It was heavenly – went out on a run with a good friend in Perth and in perfect weather, too. Recollections of past runs from five years ago suddenly flooded my mind. It was almost like I’d never been away.
In particular, I remembered how nice it was that strangers we sped past almost always said “good morning!” It always gave us a little boost and warmed us up a little; always great on those especially cold winter mornings.
I remember the first time we were greeted on a run. We were just running along at King’s Park when someone we passed hollered out a “good morning”. Having never encountered such an event, we took a quick glance at each other and returned the greeting with more than a hint of puzzlement.
After a few more of these random “good mornings” we kind of got the hang of it and started pro-actively saying our own “good mornings”.
For some reason I didn’t think people still did that any more so I asked my friend (who unlike me, has been in Perth these past few years) if the people he ran by still greeted him as he passed. For some reason, being back in Singapore these years have made me think this never happened anymore.
“Yeah,” he said, “they do!”
Despite his saying they did, I thought I sensed a little hestitation in his voice and I was skeptical. I smiled agreeably but wasn’t sure what to think.
But seconds later, as if God Himself wanted me to believe in the myriad possibilities of humanity, we ran past an elderly couple walking their dog who hollered out to us, “good morning!”
“Morning!” we replied, smiling. And on we went, running just as we did back then.
Donn, fragments 