Day 70: Pacing

"boring and non-offensive"

Today, Gracie and I took our first walk before 6 a.m.  While that sounds early, we will be on the road by 6 a.m. once school starts.  We took a short run around 8:30 a.m., and already the air was almost thick enough to cut with a knife and other cliches.  Gracie makes it very easy for me to read and work on the computer--a nice way to both retreat from the heat and finish up summer writing committments and prepare for fall classes.  She seems to be sound asleep, but the minute I stand up, her eyes pop open.  If I leave the room, she follows me.  In and out of the air-conditioned room we went today until about 4:30 p.m. when we went for a long walk down along the creek to the falls on 50th Street and Browndale.  The most interesting thing we saw was a sign saying that the creek (Minnehaha Creek) is closed at 54th Street.  I'm not sure how anyone can manage to close the creek, but I'm pretty sure the creek at 54th Street is in Edina.  If any town can close the creek, Edina would be the one I would bet on being able to actually do it.  I've read that current Edina residents want a bike path in Edina but not enough to allow others from neighboring suburbs to ride on it.  If you don't live in Edina--and sometimes even if you do--Edina residents don't want you there.  Maybe Edina residents have also decided they don't want canoeists or kayakers traveling through their backyards either.  I used to live in Edina, so I know all this has more to do with vague fear of "the other" than it has to do with anything that has ever actually happened...at least that I know of.  I haven't lived in Edina for close to forty years and find the persistence of this vague fear troubling, especially since it now seems to have spread to engulf not only the rest of the state but the rest of the country as well.  What's next?  Concrete partitions? When we got home from our walk, I dug out my orange t-shirt from the Walker Art Center that has" boring and non-offensive" written on the front.  Gracie and I like walking up the hill into Edina and wearing this t-shirt when we do might just be enough to calm their fears...at least a bit.  There is a little park up their way with access to the creek. Their boulevards are very generous too, with grass thick and green and inviting to little dog feet.   I think I'll make my orange t-shirt my dog walking uniform from now on.  Besides, it matches Gracie's vest.  Look out, Edina, here we come, rolling in like Carl Sandburg's fog.