I'm Going Under

And if Venice is sinking
I'm going under
'Cause beauty's religion
And its Christened me with wonder
Spirit of the West, And if Venice is Sinking, Faithlift

The legs are strong, the heart pumps, and the calf is behaving like a good calf should.  My goal is to make it to the Fargo Marathon start line on May 19... the rest is in the tea leaves, unknown but hopeful.  I run lonely miles through concrete trails with purpose and devotion to my heart and bones. I am hyper-alert for tweaks and twinges, antecedents for injury.  None come but I remain vigilant.  


Jennifer asks why I am driven so?   She wants to write a guest blog entitled I Hate Pasta. We laugh a comfortable laugh.  We don't understand the whys of what we do, but we accept our difference and we value the diversity in our relationship.  In a card she suggests I haven't yet found what I'm looking for and that's why I run. Maybe she's right, maybe it's about the searching.

I don't have words to describe the joy, the  painful beauty of crossing a line in the sand, and then running beyond that line. It just is.

If Venice is sinking I'm going under.  It's the beauty of the moment and the passion for human perfection that drives me forward... 'cause beauty's religion'.  The need to be all that I am, to look back and fear not that I have given it my all.  I hurt and I get injured along the way.  I make friends and they slip away so I run .. I run to mask the hurt... I run away...I run towards. I run because it makes me feel wonderful in heart and mind. 


Not the superficial wonderful, but the wonderful of life force, the wonderful of a sip of water, the wonderful of running over the white line, the wonderful of a mother's adulation, a father's attention.  


Like the raft, if Venice is sinking I'm going under.

It's a good day to be alive.

Mike