Redemption

 As mentioned in my previous post, I'm in Maine.
Maine lets me breathe, think, review, and reboot.
It lets me look at my life, my Toronto life, with its Toronto job, and all the Toronto problems that go along with that, from the other end of the telescopic lens.
As in far away, but oh-so-clear.

I've been reading (The Bride Stripped Bare by Nikki Gemmell, and a follow-up book of hers that I started reading on the plane).

And this: a great reminder of sorts.

http://www.msmagazine.com/summer2011/verbalkarate.asp

It takes alot, sometimes, to be yourself. It takes alot, sometimes, to claw through all that detritus of what people want you to be, even other women.  It's a daily battle, just like lacing up the running shoes and not letting fear rule your life.  But it's a worthy battle, remember this. 

 So that's where I'm at on this fine Maine morning.
The sun in shining very brightly, the Bruins are playing in half an hour (I really don't care, but my husband is gearing up to watch), I'm eating a bit of dinner-for-breakfast, and as I was telling my friend G. yesterday, I did the ultimate "Maine" thing yesterday--I was in a juice bar. But don't panic.  I was just there by accident, as it is attached to the Whole Foods store in Portland, where people who wear nothing but comfortable shoes shop for food, expensively. Mike and I had lunch there from their food bar and it was fun to people-watch while we ate. I bought eucalyptus and flowers in the name of Easter. 
We went to a fish market, cement floors washed in water, a black cat on the front steps, empty tuna can nearby. We bought oysters and ran into a running friend of Mike's, an enthusiastic man with lots of running tales, and at age sixty-one talked about the May marathon he was currently training for, his 73rd marathon. A cancer survivor.  I listened in awe. Usually when people talk about their accomplishments in a bragg-y kind of way I tune out, but not when the subject is running, any running. Then you've got me--I'm listening, I'm all ears, I'm fully present. You're a runner, in whatever form that takes for you. I'm already impressed.
My friend H. emailed me about her spring run yesterday, how it all clicked, how it feels when that happens, and I smiled as I read her email, her joy jumping off the screen right at me, my own 5-k that same afternoon coming back to me. Not the kind of 'high' running that she experienced, but the clarity kind, the ones that comes after you've spoken out about something that's been bothering you, the kind you have after you've made a good decision, you feel clear, clean. Washed.

It was the perfect sunny-cloudy-sort-of-rainy day, and while I ran, it was three kinds of weather, and the rain, which was falling as I ran along the shoreline, tide out but still wet sand, the rain was not cold. It was a spring rain.  Shape-shifting clouds, the light kind, the ones that aren't heavy with snow, with winter's dread.



Happy Saturday and yes I say, tentatively...Happy Spring. Happy running.