i am sticking to the 'day behind schedule' so even though today is the 4th, i am only going to post for the 2nd and 3rd days of reverb 10. i do like this reverb-ing thing. come the end of the year, it will be good (and very interesting) to have a written account of specifics from 2010. with that said,....
2 December: Writing. What do you do each day that doesn’t contribute to your writing — and can you eliminate it
the answer to this is easy: nothing. writing is such a crucial part of how i process life, everything i do/say/think/feel is recorded. most is kept private in my incredibly ridiculous amount of journals and some is made public via the good ole' blog. but everything is recorded. everything is written down, sometimes in daunting detail. even little moments like a trip to the store can be recorded and made into a funny happenstance article for an online magazine. or an e-journal. baby food, toy, shopping, clothes, baby poop, puzzles, peanuts, kitchen timers, recycling, granola bars....whatever the topic, my view is that it can be turned into a story. because our culture is very Internet focused, there are so many outlets for writing, both personal and public, that i can honestly say everything i do everyday is somehow related to writing. and there is always a form of media to put it into.
short and sweet. done.
3 december: Moment. Pick one moment during which you felt most alive this year. Describe it in vivid detail (texture, smells, voices, noises, colors)
i have two. and i am not choosing between them. both moments are me. both moments signify significant points in my life. choosing between one belittles the other. so two it must be.
the first 'alive' moment happened on a boiling hot day in july. 31 according to the thermometer. rhys wore stripped billabong shorts, eleri had on her green bathing suit with white flowers, and i wore a red and white polka dot bikini. we were in cyprus on the williams family holiday, and on this particular day Team Williams had branched out and gone to the local beach. not the area filled with tourists, but the place for locals. we like to explore and we want eleri to be a part of that. we decided to walk the 20 minutes to the beach; oh it was hot! we stopped to get an ice cream on the way because it was that hot. this is the first significant 'thing' of the experience. 31 is not even 95 F. and i was dying. it was this day that i realised i had truly acclimated to the british weather. first it was vocabulary, then it was dress, then lifestyle and finally my body had physically aligned itself with the UK. it was was home.
with the beach in sight, rhys spotted a strange gathering off the the left. it was an archaeological dig. biblical ruins. awesome. my love of history and my love of the beach in collision. after staring for a while, we finally parked the stroller on the sand and headed down to the water. eleri had been to the sea before, but never an ocean with waves, and seaweed, and HUGE amounts of sand. little e took off running as fast as her tiny legs would take her. straight into the ocean. the waves hit her in the face and instead of turning away, she giggled and ran in even further. rhys had to chase after her, bringing her back to shallow ground. her face was priceless. the joy, the wonder, the excitement. the ocean was a completely new experience for her. and she couldnt get enough. i remember thinking "whoa! eleri is one crazy baby! she is not afraid of anything" and as i stood back to watch my precious baby and my true love interact with one another the strangest feeling of peace came over me. they were my life. and my life was perfect.
that moment on the beach encapsulated so much for me. on the superficial side of things, as mentioned i was wearing a bikini. but what i failed to mention earlier was that i looked damn good in it. i had lost all the baby weight and then some. i worked hard and i was proud of the result. i felt really comfortable with post baby kristina for the first time that day on the beach; that in itself was a BIG moment. on a deeper level, it was eleri. watching her run into the ocean, completely fearless, i felt so..... i am not sure of the word. i felt so much pride? so much excitement? joy? contenment? happiness? it was a bizarre mix of feelings. she was so brave. and i loved that. i loved that she wanted to explore, that she was curious. i loved that was eleri not afraid of the water, but it was also something she very clearly enjoyed. it was (and still is) something that we share. it felt as though my heart was jumping up and down in my chest, so full, so excited that i could not contain it. my little girl was adventurous. it was further confirmed that day ele was exactly the baby we had prayed for, in every single way. laid back, easy going, curious, excited, fearless and adventurous. she is the kind of baby that was comfortable with exploring. and my heart was at peace. i was 'alive'. my baby was exactly the baby i had dreamed of. she truly is a perfect combination of all the things rhys and i love. and i knew that day in july that life would be even more exceptionally wonderful than i imagined.
the second moment occurred not too long ago. the 5th of november. the day i ran my first marathon. the start of the 78.6 miles i had ahead of me. it was cold, wet, rainy, and generally pretty miserable. the worst weather i could have hoped for. i was running on rocky cliff paths, often in ankle deep mud. but i ran anyways. and once i reached the end of day one, 26.2 miles behind and another 52.4 in front of, i felt a wonderful sense of freedom. i had run over extremely difficult terrain, in extremely difficult weather and had another two days in front of me. but i did it. and i did it well. and more importantly, i loved it.
i love running, i love exercise and secretly i have always wanted to be a professional athlete. i am not good enough, but i still have day dreams of being called up for the Olympic team. but that cold, wet day in november i discovered something that was my reality. i could run long distances, even in crap conditions, and LOVE IT. to say i felt alive would be an understatement. i discovered an entirely new kind of adventuring that day. i discovered something that has become a passion. multi-day ultra marathons. top 5 best days ever.
a bit longer of an answer for day 3, but there you have it. my reverb-ing is finished for the moment. off to eat fish and chips (that come wrapped in newspaper) and enjoy my guilty pleasure of the X Factor.
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