Muddy Sunday

On a muddy Sunday morning
The world is quiet
Muddy, for all the rain
That washed over the city
And woke me in the middle of the night
Twice this week
Blessedly

Today the sky is gray and cold
But dry and calling me to the trail
Wet branches brush my arms
I order my feet
Up, up, up
So not to slip on the wet rocks
And out loud
I laugh

Because this is an adventure
The air cool
The people far in-between
The woods mine
I stop and slow again and again
To make my way
Over streams that weren’t here
A week before
Dancing over the rocks
Until I misstep and my leg sinks
Into the water halfway up my calf
There’s that laugh again

I close in on two hours by the time I’d done
But I haven’t had this peaceful of run
In a long time
My breathing even
My legs circling beneath me
Steady, easy, carefully
My mind even
My thoughts gliding
The soreness in my muscles
Towards the end
Another reminder of their strength
Growing stronger

These weeks grow longer
Or perhaps it was just this past one
Dragging into a year or more
But then each mile brings me back
Here, in this moment, here, moving through it
It’s small, but it’s something I can still do
Move through it, run through it, get through it