On running in the rain--

Wednesday afternoon it was raining when I got home.  I fiddled around the house, got changed, and checked the weather a few times to make sure there wasn't lightning headed our way.  I got a rain jacket and left the house.  For the first mile or so it wasn't raining and I quickly got too hot for the jacket.

The rain picked up.  It was still light, but I got wet.  I put the jacket back on, but didn't zip it, so the front of me, my face and hair, got more and more soaked.  I looked up at the sky occasionally, trying to catch a few raindrops.  At about the half-way point, I heard the National Anthem coming from the air base, so I stopped.  I stood there in the rain, chilled but warm, and said my own thank yous for the gift of being out there, for being stubborn enough and carefree enough to head out in the rain on a fall day.

The rain let up as I got closer to home.  The sun came out, and I started looking for the rainbow.  I didn't see it at first, and soon my back was to the direction I knew it would pop up, as afternoon rainbows in my neighborhood always do.  I started to see it as I glanced over my shoulder, very light at first, and intensifying.  I hit the five mile mark about a block from home, stopped, and turned around.  There it was, spread across the sky, an arc of vivid color jumping from pine tree to pine tree.  I couldn't stand to keep my back to it, so I walked home backwards, keeping my eye on the second gift of the day, loving the blessing and remembering another rainbow, the one I saw the day my Grandma died.

Life is, itself, pretty simple.  The heart beats and loves and cries and looks.  Life ends.  We may complicate it, but the simple blessings are still there if we go looking.

I did 7 miles this morning--I'm starting to build back up for training for the Little Rock Marathon.  I'm hoping everything goes well but planning to keep a bit lower of a profile this time around.  Earlier this afternoon Ty and I met Lee lee and J and the dogs in a field by St. Patrick's Church.  We laughed at the dogs, I lay in the grass on my back and looked up at the trees, and then wrestled Ty for a while.  It was pretty simple and lovely.