Resurfacing

It took the floor guy two days to resurface the hardwoods in my new house. It's taken me a month to resurface myself. The hardwoods are gorgeous; I'm still not looking too good. But here we both are, just off Woodward Avenue.

Yes.

Patty and I live in a new house now, in a new city. Well, new to us. The house and city are actually on the old side, and I'm feeling more and more that way myself. But old can cut a couple of different ways.

Old can have bumpy, oddly laid out routes and infrastructure that take some patience and creativity to navigate. Old can be creaky and problematic, with long-forgotten wiring schemes mystery switches and missing parts and moisture where it doesn't belong.

And the city and the house are just as bad as me. Haw, haw.

I won't lie. This move has been tough on me. It's put me behind on my work - here's apologizing for the blog silence while hoping it was at least a little noticed - and thus on sleep. It's taken me away from a home I loved, from friends I miss. It wiped out and hasn't allowed resumption of a training and racing regimen that I believe now more than ever is essential to my mental health. There has been frustration, impatience, stress and maybe even tragedy - our second day here, the curious Mr. B slipped out of a window where a screen should have been and we haven't seen him since. I am not ashamed to say that there were moments where I wondered if I had made the worst mistake of my life, and we're well beyond imagining it's reversible.

But if my old, new home and city can resemble my old, new life, maybe I can come to resemble them. Most of the houses here are old, and most of them are still here. So are the narrow streets and so are most of the residents. Nobody ever leaves - it's the Hotel California of cities. The neighbors are too nice, the trees too gorgeous, the atmosphere too friendly. People tend to remodel their houses, add to them or just move down the block to another one.

Sure, a few people go over the wall and buy something shiny and sterile and new somewhere else. A few residents have lived here forever and done nothing with the place. But most of the homes, and certainly the best of them, are originals with extensive updates. A solid foundation with a steady diet of newness and even a jarring dose of change once in a while seems to be the formula of choice.

I'm getting caught up. I think more stuff is put away now than in boxes. My attitude is improving. I know where some of the important things are. The cat will take his time, but he'll come back.

The Detroit Free Press Marathon is 17 Sundays away, and the training plan is 16 weeks long. Let the remodeling begin.

The old place is looking up.