What it takes:

(1) to come home again and (2) run the lid off the mason jar.

I grew up about 75 minutes from Center City, Philadelphia in a shore town so small that, as a teen, I was certain the familiarity, alone, would steal my air like a mason jar from a firefly.  And so, in 1999, I moved away from my center, ever so slightly, toward a world where sand wasn't on my doorstep and the humid ocean breeze didn't quiet a fitful sleep.  Like Ocean City, Running is safety amid waves, my compass and the clothes pin that keeps me from flying away in the wind. 

Yesterday, I set out 24 hours post-almost-half-marathon [13.01/1:59], for a seven mile run home.   Down Whittier Avenue in Strathmere, with the ocean and the new sun at my back, toward the Deuville Inn and the Inlet, I ran without ache or apprehension.   Crossing the Strathmere Bridge, dodging cars and not looking down through the grates, I [mistakenly] nudged a seagull awake with my right elbow, continued on through the toll and focused on the bikers already out for their morning ride to the 34th Street WaWa in Ocean City.  The incline and decline of that bridge were subtle enough for me to focus forward through the pounding.  I thought of the choppy Inlet - moments past - when it was just me as a spec in that water, always floating, never thinking beyond the open sky.  

I ran past the marshes, smelling the steady low-tide, and over the Ocean City Bridge beyond the fishermen and other runners, straight home, around the corner on to 56th Street.  And there they were:  the smiles and the sleepy eyed walks to Blitz's for milk and eggs and the Sunday Atlantic City Press; the old locals that saw a familiar little girl in the red haired woman running down West Avenue; the bikes headed to the beach streets and the dogs parked outside of Mallon's, waiting for the smallest piece of a sticky bun to fall their way.  But for the passing of 12 years, noticeable only through the chipping blue paint on corner benches, Ocean City is now just as it always was, and my eyes are finally opened to the appreciation of it. 

At 40th street, I turned with a kiss to the clouds and a wave to my grandfather.  Back down Central Avenue, past the little lawns with old men talking to their neighbors, coffee in hand, sprinklers beginning the task at hand, across both bridges' now not-so-subtle inclines with a perfect 7 miles in 58 minutes, "See you soon, then" has never felt so right.