December 12, 2008 – The Moon Is My Companion

Tonight we will be able to see the largest moon of the year, this according to the website Space.com. Editorial Director Roy Britt writes that the moon will be a mere 221,560 miles from earth. That’s 17,295 miles closer than the average distance the moon is from the earth throughout the year. This accounts for the increased size of La Luna on this particular day of 2008.

The moon and I are on familiar terms as she often greets me in the morning during the workweek when I leave home on my morning jog at 6:00 AM. And I see her frequently at this time of the year as I leave work at 6:00 PM rising in the northeast sky. We both share a syncopation in life. She orbits the earth every 29.5306 days. She rises and sets at a prescribed time each day. Her actions are as predictable as clockwork. My daily ritual is very similar, though lacking in the timely precision of the celestial body: up every morning just before 6:00 AM and returning from work around 6:30 PM.

A few months into the new millennium, the moon and I came to know one another on our present terms: I bidding her farewell after rising each morning and greeting her as I leave work each evening just after sunset during this time of the year. In the old century I was a nocturnal creature working until midnight and up after the sun had risen even during the winter. I still take comfort in this new cadence of life. During the time each morning I spend alone from 6:00 to 7:00 before the sun has risen, I observe the inhabitants that share the world with me at this early hour.

I don’t see them all the time but on occasion they make their appearance like the critter—I want to think it’s a raccoon—that scavenges the garbage cans on Wednesday mornings, our garbage pick up day. On one such occasion I recall hearing him or her tip over a can and for some reason I imagine the animal feeling foolish, much as I’ve felt the more than once I’ve tripped trying to avoid a pedestrian coming toward me in the dark dressed in dark clothing that makes him or her hard to see.

The other animals I come across are mostly cats peeking out from under cars to use the protection and what little stored heat they find. They occasionally cross my path. Then there are the geese flying in formation overhead, their honking—not an accurate description of their call—occasionally startling me as I concentrate on putting one foot in front of the other, after having given myself over to the monotony of my rhythmic pounding. They typically fly over toward the end of my time alone during the homeward stretch and ole Sol is peeping over the Diablo Mountain Range that sits astride the Hayward Fault.

I occasionally come across others bipedal creatures walking the sidewalk along Branham Lane where I run. They appear on odd days, sometimes passing at the same hour for a stretch of days then absent for a time. We pass without speaking. We each have our destinations and somehow saying “good morning” before the sun has risen doesn’t seem right. I pass this short, heavy-set fellow—of indeterminate age, though I surmise him to be older than 40 for some reason—coming east on Branham, a few blocks west of Snell Avenue. Dressed in a dark coat and typically carrying a bag in one hand he walks past me wordlessly. One morning I heard him speaking on a cell phone as we pass and somehow his voice matched his body shape.

There is a woman who jogs that same stretch of Branham and we pass infrequently. For some reason, she runs in the bicycle lane against the flow of traffic along Branham. She is taller than me with a Rubinesque figure—perhaps that is why she runs. She does say hello and I respond in kind. Our meetings are sporadic, either because she only runs certain days or she varies her time earlier or later day to day.

About a quarter mile west of the Carlton Plaza of San Jose assisted living facility at the intersection of Branham and Vistapark Drive, I occasionally come upon two women conversing as they walk past me. Their voices carry over the distant roar of traffic on nearby Highway 87; their conversation made indistinct by the intermittent car hurrying along the otherwise empty three lanes of Branham. Occasionally, I pass a man and woman at about the same place and I wonder if one of the women couldn’t make it and the husband of the one intent on walking filled in.

There is plenty of activity at the northeast corner of the Branham and Pearl Avenue intersection. An all night Arco station is typically busy with motorist filling up on the cheapest gas in South San Jose. We pay one another no mind. They belong in the world of automobiles and I belong in the world of pedestrians. Sometimes, one or more teenagers wait at the bus stop in front of the Arco station on Branham Lane for their school bus. What’s curious to me is that I saw them for a stretch of time and now they’re gone. Did the bus stop move or did their class schedule change?

Left onto Pearl, I pass a 7-11 convenience store, which like the Arco station, is busy at this early hour with patrons picking up coffee, breakfast foods, and cigarettes. They all seemed to be in a hurry to get into the store and get out. Further south on Pearl is a coffee shop in an L-shaped strip mall. It’s a Starbucks wannabe, offering Java City coffee though not a licensee. Occasionally, I’ll see a car pull in for coffee but most mornings the only person I see in the shop is the owner or employee. The welcome smell of coffee wafts across the dark morning fills me with a sense of warmth and satisfaction.

The rest of the way along pearl is residential until the intersection with Chynoweth, where on the southeast side of the intersection is the large Ohlone Chynoweth Commons Apartment Complex and the Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority (VTA) Ohlone Chynoweth Light-rail Station. On the rare mornings I pass another soul it’s one or more backpack-laden students on their way to the station or to nearby Gunderson High School, though it seems awfully early for classes to begin.

Turning left on Chynoweth Avenue, I jog down a slight decline that allows the street to duck under the concrete overpass of the Guadalupe Freeway (Highway 87) terminus where concrete flyovers sort traffic between Highway 87 and Highway 85 and Santa Teresa Boulevard.

Underneath the spaghetti maze, I pass two huge concrete columns supporting the off ramp from 87 to Santa Teresa Boulevard. Next, I come upon three large round columns supporting 87 as it shuttles traffic east and west onto 85. Next, I pass a single large oblong shaped column supporting the light rail tracks taking the one-, two-, or three-car Santa Teresa Train in and out of Ohlone Chynoweth station. I come next to three more large round columns supporting the three-lane convergence of two on ramps bringing traffic from east and west bound 85 onto 87. Finally, I pass two more large round column that support the 87 on ramp from Santa Teresa Boulevard.

Even at this early hour, the sound above me is that of cars accelerating and decelerating and the screech of the steel wheels of a light rail train slowing as it enters the light rail station. The lights within the cars illuminate a few early morning riders en route to start their day.

After emerging from the underpass Chynoweth climbs to its level before its descent. Over the eight years I’ve been making this early morning journey, only one person have I seen once or twice a year with regularity. She’s a young woman, short, medium build, with glasses that jogs alone. She too insists on acknowledging our passing with a greeting to which I respond in kind.

This stretch of Chynoweth comes to a dead end at Barron Park Drive, but I turn left on Hyde Park Drive past Vista Park and begin the last fifteen minutes of my solitary contemplation. The moon is at my back and the sun is making its appearance ahead of me. A lone plane—its landing lights shining—cuts a straight line from Morgan Hill to my right and Mineta International Airport at my left. I’m about to begin my work day along with everyone else in the Santa Clara Valley.