curled up in a chair after a run

I'm curled up in a Victorian antiquey-looking chair in the Shipwright Inn in Charlottetown, PEI.

This morning, I ran a half-marathon past mansions and big box stores.

Down a crushed gravel path that used to be the train line here on the Island.

Through farmland and industrial parks.

And into the maritime wind—I should most definitely point that out.

Whipping off the ocean and zipping up University Avenue, the wind was constant for 5 miles, and it's hard to know how to make yourself aerodynamic.

Head down? Head up into the wind, into the adversity? {Is that reading too much into the wind?}

Is it worth it to pump your arms, or is that wasting precious energy? Perhaps I should just flail my arms?

I considered at one point giving some sort of Tarzan yell into the wind {maybe a Jane yell?}, but I knew it would only whip back in my face, and it probably wouldn't sound as ferocious as I intended.

This morning, it was sunny, and I pushed into the wall of wind with all my force but I didn't give a Tarzan yell. I finished the race slower than my goal time, but a Midwesterner like me is not made for maritime winds. Nothing like today's wind ever whips off the Mississippi back home in Iowa, and there is a great sense of accomplishment in subduing and conquering the wind.

Right now, it's raining out, and I'm curled up in a chair that probably was not designed for curling. The designer of this carved-wood, straight-backed, cream-upholstery-covered chair probably had ideas of excellent posture and crossed ankles and bone china cups and saucers held delicately.

I am ignoring its design and settling in for comfort, French press coffee on the table in front of me and a window to the rain behind me.

A tree in all its autumnal glory is shaking its leaves, and I imagine what it would be like to be sitting in that tree on a sun-bright day, curled up in the branches instead of in this chair. It wouldn't be comfortable, I know, but I like to pretend that it would be.

Pitter-patter goes the rain outside this house that was built in the 1870s. If it weren't for the telephone wire crossing my view, I could also be in the 1870s, although if I were, I would not have run a race into the wind this morning and I would not be sitting very improperly in this antiquey-looking chair. If I were in the 1870s, it would just be called a chair, of course—no need for old qualifiers.