The Same Colour...
Today I rose early and left Anadi sleeping…
I was greeted by a glorious day, still, bright, sparkling pale blue… It was only 23 degrees at the beginning of my run; as the miles went by, the sun rose and so did the temperature; 33 degrees by the time Anadi arrived for a swim…
I know this temperature ‘fact’, because I looped on the flatlands around Ipsos, along the front, up to where the kittens play, and around the football pitch… many times!
My loops took me past the pharmacy, where the sign above the shop flashes the temperature up, alternating with the time…
It struck me how much we like numbers and knowing; the time, the temperature; somehow positioning us, the information giving us some structure in the chaos… This make believe land, where we make up ways of doing things, that we must adhere to… Because…? Because that’s the way it is done… Or as my Dad would say, ‘Because I say so…’!
I remember reading in a book that morals simply mean, ‘customs of the land’ – I rather liked that…
It somehow freed me to make up ‘my own customs of my own land…’!
As we crossed the road after our swim, a couple walked towards us… We had run past them a few days ago, and I had said to Anadi, ‘I know that man, I am sure I know that man… he is a runner, I am sure…’
‘It’s Julia isn’t it…’ The man said as he approached… ‘Do you remember me…?
‘I do…’ I said, ‘but where did we meet...?
‘It was all those years ago, (thirty!) London marathon times, you and Nigel…’ He turned to Anadi… ‘Is it alright to mention this…?’ Anadi smiled and nodded…
‘I thought it was you’, he went on ‘Your running style is the same…’
Martin Rouse, I remembered him then, once he had reminded me of the context… his wife Tina, Anadi and I chatted together, promising to meet for a coffee when we come back here again…
They had come down to the front today, especially to find us, and to check whether it really was me…
‘We could talk for ages about your nomadic lifestyle’, Martin said ‘And I think we would hardly scratch the surface…’
He turned to Anadi, ‘How do you keep up with her?’ he laughed ‘She is all energy…’
‘He’s the one who can…’ I replied…
When Anadi and I met, both of our families saw that each of us had met the one who could ‘keep up with the other...’
My brother said to my sister Rosy… ‘They are the same colour…’
‘How did you meet…’ Martin asked…
We told him the story of our first encounter… About how Anadi had interviewed me for his SoundsOrange site; how I spoke about my running as a ‘meditation on the move…’
It was in that first meeting that we had seen that we were ‘the same colour’; we recognized that in the other we had met someone else who was as committed as we each knew ourselves to be, to life as a meditation…
Little did we know how much we would be asked to strip ourselves bare… To be transparent in all ways, and to shed everything, our possessions for one, our old lifestyles for another; but more than that, to keep shedding every single barrier to truth…
Or perhaps we did know deep inside; which is why we set off together…!
And so we had our final breakfast at Lagoon; for this year anyway, with Lucia and Denise…
Tomorrow instead of sitting on their beautiful purple and pink sofas enjoying fruit salad and Greek yogurt (full English for Anadi!) with a day stretching ahead, on this verdant vibrant island…
We will be flying five miles high again….