Thursday, April 23, 2009

Running Away

Every woman knows the days that make you want to run away. All it took for me, today, was a single moment, a single line of letters, and that was all. Somewhere in the midst of considering how this could be accomplished, I found myself on the phone with a friend-who-knows-how-to-be-friends and I was complaining of how I don't run enough anymore. We ended the call and I began my ritual, exhausted, eating, and reading. But this time the book I was beginning was focused on the societal anger of women in general, and it hit me, I am not alone, and I CAN run away sometimes.
So, with only 2 pages, in, I laced up my new purple and silver running shoes and off I went. Tansy was only too happy to lead the way, her sassy rear end showing every bit of happiness that a dog can muster when her best friend has gotten her 36 year old, cellulite-ridden ass off the couch and put on those delightfully smelly running clothes.
Spring was waiting for me. She was even more beautiful than I remembered her from years past. It seems this way each April, when the willows cascade over themselves with greeny-yellow leaf drops, and the creeks dance along in the sunshine. Running away brought me to the edge of a swamp, filled to bursting with deafening spring peepers.
It was there in the woods that I found myself again. I found myself in the curls of the fiddleheads, the floating green duckweed, the smell of the change from oak forest to pine woods, and the white puddle of swan tucked away on her nest waiting for life beneath her.
I was no longer running away. I was found again. I could stay in that lovely woods or I could continue home, and either one was going to be just fine, because the woods and the springtime would stay with me, the packed dirt beneath my feet, the green and the frogs and the buds all sprouting away inside of me.
T.

7 comments:

  1. First of all, I love the picture T. You really are good at capturing nature in so many ways – pictures, words, feelings.
    I want you to know that men want to run just as fast and as far too, but there is some societal manuscript that tells us otherwise - be strong, be there, hide that weakness that tells the world that you want to run and find solace in a place that doesn't hurt and longs for laughter and closeness and the answer that smoothes over your fear, hurts and longings. I want that utopia, Love, the one where people are really real and say what they want and what they feel, cry and laugh and smirk and frown and know it’s okay and normal to do it.
    As for the wood, I love those new buds hurrying to burst like fireworks and expose the greens - dark and light - transposing the grays and browns of winter. I want to sing with the cardinals and peepers, a symphony to welcome warmth and daylight and amber, evening skis.
    I wonder when the woodpeckers finds time to bore holes in the fallen trees and I want to know exactly where the garter snakes rests till the sun entices her to lay silent on a bed of leaves while the forest whispers and giggles the daylight away.
    I want to float along the ripples of the lake and be carried away by the sunlit sparkles to a world of horses and dolphins and pterodactyls and kitties as snuggly as Zillah and smiley as Tansy.
    And with all of it, I want to be there with you. My beautiful, my caring, my honest, my sexy, my intelligent and passionate wife. My T.

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  2. First of all, T~ you took me away on your journey too with all of your fabulous descriptions and the light you poured into your piece. Writing is such a similar escape, as I am sure you know well.

    Secondly, Doug---Why are YOU writing blogs? That comment was fantastic! Snap-Snap---Come on. No excuses! :)

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  3. Doug...i meant to write "why AREN'T you writing blogs?" Typo...sorry.

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  4. what a beautiful way to start what promises to be a beautiful day. i share your love of peepers, spring willows and the rest. i vow now to get out in it more often. thanks.

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  5. I've not done this before, but your piece, T, touched my soul. I can relate so well to every aspect of it. The craziness of the past two years has made me run from many things that are important to me. Most of all run from taking care of myself. So many others needed taking care of. I had lost faith that I would find me again. But when the rain started today, I stepped out into the world of green and growing things just outside my door. My gardens, there to greet me, are holding no grudge for the neglect I've shown. I wondered at trillium, may apples, solomon seal, ferns, pushing their way up through the leaves and debris that have hidden and protected them all winter. Amazingly, their numbers are stronger than a year ago as if, they heard my call and gathered to defend me. I stood, taking in the smells of rain and earth and waking life feeling a sense of hope return...

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  6. Thanks for the visual journey, the vicarious vacation..now I need to go visit my own cowslips and ramp patches...and look for emerging ferns.

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  7. Living in the city, when I run I dream of forest paths crosscut with sunlight, pine needles under my feet and cold, clean air.

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