The days are short this time of year, and sneaking in a daylight run is sometimes difficult.
I drove home with zest, and raced to the bedroom to change. I hadn't ran in two days, and I really felt like I needed to, or maybe I just really wanted to. At any rate, I felt like I deserved it, and I was going out to enjoy this run; to nurture myself. I decided where I was going before I had my shoes laced. A favorite spot up in the foothills above Flathead Lake, nearly 6 miles round trip.
The snow was nearly non-existent and the air was unseasonably warm. I decided to run the loop backwards from the direction I normally run so that I would get to the overlook cliff before the sun set and I might have some good light for photos. Along the lake, and up the trail before gaining any elevation the light was flat and blue. The snow had a soggy crunch underneath my lightweight racing flats. It was like tramping across a huge Icee that had begun to soften. The Icee had exposed a couple of lightly trodden offshoots which I explored this day. The travel was short as the paths abruptly yielded to granite cliffs, wild rose, cottonwoods, and lodgepole pine. I continued on my normal route (still backwards) until I chugged slowly up the steep hill to my favorite old dead tree. A Grand Fir, or perhaps a Ponderosa Pine, maybe neither one but it has character, and I wish I could hear its story. The golden late afternoon light shinned brightly on it, and I stopped for a self portrait in front her. It leans to one side, and it's brittle and dry. I doubt it will remain standing for too many years, but it's home to insects and animals this day. It has beauty and honor, and it very much still has a purpose on Earth, in this life dream we call reality.
I continued on, panting and sweaty, I reach the cliff. Normally I don't stop running when I reach this spot. I slow down momentarily and look out at the lake, down at the road below, and then I'm off again. Not today. Today I stop completely. Long enough to catch my breath and hang my feet over the ledge. I sit still and feel the warmth of the Sun on my skin. I feel precarious up on the ledge, but also tranquil and whole. I have struggles in life, and things are not always perfect, but I'm accepting the imperfection and transcending the bumps along life's path. I work at doing this daily by reading, praying, studying, and I know that my efforts are especially rewarded because of days like today. Days like today that I choose to take for myself, to re-charge, to think, to appreciate, to show gratitude. These times that I choose to run.
