Idle and Blessed

I always really want to be outside. I have a hard time being still. The worst thing about being in school is sitting down under florescent lights to learn. I don't know how people do it all the time, or why. I guess adults in offices everywhere have grown content with it. Have we forgotten what it feels like to be alive in the dirt and sun, learning from the trees we climb and the streams we jump over? Kids know. We should listen. I at least have the luxury of going to work at a yoga studio every other day, instead of a typical office. But there are still days when the little skylight above me is not enough and I leave for lunch just to smell the air. I think if we remembered how mortal we are, we would stop sitting down in buildings. Our bodies are how we move through the world. Our bodies are how we know the world, how our souls find their place in creation. I remember my place in creation when I'm in the woods. When I see the stars and feel the smooth rocks on the b...

We are all just people moving through the maze of life at different speeds and starting times. Learning lessons as we go, as the world speaks to us and bumps up against us in its strange ways. We're just people getting it at different times, standing next to others as they get it too. There's an episode of Gilmore Girls where Rory gets arrested for stealing a boat. Lorelei picks her up from the police station, and they stop at Luke's. While Rory is in the car, Lorelei rants to Luke about the situation, freaking out because she doesn't have soap to wash the fingerprinting ink off her daughter's fingers, and her car is still at the marina. Luke, in his brilliance, just keeps saying common-sense things like, "I have soap," and gives her a doughnut. When Lorelei gets back to the car, suddenly Rory is hit with the reality of the situation. "I was arrested! I have to go to court! Where is my car? I need soap!" And Lorelei just looks at her with the...

I encourage anyone who wants to practice transcendence to take up ultrarunning. I don't have the right words to explain exactly what happens out there on the trail. First my mind stops its linear thoughts and instead starts to swirl around in circles. Tree. Rock. Jump over. The song stuck in my head. Person ahead of me is slowing down. My knee hurts. The wind. I hear the river. The swirling goes on and time doesn't pass in a normal way. After 4 or 5 hours of running, there are less thoughts and more feelings. More noticing. It is no longer "I need to eat exactly 90 calories of carbohydrates at mile 24," but "I'm hungry." And I start to feel pain all over and somehow am completely happy at the same time. I remember seeing a white fuzzy caterpillar around 6 hours in. He was on a rock I jumped on and I made sure not to hurt him. Caterpillar. I can't remember the last time I noticed a white caterpillar. I don't remember anything else from that fe...