"Not what it seems..."

I suppose some folks think I'm exercising - by god, look at all that sweat you're dripping! - when I pass them at their moderate stroll, while flinging sweat in my wake like a draft horse in his traces.
Truthfully, running is my excuse to play...soaking in the same southern summer sights of my childhood days. A time when we played outside until the fireflies flickered, ran barefoot from May to September; toughening our soft little feet that rarely went to bed entirely clean. Summer with its never-ending optimism...waking with the first robin stalking his worm, and gleefully gloating about it to the rest of the world.
I suppose it was a kind of optimism that the day's would always be that long, that playful, that full of life; summer always seemed to last a year itself...
Running is my excuse to play in, and explore the outdoor world; a world that shaped me as a child, rooted me in soil, flora & fauna and a sense of who I am that comes alive each summer when I hear the cicada's chirring or feel that dusk-time release when the sun begins to slide away, and the heat's grip, like a sigh lifts a little...Running keeps me from getting lost. Otherwise all the 'grown-up' duties - jobs & bills and every hour of the day packed from dawn to dusk, would fossilize a soul that needs to play - aired out and given time to to contemplate the tracks of ants, and patterns of wildflowers. I may wear shoes, but I'm still a barefoot girl hunting salamanders along a stream bank.

Keep an eye out for brother red-tailed hawk!

A clutch of black-eyed susans, thriving in an unexpected place.

Elaphe obsoleta - a.k.a. Black Rat Snake
http://www.herpsofnc.org/herps_of_NC/snakes/Elaobs/Ela_obs.html

After the ascent...

...the sky opens...