Aaargh

AAAAAAAAArrrrrrrrrrgggggggggghhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!

Meadowsweet

What is it about running that makes me feel so emotional? - it happens every time. Maybe it has to do with mornings like today's when the sun is rising, the sky is big and blue, the clouds are freshly washed hung out to dry and the hay meadows are showing whippets of swaying grass so sweet smelling it's almost possible to taste them. Just running past those meadows makes me want to tumble into them, rolling and laughing for pure joy. Like a child, remember that? Ach, childhood is long gone.

So maybe the emotion's there because everything is so clean and beautiful and alive, because on days like this I remember people who won't be running any more. So even if the left knee's getting dodgy, I can still run. Cue a bit of Andrew Marvell. Life is good, we don't have to follow the wraithes just yet, we can live if we choose.

Sisterhood

I am generally suspicious of gendered activites and it would be fair to say that with three men in tow last week's event could not reasonably be described as exclusively feminine but that's how it felt. Women gathered, conspired, to bring another woman home. To bring a woman back from 58 years of exile, back to the warm earth that held her parents, back to a country that accepted her from the moment of her birth to the moment of her return. From the florist to the stonemason to her sisters there was approval for the rightness of what we did. We brought one of theirs back and they were grateful for it. And the tears came and came and came and haven't stopped coming since. It is done and done well. And it seems as though all the living of the last 58 years was ancillary to the first 27 when another life was lived. Curious.