Learn by going where I need to go

It is six degrees out as I type. The snow is piling up outside with no intention of letting up. The house is quiet and in that quiet, a storm brews.

I should be excited. And I am, in a way. But I've had this horrible cough for going on three weeks now, and sometimes right now, it hurts to breathe. So I sit quietly with Gracie lying next to me and Foxy at my feet, thinking. Sometimes, now, I want to just be quiet.

What have I been training for? Several hundred miles logged on the dogs this fall, moving toward a solid goal, only to have everything fall apart at the last moment?

This year has been such a rough year. All I wanted more than anything was to get back on the runners and move forward. But maybe I've moved forward too fast. Because now suddenly these demons are haunting me. Three months of solid antibiotics have weakened me, made me susceptible, led to this awful cough. My body is not what it was. I am atrophied in places that were once strong. And I've been denying this fact.

My intentions were good. I thought picking right up where I left off was the right thing.

But I find myself in these quiet moments remembering the fragility and tenuous hold we have on life. In flashes, now that it's quiet, I remember the helplessness I felt in September, the stream of physicians of various disciplines, the humiliation and frustration and yes, the anger. And I remember the pain. Now that it's quiet, the memories well up inside of me, now that it's quiet, and rushes out in a flood that once was an iceberg. Why? Why did this happen?

I have decided to spend some time processing. Races will be there. I need to embrace this quiet, grieve, feel. And learn by going where I have to go.

Theodore Roethke - "The Waking"

I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
I feel my fate in what I cannot fear.
I learn by going where I have to go.

We think by feeling. What is there to know?
I hear my being dance from ear to ear.
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.

Of those so close beside me, which are you?
God bless the Ground! I shall walk softly there,
And learn by going where I have to go.

Light takes the Tree; but who can tell us how?
The lowly worm climbs up a winding stair;
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.

Great Nature has another thing to do
To you and me, so take the lively air,
And, lovely, learn by going where to go.

This shaking keeps me steady. I should know.
What falls away is always. And is near.
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
I learn by going where I have to go.