When you find out you might be somebody else.

The forest near my house has a pair of visible mountain lions in it at the moment so we have excused ourselves from that forest for a spell. When it's high tide in the morning before work that means waves crashing into cliffs instead of beach runnng, so now we head into the Big Forest that's on the way to work. The Big Forest is so big it's hard to do a quick loop, I always want to walk farther and it always makes me late. Sometimes we have to run back to the car on the road. Which isn't so bad.


In the winter, nobody gets to swim in the river on a cold morning before work. If I have to wear mittens, Otterpop has to stay out of the river. This is a non negotiable fact. We've been walking on different trails lately that don't involve crossing the river, just staying up in the trees. I don't think this is so bad.


It's so cold in the morning, and the Big Forest is so dense, that we don't see any people on the paths I've been picking. This is how I like it. When I was walking in the neighborhood a few mornings ago, just going down to check the surf, I had a long disagreement with a lady who stopped me because she thought I wasn't me. She was sure she knew my dogs but sure she didn't know me. She even knew where my dogs lived, but knew I didn't live there with them, No No No, it's a different lady, she kept saying. I've seen this lady around the neighborhood for years. We always say hi. She has a little black dog that looks just like a monkey. She kept trying to explain to me who usually walks my dogs and I tried to convince her it was me. But she was positively, absolutely sure I wasn't me.

I didn't win the argument. I looked in the mirror when I got home and I think I looked the same. A few extra lines around my face these days, and my hair is always extra messy, but nothing had changed so much that I could tell.

Nobody can see us when we walk in the forest. I think that's where we're going today.