As God as my Witness

As God as my witness

lest should I boast,

I have felt a love better than most.

A fire’s fervent blaze or gentle

wave of the sea.

A fervor as tempting

as heaven would be.

Love’s longing does render

no mercy bestowed,

but an unfathomable splendor

my heart may explode.

And change I would not,

though my love is now far,

you’ll always remain

close to my heart.

And as God as my witness,

lest I should pray,

I’ll love again like that someday.

Race

Yesterday, everything I’ve been working towards for the past five months did not come to an end, but a beginning. It sparked the beginning of a passion, it lit a fire, a strength, and a determination; it was the start of something great.

Words cannot express how I felt after leaving the starting line at Coastal Grand Mall in Myrtle Beach. With the rising suns cascade of colors flooding the horizon and Jordan Sparks, “This is my now,” playing on my MP3, I couldn’t help but smile (almost cry). Never have I felt more alive, more in the moment, and more content with being exactly where I was, doing exactly what I was doing. And as I settled into pace as we rounded the mall, breathing in deep the chill of the wind and salt of the ocean, I felt a passion I’ve yet to experience.

 After running my first half marathon, I can proudly say I am in love. I’m in love with the feeling of working for something. I’m in love with the temptation and persistent desire to push myself beyond my limits and past my capabilities of endurance. I am in love with blurring the line between running and flying, pain and pleasure, fatigue and the feeling of being more alive than ever.

I can’t wait to do it again. 

Horizon

We often focus so much on trying to write the definition to our lives and in the midst of this forget that many times it is life that ends up defining us. The years shape far more than the face in the mirror. Whether there is a method to this madness or not remains unclear. We try to place together the many puzzle pieces of our existance all the while assuming that there is indeed a master blueprint to be followed, a pattern to take shape, a known quantity to be found.

All that can be known is that time does seem to change at least most things. Wounds may heal, but scars are always left behind even when they go unnoticed or ignored. Like wind on stone, we are worn down. Like wood in the hands of the Whittler we are changed in an instant and are never the same again. Contours form where once was youthful innocence. It seems we are much more the sum of our scars than that part of us that remains unscathed.

Free will plays its part, yet more often than not, in reprising its usual role of choosing how to handle circumstance rather than defining the circumstance itself. This uncertain entity we call life trudges perpetually on with a deaf ear turned to both our approval and rejection. We cannot stop moving forward even when we desire nothing more than a momentary pause. What remains is only to choose the direction we want to go. From there we wait to see what mysterious horizon waits to greet our sojourner eyes.

The Station

Tucked away in our subconscious is an idyllic vision. We see ourselves on a long trip that spans the continent. We are traveling by train. Out the windows we drink in the passing scenes of cars on nearby highways, or children waving at a crossing, or cattle grazing on a distant hillside, or smoke pouring from a power plant, or row upon row of corn and wheat, of flatlands and valleys, or mountains and rolling hillsides, or city skylines and village halls.
But uppermost in our minds is the final destination. On a certain day at a certain hour we will pull into the station. Bands will be playing and flags waving. Once we get there so many wonderful dreams will come true and the pieces of our lives will fit together like a completed jigsaw puzzle. How restlessly we pace the aisles, damning the minutes for loitering- waiting, waiting, waiting for the station.
"When we reach the station, that will be it!" we cry. " When i am 18." When I buy my new Mercedes-Benz!" When i put the last kid through college." When i get a promotion." When i read the age of retirement, i shall live happily ever after."
Sooner or later we much realize there is no station, no one place to arrive at once and for all. The true joy of life is the trip. The station is only an illusion. It constantly outdistances us.
So stop pacing the aisles and counting the miles. Instead, climb more mountains, eat more ice cream, go barefoot more often, swim more rivers, watch more sunsets, laugh more, cry less. Life must be lived as we go along. The station will come soon enough.

The Merry-Go-Round

They don't have merry-go-rounds anymore. Why is that? Playgrounds are static these days. Everything is safe, bolted down, rustproof. They're paved with squishy material so if there is an unexpected landing by anyone, it is a safe one, no harm done. I'm all for that. But in exchange for safety we have given up merry-go-rounds? Children today never knew the thrill of the merry-go-round. They never knew what it was like to hang on to a metal bar, one foot cemented to the circular wooden platform, the other kicking up speed till everything spun crazily, hanging on tight to keep from flying off. There were no thoughts of landing on hard concrete, of getting concussed or having the wind knocked out of you. There was only spinning trees and the blurred horizon, the still air suddenly whipped into froth; and the pull. A tug so hard it turned your knuckles white with the fighting of it. A tug that wrapped its invisible arms around you, its one hundred invisible arms, and tried pulling and prying you from that speeding platform. It was a pull that made the cells in your body pop with excitement, that made something race around under your skin, made percussion instruments of your internal organs. And instead of screaming in fear, you could only laugh, hysterically, the way you weren't supposed to, inches away from being splattered. And when the world slowed down and the risk of falling ceased, you stuck your foot back out on the earth and pushed and pushed and pushed till the world went around at a dizzying speed again. This time you'd risk a little more: lean out from the platform, tip you head back, close your eyes, and let the day contract into a single great battle between holding on and the temping desire to let go.

 

He Carries Me

I run because of Him.
He is my endurance,
perseverance, and 
inspiration. When I near the end
and my feet coincide with the copious pounding
of my heart. It is Him.

He carries me.

I Hate Track Days

I wish I could explain to you how much I hate track days. Unfortunately, my trainer Keith Wise, makes me train on the track every tuesday, bright and early, at 8am. Preparation for these days usually begin with a aggravated moan as I roll (literally) out of bed at 7:30. I lazily throw my comfortable night clothes on the floor of my room, trading them for an old pair of spandex shorts and a smelly sports bra, all while collecting my hair into a sloppy and careless braid. I usually have time to think about what I'm about to do when I sit down and slap my socks and shoes on my feet. The pain, the agony, the dreadful feeling that my heart is about to explode, those thoughts usually rush through my head.
The thing I hate most about the track is how every single second counts. A 1:42 400-meter is better than a 1:43 400-meter. I can't slow down, I can't give up. I can't even think because it takes too much time. It's the biggest competition known to man: a race against himself; a race against time. And I feel like most runners, especially sprinters know, it's harder than hell to win a race against time.
I am NOT a sprinter. I do not like to sprint more than 100 meters. And when I am forced to sprint longer than 400 meters, i tend to look like a fat kid playing hopscotch. But I suppose that's what its all about, doing the things you don't think you can do.
Running hard enough, there is no such thing. Enough is an operational definition. You can never run hard enough. I guess its better to think about making every second count.
kinda how life should be