sprang

As much as I love winter, it really is joyous to come out of hibernation, and right on time, spring sprang here in KC. Eighty degrees two days in a row! With freezing temps expected for the weekend. Perfect spring behavior.

To celebrate, I took my bare legs outside to the trolley track trail for the first intentional run in three and a half years. Sweating and panting and struggling at the 1/2 mile mark, I was bewildered to acknowledge that this body I was dragging along twice broke a six-minute mile. Glory days no more. Today, I rejoiced at making it through three 3/4-mile segments (with long, slow walks in between) and more importantly, and refreshingly, remembered how I love the feeling of running! So with that, I've finally resolved to overcome this irksome IT band that's kept my knee weak and pained since November 4, 2007. (After all, I have to complete my trifecta of masochism and someday do another marathon.... 4:02 and 4:01 must be deposed. That ain't gonna happen without some serious recalibrating.)

Elliptical, I hate to admit it but -- it's been real. I'm phasin' you OUT though. Let the real running begin again. Slowly. Someday is a long way off, and I do only have two knees.

(We'll see how I feel about all this when I wake up. Hopefully my legs will still be in operation and my feet not in my mouth.)

rollin' round the bend

Something I love about being home is the sound of the trains, which I notice usually at nighttime. I guess I've always loved trains, but I don't think that was a conscious love until I looked back through an old pre-teen journal and I had listed a bunch of things to do with my life, one being take a train across the country,"--which I kinda did coming back home from Bend. (Portland--Chicago--KC over three blissful days of rolling monotony and traveler's anonymity.)

Anyway, the continuous sounds of the trains in the night make me think of this that I read in an Anthony de Mello book:

When Brother Bruno was at prayer one night, he was disturbed by the croaking of a bullfrog.

All his attempts to disregard the sound were unsuccessful, so he shouted from his window, "Quiet! I'm at my prayers."

Now Brother Bruno was a saint, so his command was instantly obeyed. Every living creature held its voice so as to create a silence that would be favorable to prayer.

But now another sound intruded on Bruno's worship—an inner voice that said, "Maybe God is as pleased with the croaking of that frog as with the chanting of your psalms."

"What can please the ears of God in the croak of a frog?" was Bruno's scornful rejoinder.

But the voice refused to give up. "Why would you think God invented the sound?"

Bruno decided to find out why. He leaned out of his window and gave the order, "Sing!"

The bullfrog's measured croaking filled the air to the ludicrous accompaniment of all the frogs in the vicinity.

And as Bruno attended to the sound, their voices ceased to jar, for he discovered that, if he stopped resisting them, they actually enriched the silence of the night.

With that discovery Bruno's heart became harmonious with the universe, and, for the first time in his life, he understood what it means to pray.

And, on another note, also this...


and as the original poster of this video says, sorry for the sideways-ness. The sound quality is quite good though.