Monday Virtue

Aren’t Monday’s great? They’re like a new semester. Except weekly. I am frequently “turning over a new leaf” on Mondays. Granted, it’s the same leaf getting turned over. But over it goes. This morning I was up before everyone else; like the virtuous woman in Proverbs who darns socks by candlelight and is prized above rubies. That's me. On Mondays.

Running in the morning is also part of the new leafage. This one park I run through has a ducky pond and several bridges. The bridges have been closed for a long time for repair work. Like a year. People have compensated by going around the bridges, subsequently wearing a path down and up the embankment of the waterless river. This morning the bridges were open! I pranced across the first one, feeling pretty yippy-skippy about the whole new bridge thing. I mean, this morning had a theme going, you know?

Approaching the second bridge on auto-pilot, my feet took their habitual turn off the pavement so as to follow the grooved path down the muddy embankment. It took a conscientious reorientation to stay on the high road. The instinctual tendency to follow old habits, the grooved path, runs very deep - even when the easier way is right in front of me. This is not necessarily discouraging. Especially when a Monday is just around the corner.