Good Grief 36

After a full day in Edinburgh, I followed 'construction' with 'structure' ... trying to do all the things that I know might help things along. In spite of a long drive and a very late night, I tried to keep some continuity going and got up for the Parkrun yesterday morning. It was a beautiful morning. I was on my own because my friend was on holiday with her family. So I followed my own rhythm which is a bit more how I live, a bit stop/start - as I ran I became familiar with the stitch, the dodgy knees, then the feeling of the exhaustion of all this time struggling coming over me in waves, and then tearful and just pained ... as I stopped and walked a little I would look at the white water of the river after the rain we've had, the light in the trees and on the hillsides. I realised it is pretty much how I am living ... I try hard for a bit and then stop and just let it all wash in for a bit ... and then I get going again. And I realised all the elements that fill each of these phases ... the physical activity, the attempts at connection, the cerebral, the creative and the immersion in the environment, in space, the moment, etc. In the now familiar delirium that comes with the run I thought of excerpts from latest episode of The History of Ideas that I had listened to on my way to Edinburgh ... of the problem of linguistic philosophy, of Wittgenstein and the impossibility of speaking of our inner worlds, questioning the sensations I experience, the seeming impossibility of expressing the sea of chaos of this inner experience to another ... and the ultimate sense of aloneness that comes with that and that we are ultimately utterly alone with our unique consciousness. Which bought me back to Aristophanes again. Such is the Parkrun Delirium ... I don't know if I was glad to have done it, I was shattered and I sat in the sun afterwards and listened to the gorse seeds popping like rice crispies .. snap, crackle and popping ...

I'm glad I read this today ... 'I’m not insisting that we be brimming with hope — it’s OK not to be optimistic. Buddhist teachings say, you know, feeling that you have to maintain hope can wear you out, so just be present… The biggest gift you can give is to be absolutely present, and when you’re worrying about whether you’re hopeful or hopeless or pessimistic or optimistic, who cares? The main thing is that you’re showing up, that you’re here, and  that you’re finding ever more capacity to love this world — because it will not be healed without that. ' (Joanna Macy)

And so to today ... and a struggle to do anything at all other than cut some sweet peas to take to my dear friend ... it was difficult to even get there, which I know must sound so absurd, but I was glad I did.