Episode 09: The Journey
It’s been one of those days (weeks). I’ve felt jumbled, overwhelmed, overstimulated - a little extra irritable, annoyed. Scattered. As I finished my workday, I thought to myself - “I need to go for a run”. I laced up the shoes, harnessed up the pup, and off I went.
I felt myself calming as I settled in - fresh air after a hard rain, sun almost ready to set.
Not merely 10 minutes in, I rolled my ankle. Twice. In not even 100 meters. The first time I went down, I thought to myself “You have got to be fucking kidding me.” The second time I went down, I thought to myself “Really? This run just isn’t going to happen for me, is it…” I sat there on the trail. Head down. Nearing tears. Frustrated. Annoyed. Ready to turn back and call it quits.
I took a few breathes and sat there for a moment longer. Then, slowly, I picked myself up, looked ahead, and kept running.
Earlier, in my state of jumbled, overwhelmed, overstimulated, irritable, annoyed, scattered, I pulled open a Mary Oliver book mid workday and turned to a poem my dear friend marked for me called “The Journey".
Just a few hours later as I picked myself up off the trail and kept running, I thought of these words and smiled.
For you, below.
The Journey, by Mary Oliver ———
One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice—
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
“Mend my life!”
each voice cried.
But you didn’t stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations—
though their melancholy
was terrible.
It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice,
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do—
determined to save
the only life you could save.
With love and a sore ankle,
Mikaela
