Born To Run And Born To Have Fun...
Today I decided, was to be a swimming day!
A day off running seemed a good idea, especially as I have the hugest blister that seems to be growing!
It started with the nine miles downhill nearly two weeks ago, it is on the arch of my left foot... And it had been improving, until yesterday, when the length of the run and the terrain set it back - and it is now much bigger!
This is exacerbated by the fact the it isn't quite the season yet here in Corfu... Things are getting up to pace 'slowly slowly'... Holiday makers are arriving, shops are opening, apartments and restaurants and hotels are throwing back their shutters...
But the pharmacy is closed, at least when we go by... And I have run out of Compeed!
Compeed is an amazing blister cure, and protection, which I now discover, I cannot live without! (Please add many boxes of Compeed to 'the list' Amy!)
The more I journey the more I am establishing the essentials that I would need to take with me to my 'desert island'...
So a swimming day...
'We could swim a mile in the morning and a mile in the evening', I suggested enthusiastically! Anadi gave me a wry look.... But after a cup of coffee, and a sit on the balcony, we packed a couple of towels and drove down to Barbati Beach... Still, limpid, blue, 'water like a lake', beautiful Ionian sea inviting us in...
'It looks very cold' Anadi said, shattering my poetic image of invitation! No-one else was swimming, no-one was sitting in the beach or even walking... No-one was about at all....!
I stripped off quickly, new Tom Tom set for 'swim', and made my way to the shore...
The water washed over my feet, 'it's okay'... I turned to Anadi, who was still a way up the beach... 'Its lovely...'
He joined me, but did not share my sentiments of it being 'okay' or 'lovely'!
'Its freezing...!!!'
'It will be alright once we're in' I assured... 'It will be healing... But maybe a mile is a bit far...! Maybe half a mile and we can build up as the water heats up over the next few weeks...'
We waded out and then dipped underwater like dolphins, surfaced and swum out strongly... !
'It WAS lovely - pure, clear, clean, sharp on our bodies.
A magical immersion in this beautiful 'lake like' ocean, not a ripple on it...
'Shall we swim out further?' I suggested...
'No, I reckon we're far enough out', Anadi replied, 'let's swim along...'
It was glorious, but ever so cold, 'head hurting' cold at first, 'taking the breath away' cold... Especially as we have only swum in tropical waters in recent months!
On my new 'multi sport watch' we swum along for 500 metres, on the Garmin it said a quarter of a mile...! But we decided we had swum far enough anyway...
On the way back we paused, and Anadi said to me 'we've swum point four...'
'What does point four mean' I said 'I don't know what point four means...' It was a strange sensation to have my brain start to give up on me...
But point four meant nothing to me, and i just felt confused...
We started to swim again and suddenly I felt dizzy and odd, and my body wasn't there...
'I feel strange' I called to Anadi, 'I feel so strange, I am all dizzy...'
'Swim to the shore' he called.... 'Swim'
I obeyed his command and swum, then I felt even more strange, so I stopped to announce this to him...!
'Swim' he said again, 'keep swimming'... So I did....
Fortunately we weren't too far out, and soon I was shivering on the beach...
I know I am not good in the cold, but this was a salutary lesson of how quickly the body starts to shut down... I was shivering violently for an hour, and all day I have been wrapped up, even though it is sunny...
And yet, I didn't even feel all that cold in the water....
As my body started to 'give in' to the cold without me having warning it was happening, I felt very vulnerable, and very fragile in that moment. And very out of my body.
I was also very aware of the invincibility of the spirit, and of my energy, and of my essence, and very conscious of the fragility of the body....
Anadi suggested to me the other day, that maybe we have experienced a few 'near death' experiences together to remind us to keep going on our spiritual quest... To keep trusting that we must keep following our heart, keep clearing the things of the mind, the tension, the old hurts, the memories that bind us into this paradigm...
By being reminded acutely of the death of our body, and that our time on this planet will end, we are always in touch with keeping going on our road less travelled to our unknown land...!
I glimpsed death again today, for a pure moment in time, a space of absence from this body and this planet, I slipped into a sliver of silver space where there was nothing...
And I have only just remembered what Anadi said a few days ago...
I love traveling this earthly journey, I love being in this body and love being born to run!
Being born to run and born to have fun!
