The other side

The promised rain has held off, and the overcast sky extends the spring dawn till I have chugged up the hill to the zenith of my run, and stop to eat my bag of nuts at the overlook. The quiet, placid calm of the lake seeps into my soul as I set a brisk pace downhill into the undulating road between vineyards and rolling green hills.

I shout with joy at the announcements from my GPS, celebrating each mile with a surge of strength and joy. It’s been so many weeks since the toll of training my body to compensate for the irrecoverably torn rotator cuff ‘interfered’ with the all-important sadhana of running. I am back, Dear Road, I am well, and able, and I can float into the Livermore Valley, my feet barely touching the ground, my mind soaring over the eucalyptus trees.

“Break on through to the other side”, the Doors sang.

On the other side of sorrow and failure, set-backs and bodily injuries, the loss of a loved one not to the grim reaper, but to ‘life’, on the other side lies the green of a lush valley on a spring morn.