Within, Without

Our last breakfast together, Claire the Amazing sits between her multinational grannies, happy as always to just hang out and be with whoever is with her.   Language was transcended by the bond we shared with our little granddaughter and happy I am to be the SoFlo/American rep of my now Elder generation....

During my time off I spent a lot of it in deep process, allowing my conflicting emotions to swirl together while I pulled images from the recent past into my potential future.  The shamanic descent, which truthfully I try to dodge if possible, caught me out in my downtime and soon had me in the grip of the shadowy side of my heart, where pain and loss still occupies a domineering space.   It is incredibly tough to allow Process to have its time.  I realized I was lucky to have it at all, when most of the time I am so focused on work, and therefore others, that I can hardly keep up with my own self.
I was tumbling deep within my own internal vortex;  I was trembling from streams of tears.   I avoided unnecessary contact, afraid I would be less than capable of reasonable response.   In short, I hid from the world.

Today's run was my commitment to taking myself into the world once more, since this is my first day back to work.  As in many times past, it was a roller coaster ride of emotional outlet.   Dragging my tired ass, weary from anxiety in the night, I rounded out the first stretch with my fear in my throat, silently lost in the emotion, letting my feet find their gait, gaining strength and confidence as I headed up the link to Griffin and glad, after a while to have the sun, winds and an early morning to buoy me on.

Once settled in,  I tried to watch the attempt to climb back out of the darkness, how my little girl self, the one I had nurtured this week, the one I talked to and held in my big girl beliefs finally got a glimpse of the light.  Not the heart-rending transformative insights I prayed for, not the direction signs to say this, do that.   A shift, a slight release, and I knew there I was at the lip of nothingness, sliding my way out of the hole.

It is very hard to go without things.  On the altar of sacrifice, I have laid many things down.   And there are other things which are taken,  whether I freely offer them, like my youth.   The adjustment of aging, and finding myself the Greyhaired one, who remains so hopelessly lost in some ways is a thought with Fear.   I can do nothing with it except lay this down too and ask that where ever this road is taking me, there is something beyond what I have, what I lost, what the world or myself can generate which is the Essence of Me.   Without that,  there is no road at all.

Resilience on the Run

Nature is the reason I run.   Every morning, wondering "where are all the other runners" reminds me oh yea, they're at the gym,  in their work out rooms, running on treadmills, hooked up to machines, 'programs', calibrators of all sorts.  Treadmills are running of last resort.   I prefer my mini-tramp to the treadmill.  But luckily I am not shy to tackle SoFlo heat and humidity, and I would NEVER want to run- by choice- anywhere but outdoors.

Ever since I was a child, wandering through the old apple orchard trails behind our house, or following my Dad around as he cared for his fruit trees and shrubs, I have been in love with living plants, trees, etc.   At 16, I took over a south facing corner bedroom and took every house plant my mother had, added some plants from school where I was the student who took care of our coleus greenhouse (it was a very modern HS),  and in no time had a complete solarium, and one more place to hide out as a teenager.

I've moved around place to place always establishing the next set of plants.  Whether is was a handful or full out jungle, like I have now, I could not imagine a world without me in their midst.   Plants, the 'silent' companions, have a Zen-like skill to adapt, adjust and interact with their environment.  As they respond to the conditions around them, they seem to speak to all the elements of the surroundings, including me.   As the 'constant gardener', I pick up their vibe and provide what they seem to want;  in exchange, we cohabit in a world of soft, lush beauty, and soften the sometimes rough edges of the world.

When I run I am constantly scanning the various landscapes I move through.  My usual routes are such that I have endless visual variety; from big old households to empty lots, from the detritus of roadways to golden skies...always something which fills my curiosity, my pull to be swallowed up in the open.  No matter what psychological shifts are going on, and whatever people may do, very few have a chance to really commune with the natural world.   I feel I learn and absorb the Zen-like resilience of Nature every time out on the road, finding my own natural stance on my feet, while moving, extending my balance into the physical world.

Find a tree, a plant, a flower and imagine it's inner world;  how light, gases and that something inexplicable is coursing through it's structure, rooting deep in the ground while reaching high into the air above, circulating the very elements of earth.  There is a part of us always seeking to spread our roots deep into life, while we reach for the unknown.  No matter what is thrown at us, we can be at One with that.

