This week I was running up Big Mountain contemplating this past year.  It has been exactly one year since I packed up my life and arrived in SLC.  I can’t even believe the way time has passed.  It feels like both an eternity and at the same time like absolutely no more than five minutes.  I can’t wrap my head around it.

While running, I passed a gentleman who looked remarkably like Jerry Garcia.  He looked at me quizzically as I ran past him, and my hat blew off my head and up the slope.  He never took his eyes off me as I ran to nab it and cruised back down to the trail.  He didn’t say a word.  As I ran on, I couldn’t help but wonder if in fact it WAS Jerry Garcia, showing up to teach me a lesson or give me a message related to my train of thought:

I thought about this for the rest of the run, and then on the way down, there he was standing in the exact same spot.  He nodded at me, and I ran on– this time CONVINCED that it was Jerry Garcia.  And in that moment I said to myself, “Fuck!  Jerry Garcia wouldn’t care about your stupid year!”  And the message I then decoded from his singular nod: Long May You Run.

(Which is actually not a Dead song at all, but JG would have channeled the sentiment if the time was right, for sure.)