Richmond Park in autumn, brown green red leaves, green grass, green parakeets – and people… Cycling, walking, wandering people – dogs bounding about in the watery yellow November sun…
We had woken late on Sunday and made our way to a coffee shop for breakfast… Carrying our cups of steaming coffee and paper bag with pastries in, we had found a spot on the pavement where the sun shone bright – we basked there like lizards – enjoying the warmth of the almost winter rays on our faces … The day before has seen us breakfasting instead on a bench in the rain – we had huddled on one under the covering of a building!
We then found our way to Wimbledon common and ran about for awhile on the expansive verdant grass, following a route along beside the golf course, and then through the woods, we crossed the road to Richmond Park…
I ran there first forty years ago, no path carved as there is today; back then we found our way around the outside, climbing over fallen trees and running on paths made by the deer and other runners… I was twenty one and a half years young – hardly begun.
Now the route is clear and ordered but still the wildness remains, the raw beauty, nature abundant with crackly autumn all about.
A dog splashed into the water beside us
We laughed
And on we ran… I am sixty one and a half years young now – hardly begun.
Every new day dawning as if it were the first one ever
To be lived… It is the first one ever, there is no other like this one… I like to run with no purpose now; like the child I was when I first begun – to run – for fun – for the joy of each step…
Of course in truth, even when I picked up ‘purpose’ – there never was – but I thought there was…
Miles to be logged
Times recorded
Journeying to a race, and then another and another…
With purpose… And I discovered so much in this purpose – about my self – and about how to let go… So that now once more there is none…I have journeyed in a circle, and now it looks very much the same, this life of mine.
I go running – but instead of logging the miles and recording the times
I don’t…
The running step revealed to me so much, the purposes I followed showed me the way back to my self – to run to become.
And so it is…
Whatever path we are treading is our own to tread
There is no one way to truth, no authority can lead us there…
Every person must find their own way
The purpose of life is to live it
With a purpose or without
To live
Life is for the living
Life is to be lived