologize. Let's see if I can start to break that creative logjam... First, let me tell you about two incidents that happened on the last two long Saturday training walks.

Two weeks ago, on June 26th, I was on a scheduled 12-mile walk (that turned into 14+ miles -- some things never change!) and going along Ventura Boulevard, a busy, main thoroughfare here in LA's San Fernando Valley. I was just coming to the driveway of a small shopping center when I noticed someone barreling out of the lot without bothering to see me. Rather than get run over with the right-of-way sanctimoniously but uselessly shielding me, I naturally hopped back a step or two and then walked behind the guy's pickup truck after he went by.

I was on an endorphin high from my walk and didn't get all PO'd and self-righteous (really, I didn't, no Ratso Rizzo act from me!) but I did wave at him and said something non-committal about watching out for pedestrians on the sidewalk. Next thing I knew, this guy was going straight off of the deep end, screaming at me about how it was my fault for being on the sidewalk, I was just one of a hundred thousand cockroaches (his term, not mine!) on the streets of LA making his life miserable when he was trying to drive around, where did I get off on expecting him to stop his truck for me, etc...

I listened to it all for a minute or so, just let it wash over me, more bemused than upset, wondering what had set him off, not responding at all. (Not even to point out little details like...THE LAW!!) Finally he had to come up for air, saw a chance to get into a break to turn right, and he tore off into traffic. I just waved and said, "I hope your day gets better!" I just shook my head in wonder and got back to my next 16:45 mile.

A block later I noticed someone pulling up beside me at the curb and honking, and my first thought was that it was someone wanting to ask for directions. I stopped, pulled off my headphones, and realized it was the same guy. He had done a U-turn, come back to find me, then done another U-turn to pull over to the curb next to me. I had about a half-second to wonder what kind of grief this was going to deteriorate into when he said that he wanted to apologize for the actions of his "evil twin brother" a few minutes ago. He then proceeded to deliver a very sincere apology.

I accepted and thanked him sincerely for coming back to talk. I understand that sometimes we get set off by something when other "stuff" has piled up on us and some innocent bystander gets a blast of undeserved vitriol. I've been the one going off the deep end once or twice. Because of that, I really did appreciate him making the effort to come back. I wished him a better day ahead, we agreed that we were good now, and off we went on our separate ways.

In some situations in the past (a guy cuts me off on the freeway, someone's a jerk at the store or at a ballgame, whatever) I've reacted with anger and watched the situation get ugly quickly. This time, for whatever reason, without thinking, I just waved it off and let it go, and not only did it not get worse, the situation actually improved! There might be an actual lesson here.

Last Saturday the universe used my 14-mile training walk (which turned into 17+ miles) to give a lesson in connectivity & that whole "six degrees of separation" thing. I was walking around Chatsworth Reservoir, headed north on Valley Circle Drive, into a rural residential & park area that might only be three or four miles from wall-to-wall houses & mini-malls but feels like it's a thousand miles away. On a telephone pole I saw a couple of posters about a lost pet. Walking as I'm doing now I see these all the time and usually don't give them more than a glance, but something about this poster and its picture caught my eye. I stopped to read it and found out that "Lester", a peacock and beloved pet out here in the horse properties and canyons, was missing and its humans were worried sick.

As I was reading the poster someone came out of the house there and saw that I was reading it. They didn't say anything, but I hollered across the fence to ask if they were the "peacock people". Turns out they were. And it turns out that my wife and I had seen a peacock over by our house just the week before. Coincidence? Perhaps. But how many peacocks are there in the wall-to-wall houses & mini-marts LA suburbs?

The previous weekend Ronnie & I had been just a couple of blocks from our house, near a local private high school, looking at houses that I had seen on other walks. I'm noticing lots of paint schemes and decorating ideas and landscaping touches that I like and I was driving around to some of them with Ronnie, showing her what I had spotted so that we could think about things we might like to do to our house. And there, in the middle of the road as we tried to get out of the cul-de-sac was this huge "big blue chicken".

We had seen it once or twice before, and we've heard it every now and then. They're loud! Our dog, Jessie, had spotted it once when Ronnie was walking her. Jessie had just about wet herself (she's the most cowardly "attack dog" in the world), an incident which had inspired the "Big Blue Chicken" legend in our household. But this one wasn't in someone's yard or being kept as a pet, it was wandering free and blocking the street. And it was big! It took its sweet time, not in any hurry at all to get out of the street, not afraid of us or the car at all. After a minute or so it wandered off and we went home with what was, at the time, just another BBC sighting confirmed.

The BBC seen near our house looked just like the one on the poster, but as they say, they all look alike to me. I told the "peacock people" about what we had seen a week earlier and asked if they knew where the high school was. They did, they used to live over there. A-ha!! It seems that Lester might have taken off and "gone back home". So I gave them all of the information I had about where we had seen our BBC and went on my merry way.

Three hours and eleven miles later I got back over into my neighborhood and walked by the high school to find "Missing" posters with pictures of Lester on every block! Glad to know that I was taken seriously, I guess. No word on whether or not Lester's been found or returned, or if the BBC we found was not really Lester (what are the odds of there being a Lester-impersonator?), or if all anyone's found is a pile of feathers and a well-fed coyote.

But it seems to me that the fates are conspiring to get Lester back home, and I feel good that I and my walking program were key components in that cosmic plot, either intentionally or as a pawn of the gods. I guess that it pays to get off your butt and get out there, and keep your eyes open when you do it. You never can tell when you might help to reunite a Big Blue Chicken and his lost & worried human. (I'm sure it's the human who's lost -- Lester no doubt knows right where he is.)