Running around the same spots where we used to spend time isn't so bad because I'm running. The motion, the rhythm, the feeling of running makes it easier to deal with. I begin to feel like I want to run from these places to new places, and not have to see them again even though they're there and immovable, placed specifically in the material. I just don't want to bring myself around them right now. Maybe if I'm in a car or bus driving by - well that's okay, but it'll still massage my heart with rough heavy hands. The fact is, I am moving to new spaces, without memories or meaning. Tablua Rasa lies just a few blocks to the West and the streets will probably smell the same, but hey, maybe they won't. All the streets share a smell now, dead leaves. Wet ones, dry ones, all dying or dead. I know you'll smell them too, that they intrigue you as much as they do me and spark thoughts. I don't even know what I wrote before this, very, line. I've been trying hard not to look back and read what's written. It's kind of like a story is here, waiting for me to look just an inch up the page and after I finish writing, it will be there. Look at me, running and telling myself stories. It doesn't sound so different from reality (I remind myself), except that I'm actually running, and actually telling myself stories. Sort of like kids in a car with their parents on a long drive. Stories cover distances through space. It's impossible to think that from point 'here' and point 'there' that we aren't story-telling. And we're all characters in this story, for ourselves and others. And we're all moving the story a long. All running. So I guess, being out there, running in the leave-smelling air, across the streets, between the houses, under a cloudless sky with an empty stomach and a hurting heart, is still very much like life. And I suppose, I shouldn't forget that. That story-telling-running is exactly what I should be doing. Still - I just miss you.