It’s not exactly graceful, and I feel somewhat less than strong plodding up the cobbled southern slopes of Mount Doug, but its movement, and for that I am grateful. The sun slants through the clouds and the humidity rises and my body responds so that I’m pushing a film of sweat from my face by the time I tackle the steep final accent along the power line. It’s a straight on, straight up route, and I’m running this path because I’m feeling soft and frustrated and want to erase that with action.
After running the Royal Roads Gutbuster on April 6th, I found myself in need of a rest. When I crossed the finish line of that grueling ordeal I sort of passed out for a few seconds on Jenn’s shoulder. I’m not much of a racer, and that contest took a lot out of me. I didn’t run for a week or so, then did a few light runs while in Toronto the following week, and then took another couple of weeks off while traveling in Alberta and BC before picking up the pace again this week.
Part of the impetus for this hiatus was fatigue, and part of it was logistical. My life has become very full, and I’m having trouble keeping up my running schedule.
Another unplanned gap in what had been a fairly sound routine is in my meditation practice. To be honest, I’ve stopped sitting. I mean, I still sit, but it’s usually at my computer, or sometimes, when I’m lucky, at the diner table. Or as often as not, in my car. And usually I’m not able to clear my mind of worldly distractions during this time.
It’s been a number of months since I had a regular practice of simply clearing the mental slate for 30 minutes a day (like I was every really able to do that in the first place).
But I can still feel the stillness that meditation provided me; I’m simply not making the time to delve further into that stillness on a daily basis.
My body and my soul crave these things - movement and stillness - but right now, I’m focusing on more important things.
I’ve got a job for the first time in three years. This isn’t to say that I haven’t been working for the last thousand days, but now that I’m serving a single organization most of my time (more on this transition later) I don’t have as much flexibility.
And I’m focusing on my family: on being a good, loving father, and a good partner to Jenn. Jenn is incredibly supportive of my various pursuits. She’s also way more fun to be around at 6am than my meditation cushion, my candles and my little statue of Gautama Buddha. And after all, through my meditation I’m seeking to erase boundaries: where better to start than between our two souls?
It’s really not a big deal to take time off. We define ourselves by what we are doing, but as Lao Tzu asserts, it is the space in between action that gives rise to our connection to the universe. It is from this unformed space that our best ideas, our creative impulses, and our deepest resonance with the mystery of life are born.
Sometimes the space we need is time away from action. Even if, in the case of mediation, the “action” is stillness.
I’m learning not to fear these pauses. For a while I was afraid that if I took a break from something that it would be over. If I stop running for a few weeks, I’ll never start again. If I stop meditating, it will be too damn hard to start again, and I simply won’t do it.
To an extent there is a momentum that forms behind something like a daily meditation practice, or a regular running schedule. My body remembers how good it feels to run, and craves it when I am doing it routinely. But it also relishes a rest, and so I’m not beating myself up too badly for taking a break.
Today at lunch I put on my running shoes and hit the trails at Royal Roads for the first time since the Gutbuster nearly 6 weeks ago. It felt great, and despite running late yesterday, I felt strong and fluid on the University's undulating trails. I ran along a bluff, through woods dappled with brilliant sunlight and amid a cacophony of birdsong that made my head spin and heart race at the joy of being alive; jumping over fallen logs slowly becoming the earth again; the world around me becoming a part of me with each breath. It felt heavenly.
Yes, life is busier these days, so maybe I can’t count on my formally rigid schedule of run-rest-run-rest-run. Maybe now I have to be more opportunistic and seize running days and short periods of meditation when I can. It will be worth it for how good it makes me feel, how it connects me to the people I love and the world I live in, and how it affords me the joy of time with my Rio and Silas and Jenn to grow and strengthen our love for each other.
Sometimes it’s the pause that allows us a moment to recall what we really live for.
