We all know it: holidays are stressful. There’s no one in their good, right
mind who approaches holidays with a completely open heart who then leaves the
holidays with that same good will and lack of judgment or feeling of having been judged.
Family is important. It reminds us who we are, who and where we come from, who we strive to be and, more importantly, not to be.
Even the best families
can be taxing, though, and it's important to respect that stress and address it before
it manifests into anger or unhealthy habits. Whenever I visit with my family, I
rediscover my love of running. My folks live near Wompatuck State Park, and
just an hour or two in those woods clears my head and ready’s me for the
continued discussions in which I don’t necessarily want to participate.
Yesterday, after a hard day of writing and research, I laced up my trail
running shoes, borrowed my dad’s car (hey, I'm still his daughter), and headed to the woods.
I wish I found solace here years ago, growing up the black
sheep of the town, nevermind my family, and needing a place to go where no one
commented on the color of my hair which was everchanging or the contents of my
poetry which is still evolving. Instead I hid under furniture and later built an old 3-speed English
cruiser I picked up at a yard sale and rode it into the city. That became my
meditative state, listening to the cars pass so swiftly on my left, maneuvering
the cold Massachusetts air and my brittle artist heart. Had I found the woods,
the journey to quiet would have been much shorter, I’m sure, but at least I
still got some fresh air and some good stories out of it. I'd likely be a different person, maybe a bit more content to find stillness and hold it. I like who I am, I appreciate the attention to my surroundings that was fostered by riding the back roads through Quincy and Dorchester, but as an adult, the woods settle my soul like a warm tea. The ringing in my ears dims, if only a little, and I can hear my own breath puffing through the beats of my feet in time to the music in my headphones.
I dropped off my husband at the airport the day before, and
as a consolation prize, bought myself some new headphones, the Yurbuds VentureTalk. The earbuds are comfortable, the cords don’t get tangled, and the buds
have magnets on the back to easily control them when they aren’t in my ears. I
didn’t receive a call to test the microphone and volume, but the sound quality
was perfect for everything from Mortals to MIA. What’s best, I could still hear
my footsteps as I pounded pavement and crunched through frosted leaves and
puddles. There was no one in the woods, as the sun was setting and the gates
were closed to cars, except for one lone mountain biker heading back to his car
and an older couple sitting on a bench by a creek. It was nice to have the road
to myself, to not worry too much about bikes or dogs blowing through on the
trails, to focus and unfocus my eyes like apertures, to try to get myself lost
and found, lost and found, weaving on and off the trails.
My sister recently told me about her time of meditation, the
drive home from church on Sundays. She takes the long way as her daughters
sleep, following the quiet roads that hug the shoreline. It takes her three or
four hours and on a Sunday afternoon, there’s barely anyone on these small town
back roads. She can’t unfocus her eyes, but her mind drifts in and out of true
awareness. It’s here she’s able to truly focus on her life in the moment. The
baby, whose just learned to walk this week, isn’t going to bang her head
against a table corner, her toddler isn’t going to jump and crack her head open
or have her feelings hurt at school. Her own dramas, for just these few hours a
week, fade into the distance where they belong.
Here on the trail, shoes muddy and heart open, I am here in
the present, I am here in the distance, where I belong.
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