It Felt To Be As It Should Be
I woke earlier today and set off with the sun rising in the sky... The waves were crashing vigorously on the beach, the sound was soothing and still within the rhythmic movement of the ocean...
The tide was coming in, which meant I needed to clamber on rocks against a wall to get through to the promenade where I had decided I would run some intervals...
Being in the beauty of it all, being the beauty of it all, being beauty, being here now... The sea has always leant itself to the here and now... It's magnitude, it's presence, it's sound...
When I moved to Eastbourne, I noticed the days when I did not go and visit the sea - 'my sea fix' - I took to saying that now I lived by the sea, I would always choose to live near the sea...
Four years ago I hurt my knee and could not run, and for six weeks while I was rehabilitating I went into the sea each day...
It was through some of June and July and the weather not often clement, I would emerge a shivering white bedraggled being... But the for the time I was in the sea it felt like it was the ultimate meditation...
My body grew cold, and with not another soul around I became a single human speck in the grey ocean that merged with the grey sky, with the downs rising up in green white greyness too, and I felt then a part of that misty greyness, no separation...
A feeling of peace... No attachment to my injured knee...
All felt to be just as it should be....
Four years on and when I reached the prom today, where I had decided to run intervals, I celebrated the feeling of balanced running, no knee pain at all....
I ran a session I really enjoy... I minute, 2 minutes, 3 minutes with a minutes easy jog between efforts, and then 2 minutes jogging before repeating again, and again and again... And one more time!
By the time I had finished my running, the seafront promenade was alive with other runners and walkers... A colourful array of forward movement and commitment to their morning routine... There were dogs on leads too and some cyclists...
I like running alone, but together with others on occasions... It feels rather like a metaphor for life. We are all on the journey from birth to death, one end of the promenade to the other... We can encourage and inspire and offer support but in the end we are all responsible for turning up each day and taking the next step and the next...
Later...
Pru and Ange, Anadi and I are off for dinner in 'my square' where I spent so much time twelve years ago...
