Last Sunday…
Anadi and I awoke to a wonderful wet fresh Sunday morn… We jogged to Pret a manger
This is a new habit of ours – run one kilometre and stop for breakfast! ‘Aren’t you cold’ the barrister asked me looking at my bare arms and be vested being… ‘I’m hot’, I laughed – I proffered her my rain jacket… ‘We ran here for some breakfast’…
‘What a lovely way to start Sunday’ she said, while bagging our croissant (me) and pain au raisin (Anadi)…
We sat watching the rain drops splash down, enjoying the background hum of voices and music and whooshing coffee machines… Chatting, being, enjoying our Sunday run…
We set off after while – up the Fulham road – where we met a man with a virtual London marathon number on his back… ‘Well done’ we clapped him – ‘How far have you gone?’ ‘Ten miles, sixteen to go he replied’…
We wished him well and on he ran…
We continued on to Holland Park and as we came out the other side through Notting Hill we spied our second virtual runner… On the road to Kensington Palace there was another, and another – and in the gardens two more…
Approaching Hyde Park the numbers gathered and we became official road side cheerers and supporters – jumping and whooping as a runners with a number pinned to their being went by, some solo, some with supporters running too – or on bikes beside them…
My heart felt like it would burst with love for my fellow human beings being human – out in the rain running along, running a long long way.
I felt tears rising in my chest as I witnessed their spirit in action – the joy and pain of the step, the road less travelled, the challenge – uncovering and discovering that they are more than they thought – can do more than they knew; growing as they journey within to their vulnerability – their strength shining through.
The running step is so simple and yet as complex as each human being; each step expressing their whole essence – the past and future encapsulated in the moment
No past, no future
Only now…
When we stay in the step, when we live it with all our being – when we experience it – the next takes care of itself…
Always
This is the way
The way to know ourselves is the stay present to each rainy , sunshiny, joyous painful step
Of our life
And discover
Uncover the route…
Forty three thousand people ran the London marathon that day all over the country, a virtual gathering
Everywhere, but nowhere
And every day eight billion of us all over the globe, a virtual gathering
Everywhere but nowhere take part in our own marathons.
We are all one
Journeying together on our own…
As we left the park we had spotted twenty five runners… ‘It would make great symmetry to find a twenty sixth’ I said to Anadi – ‘great for the blog’!
And on the Kings road we did just that
Five hundred metres from home, there she was our twenty sixth virtual London marathoner approaching her final twenty sixth mile…