Week One Recap (spoiler: I held a chincilla tonight!)

It's 9:49 p.m., and I'm sitting in my office in Potosi, Missouri after a full day of work, including eight hours in the office and several more with our board of directors. If ever before this year I had been told I would work in Potosi, Missouri, I would have bet everything I owned that you were lying. (And I'm not a better).

If you had told me I'd love my new position working in Potosi, Missouri, I would probably have laughed in your face. (And I'm generally very polite).

Yet here I am, tired after my first week of work here, but tired in the "sugarplums dancing in their heads" kind of way, where I feel an excitement about what's to come and such a deep peace about where I am in this moment that rest will come easily when I finish this post and crawl into my bed.

This week I have been woken up by the family dog, I've had coffee at the kitchen table with my dad before work, and I've watched my mom get so creative and excited about cooking really great, healthy meals for us.

Wednesday on my way home from work, I saw a deer cross the road in front of me and run down a hill and into a field. The weather has warmed up here, so I've continued to test out my new trail running shoes on jogs in the woods behind the office. Tonight, I held a chincilla in my hands (his little nose was adorable, and his "pricklies" were softer than they looked!).

My coworkers are gracious, thoughtful, and incredibly welcoming. Do not misunderstand me here, they are also hard-working, experienced, many of them very well-traveled professionals. They have brought me into my first week here at the Y with nothing but compassion and kindness, which heals my soul in ways that I didn't know it was even aching.

Do I miss New York City? Of course I do, in little ways, and sporatically. Do I love where I am though, professionally and personally; mentally, spiritually, and physically? Yes, wholly.

All things happen for a reason, and I believe that my new job and new home are no exceptions.

What are you running from, lady on the street?

I was walking down the hill in front of Brooklyn Hospital on my way to work yesterday morning, taking in the traffic and the bustle of the late-morning commuters. If there were so many people rushing to work at 9 a.m. on a Thursday in Fort Greene, what must Midtown be like? I've never worked in Manhattan; I live and work in Brooklyn, my borough. I like it here.

The downward slope walking from Fort Greene Park toward the Q,B,N,R, station at DeKalb Avenue provides a glimpse of the urban grit I adore about Brooklyn. A contstruction site, a big intersection, little bodegas and a few fruit stands line the busy, one-way Dekalb Ave. Long Island University's Brooklyn campus sits at the base fo the hill, and on my morning commute dozens of tennis-shoe wearning, backpack-toting teenagers trudge up the hill toward me, overworked and underslept.

Yesterday though, there was an interruption to my predicatable little routine. As I approached a smaller intersection, a woman rounded the corner towards me. She was running, with her long, dull brown hair flying behind her. Her eyes were glazed over. This woman was in another place emotionally; she wasn't just running, she was running from something. I was startled, and I instictively took a step back and clutched my bag, expecting to see a man chasing after her.

As she ran towards me I took in the full impact of her crazed sprint. She was braless, but there were no breasts to bounce as she ran. Her hair was down and her clothes looked like she'd slept in them - not running clothes by any stretch of the imagination. Her ribs showed as the air through which she forced her scrawny frame pressed against her white t-shirt, and her hip bones jutted forward through her navy blue sleeping pants. Dark tennis shoes on her feet, this woman had undoubtedly rolled out of bed, looked in the mirror, and taken off on a sprint down the street.

I wanted to stop her...wanted to put my hands on her shoulders and say, "It will be okay." I wished that I had the power of people I've known in the past whose hand on shoulder has brought with it such a sense of peace. I wanted her to be okay, and I wondered if she would be.

What are you running from, lady on the street? What is there behind you that's so bad that you need to run, eyes-glazed over, hair tangling behind you, up Dekalb Avenue? What are you running from?

I almost subconsciously said a prayer for her as her presence faded behind me and I continued on my walk to the Q to start my work for the day. The woman's face, ribs, and hips are still sketched in my memory. I hope that whatever it is that she's running from, she'll eventually find what she's running twoard.