Life After: Mother's Day '11

It's taken several days for me to find a voice about Mom, and life after.  On Mothers Day, I unplugged everything and waited out the influx of images, feelings and memories.  The Mom I knew once upon a time, and the Mom post-stroke, post-Dad were very different.  My ambivalence, sorrow and stress of these last years have not quite left me yet...there was nothing more sad than watching my parents deteriorate before me eyes.

I, too, have morphed into another Me.  And yet, the fundamental core of 'Mom' which infuses us, me and her, as the "someone" who gave life to someone else, is the same.  Women seem to inherently understand this, about themselves and their own moms...while men seem to struggle with what their obligations or contributions are in the scheme of things.  My someone, my son, will always back me, champion my cause, celebrate my every gain in life.  He will be there when I need him and leave me alone when I need space.  As he became a parent this year,  it is his turn to feel the magnetic pull of a child, and learn his own right way into this bond, while our darling Claire,  self-possessed little soul, makes her way into our hearts.

I set out for my Sunday long run that day full of feeling.  The May morning, bright, clear and already tinged with heat, rolled out before me as if to say "go anywhere you want."  I let my feet take the lead, and headed out Park and tackled my big Griffin loop, all the while grateful that my stride was good, and my energy intact, even after a 6 day work stretch.   I was the runner Mom would never be.  I was the full-time worker, counselor, writer, artist my Mom would always admire.  She gave me this:  the vision of herself way past her own capacity to manifest;  the independence of mind and soul, her awe and encouragement to become the woman I am today, and the courage to cope with and overcome....all our collective family obstacles.  

It's a debit each generation leaves to the next:  where we failed, where we left off....what dreams went unrealized, hopes which faded with age and disuse.... My legacy is the embodiment of Woman Power.  No one must give us permission to be who we really are, the manifest energy of the Greatest Mother of them All, and our Ultimate Role Model.   If it takes a warrior to conceive and birth worlds, then we are Warriors too. 

Sunday May Day Long Run

Despite the exhaustion, the mental fatigue from a 6 day full-client caseload stretch, I woke to a May morning bright with crystalline light, the early sunshine lining the material world with luminosity.   Within half an hour I was heading out Park, west, putting the full sun on my back and easing out the stiffness, after 2 days off.  My Friday and Saturday early starts take away my morning run window.  I could get up way earlier to pull it off, but sleep is a cherished commodity.  I am still doing 4 runs a week, and keeping Sunday long.  Not bad, and my base is slowly feeling more stable.  We'll see what opportunities present to up the mileage by and by.

On a morning like this, the hypnotic nature of clarity, of perfect circumstances, lifted me into the joy of the moving rhythm;  many good tunes rolling through 8Track, a great app if you haven't tried it.   Playlists of unknowns, mostly, great new stuff, all kinds, keeping my inner tempo like a gyroscopic modulator;  footfalls become musical beats and tones, rumbling through my gait.

I meandered over, up and around the Big Griffin loop, always glad to see that N 40 stretch, and the lovely oases of big growth landscape tucked in corners which beckon my dreams of my own compound,  the next place, a space to get lost in if needed, to find oneself, always, to dream into the future of course.

The Message of late seems to be...."all in good time, so relax..."  a mantra that for ambitious and intense folk like me,  always seems like a rather contraindicated prescription.  That said, I am certain that some mechanism also made a link, along with the insight, as if decades of constraints on my ability to relax, to not only see- but accept- the nature course of things, came into place.   Enough voices have persuaded.  It is time, now, to let it unfold. 

Never, on a run, do I bail, call a cab, cut it short.   I may be conservative about what I think I can do, and my runs, my mileage is indeed modest by most/some standards.  But each time I start out and decide "6 miler" "Griffin loop"  "beach circuit" etc.,  I am as committed to the endeavor as any explorer heading out on expedition.   It may kick my ass, or flow as smoothly as it did today, like a gift from the gods in every way possible.  But always, the run is there, it's own mini process of transformation and change.  So that by the time I walk back in the door, my feet are as light as my heart.