Differences

You caught yourself musing over lines, strokes, differences on a predawn run the other day. The difference in three strokes. Three markings. Their directions can make a difference between a capitol A and a capitol Z. Each have three strokes. Yet the letters vary in placement, meaning, and usage greatly.You sit here at night as you write still considering this as you hear the West Seventh cross-country train sound its horn warning the city of its impending approach. A soundtrack that plays in the backdrop of your life. So many sounds that go unnoticed. This train zooms through here with urgency over tracks that are a mile away from your home in Saint Paul, and yet the train's whistle can instantaneously place you in the backyard of the rail yard at the Santa Fe Hotel where this train first came into your awareness. This train is one of the same trains that sits there, where you used to live. The pale yellow box car with the words Santa Fe painted on it in fading red letters. Yes, that box car you noted from your hotel window has passed you at the tracks in Saint Paul and you have sat in your car and watched, as your boys in the back seat delighted at the sight of so many cars, such a long train, passing before their eyes.

Today you swam in the Highland Pool for the first time without a swim cap, without a hair covering, in front of others. You battled and played with the sound track that floated through your mind with each stroke as you did lap after lap of 100's. I wonder what my spotty hair growth looks like to others. Should I have worn the swim cap? You extend your arm scooping water that is in front of you back as you swim. These thoughts like that faint whistle sounding off, a whistle that many nights goes unnoticed. You begin to sense and feel your body from the inside out. Letting the outside judgements float away. Let yourself know yourself from within. You watch. You play being the witness of your thoughts that the practice of yoga, of meditation, of running invite you to be with your life. You watch as your little self shrinks. The thoughts that can pull you down, thoughts that can make you sink without enough ability to catch your next inhale get pushed behind you with your next arm stroke and your feet flutter kick them away.

In between your training plan's laps you rest standing in the shallow end, head above water, playing with the plunge between watching others watch you and the self consciousness that comes from that, and you watching yourself as you moved through water, now standing tall to rest, letting the thoughts move through you. Pulling yourself back toward thoughts of love. Thoughts of  I am enough as I am.  This leads you into playful territory. Into playing with breathing on your left side of your freestyle and alternating your breath between arm cycles. Extending your exhale to naturally lengthen your inhale. Hair, no hair. Three strokes. Covering up. Not covering up. A. Z. Caring. Not caring. Playing with "both and ands" and shedding the "either or" mentality. Letting go of right and wrong thinking and allowing yourself to experiment, to play with cause and effects. Tomorrow you will run the annual trail race at Afton Alps, a 25k, and you've been there before, but this time it is different. And as you conclude this post, the whistle of the passing train sounds in the distance and you become aware again.