Walk, Run, Sit.

You have to walk before you can run. At least this is the manta I kept telling myself as I tried to run for the third time since my fourth boy. This time from my house, down the Summit boulevard trail to the monument at the river. The path, a worn, dirt one, hugged by clusters of pine trees, some with large enough bases to be a fort for a 6 year old in the winter. Sun and welcomed shade graced my face, as I wove between the trees from a run, to a jaunt, to a walk back to a run again…it’s humbling to say the least as I grasp for breath. All the while I envision myself running these two short miles with breath full and bold circulating all the way into my sacrum and pelvic floor, not pausing at my neck where it seems to be stuck on a loop. 

I approached the last leg of the trail before it hit the River Road, I was stopped by a small boulder that had a plaque on it dedicated to the Junior League Women of St. Paul in 1977 for the reforestation of the city; those trees that lined my path placed by dedication to beautify. I paused with my hands cupping the rock, and behind me a bench invited me to sit on it with the morning dew still present. 

(I wrote the above paragraphs on Monday, it is now Wednesday and I am just now getting back to this, to that moment.) 

You see something happened in that moment I chose to sit in stillness with the wet dewed bench soaking my god-awful yellow running shorts. I felt my spine grow tall, my shoulders open up, my mind settle downward, and I tuned into my breath, I imagined it moving from my neck to my shoulders down to my stomach settling and circling through my sacrum and pelvic floor. An occasional car, or barking dog would punctuate my sitting meditation and I would notice them, even at times glance their direction, but then I would return to my breath. To feel the rising sun’s rays, slant cross the boulevard, and dance across my face. Gradually, with each breath I was more and more in my body and less outside of myself. I finally turned to go back on the trail I had come from instead of going the last fifty paces to the river, I realized later the importance of this, the river holds trails I walked as a child with my parents, but those old paces hold things I no longer wish to hold for myself. And, just like that I was ok with stopping short of my goal, the monument, and grateful for that small plaque on that small boulder, that invited me to sit and still myself. 

As my feet hit the trail, I was in a different place. My mind felt clearer, calmer, and I felt more in tune with my body. My shoulders down and back, my hips more open, my feet more purposeful in their walk, and my walk became a walking meditation. And while I wished for the trails of the mountains I once hiked, I settled for the plains of the Midwest and I was ok with that.