A local running club decided to do a midnight summer solstice run. After having eaten a huge crab boil dinner at Back Forty, I was hardly in a condition to go running, but Ben really wanted to go. I took a nap before we headed out. Ben was so eager to head out that he untied my shoelaces for me in order to get us out of the door a few seconds sooner. While he and the other runners quickly ran off to do a 3-mile run, I leisurely walked along the Newport waterfront. I figured I would walk as far as I could along the weekly route and would turn around when I saw the first runner heading back. Ben was the first runner I saw, and I turned around. Because of my unusually full belly, I was walking very slowly, but enjoying myself while listening to music and admiring the lights from various skyscrapers and the Manhattan skyline against the dark sky and waters.
I must have been walking even more slowly than I had thought because about a quarter of a mile from the meet up point, I saw Ben running back to me.
“Were you worried about me?” as I stretched out my hand to take his.
“Yes,” he explained, “Everyone else came back, but you were missing and I thought you’d be back sooner.” I’m famous for getting lost, so his concern was not unwarranted.
He continued, “I passed an old Indian man sitting outside of Starbucks and before I could ask him anything, he yelled at me, ‘She’s back there.'”
I thought it was adorable how concerned he was about me (and that everyone knew it too).
A Fast Paced Life 