Things are getting back to normal now. The collapse of the bridge was two months ago, and except for the families of the dead and injured, we Minnesotans have moved on. The Legislature had its special session and funds were approved for southeastern Minnesota flood relief, but the gas tax is where it was before the bridge fell, and the roads continue to deteriorate.
It’s difficult to be optimistic in Minnesota in October. The days shorten and get colder. The daily walk around the lake with the dog starts to chap the lips. If you do it after work, it’s dark by the time you get home. If you do it in the morning, it’s dark when you start. The entire traverse begins to remind you that winter is coming and the days of dry macadam stretching ahead of your easy gait are numbered. In fact, the newly installed blacktop path is itself a reminder of your government making yet another wrong move by paving over the soft wood-chip surface the walkers and runners preferred.
Still, the walk is worth the effort. Pounds begin to fall away. Familiarity with the more obscure entries in your music collection increases, courtesy of the one hour of iPod shuffle. Horowitz piano concertos follow Willie Dixon’s “I Ain’t Superstitious.” The Gipsy Kings singing “My Way” in Spanish into your earphones drowns out the tires humming up Franklin Avenue toward downtown.
The earnest industry of Minnesotans often comes to mind as you watch the drivers who have avoided the freeway and nudge their way to their parking stalls via the neighborhood streets. Up the lake roads they come, only a few stop signs and occasional dog walkers crossing the street interrupting the resolute journey to the office. On a recent day, Lake of the Isles Parkway stacked up ten cars at the perfunctory north end stop sign while a father on a bike guided his three young charges on their bikes, each with streamers on its handlebar grips, across Franklin toward the neighborhood school. Further down the west side of the lake, a family parade of ducks briefly stopped a few walkers in their tracks. As soon as the babies are better fliers, they’ll be leaving. Soon after that, Sun Country flights to Florida will begin to fill up as well.
Surely many of the runners you see every day beating the narrow dirt path next to the asphalt are training for this month’s marathon. They run on the dirt because the blacktop is too hard on the ankles, knees and shins. They miss the wood chips more than you do. You see different people depending on the time of day you pass. The earlier you go, the faster the runners. Between six and seven are the most determined. If you are sleepy and don’t get out until near eight, the real runners are done—replaced by the middle-aged women walking and talking in pairs and the overweight joggers with terrible running form, but still with more ambition than you, who maintains the leisurely eighteen-minute-mile pace.
The dog’s daily routine is even more constant than yours. He urinates within two blocks of the house, and defecates soon after. You smile every time you think of the odd symmetry of using the bag that wrapped that morning’s Star Tribune to pick up after him.
The dog and the music are your companions. You make eye contact with surprisingly few oncoming fellow travelers. Some eyes brighten, but many ignore or even glare at your proffered smile. They’re focused on their walk, their music, or their dog tugging at his leash to make friends with your dog. Can’t have that. Your dog doesn’t care to make friends anyway. There’s only one jogger who regularly interrupts his private revelry long enough to fish a small Milk Bone out of his belly pouch for your dog and a few words about the weather for you.
That’s the break you need, though, from the fretting that, as soon as the walk is done, you’ll be showering, dressing, and joining the cars on their way past your house to downtown. The one hour daily vacation isn’t long enough. You need at least ten days in a country where you can’t speak the language.
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