So much happens in a day here that when three go by without updates, it’s hard to know where to start. I think I can only do today, and let the last two days be lost in the mists of time.

This morning we embarked on our run as normal, except Carlos had let us know that there would be water at some unnamed destination that we could swim in, so bring whatever we needed for that. It was sunny and warm, and I was tired but warmed up quickly.

This was the longest run yet, distance-wise. Fortunately there weren’t too many hills, but we ran for miles straight out. As I found myself flagging, I used the thing I had discovered before about the reservoir of energy that always seems to be full when I check; it was easier to access this time, and required less constant struggle to remind myself that it was there. As I ran, I thought about something Matthew said last week, about how the work is to keep fooling ourselves into being free. I was trying to articulate to myself just what it means to be free, and at the same time I had to renew my internal energy, and suddenly something clicked for me about the running–I am running in order to be free. Free from my perceptions of my own limitations. And I realized that the energy I was tapping wasn’t just inside of me, because it’s infinite; I couldn’t possibly contain at one time all the energy that there is available for me to run with. I’m not respionsible for generating it; I merely reach out and tap it. And all the people running with me were using that same energy, and it connected us with all the other people in the world who are tapping it. And if someone’s lost their primal connection to the source, you can tap it for them, and feed it to them. God, it sounds inane to me when I type it, but this was a real epiphany for me: it’s infinite. It’s infinite. Dear god, it’s infinite.

And the freedom is more than just freedom to push myself physically. It is also freedom from the anxiety of making the wrong decision; whether I follow the ‘wrong’ person running, or do the ‘wrong’ thing in training…instead of worrying about that, I can simply push forward, burning with this infinite force, and let go of worry. Any time I need courage or support or strength to do what I need to do, I just reach out and tap this current, and I have it. And so my mantra while I ran, instead of “there’s more there”, became: “I run in order to become free.” In order to learn to reach this source when I need it, and strengthen my connection to it. And suddenly my feet were wings, and I clocked the miles without heaving and panting and without minding the burn in my legs, because I had a real reason to do it. It wasn’t to get where I was going. I run in order to become free. It was euphoric.

My euphoria abated somewhat when the group I was running with got lost in the woods for an hour and ended up rejoining the group without finding the beautiful summit that they had apparently all climbed and viewed from, but we did catch up with them in time to dip into a beautiful pond and climb a gently-sloped stream and sing inside an echo-y water pipe, so that was all right. And the run back, for me, was triumphantly easy.

The only really sad thing was that I was running home in wet shorts, and managed to chafe my inner thighs terribly, and they hurt more than anything so minor should hurt. The rest of the day has been about avoiding pain for me, which is a shame.

Because half the group had been lost, we got back to the farm an hour later than scheduled, rushed through lunch, and went to do some directed scenework (which would have been really fun if I hadn’t been wincing in pain from my delicate thighs. Jeez, if it’s not one thing, it’s another; my pulled thigh healed, my blisters turned nicely into pain-free callouses, so of course I had to hurt something else.) Those went longer than intended, as well, and we had just a 15-minute break to change before Tae Kwon Do (hurrah for nice, wide fighting stances! Didn’t bug my chafed thighs at all) and then in for dinner. We were supposed to have individual work time before training and I had planned to do some necessary writing and processing, but then, last-minute, Michal offered to run a poi-spinning workshop for anyone who was interested and I couldn’t bear to miss it, so I still have that writing to do.

So straight from that into training, and it’s been a long and exhausting day. My thighs were burning, but I dove into training and found the zone quickly, happily. But since our notes from last night’s training had to do with certain specific things, like developing stories more than we have been and taking character relationships past the natural ceiling they seem to be hitting, I started getting more and more in my head, and I lost the hang of training, of what we were doing, of my relationship with anyone, and by the end was flailing so badly I felt like crying. We ended without notes, and I don’t know if I could have borne them.

I had really been hoping that my understanding this morning would translate into unhindered brilliance in the studio. Maybe that was my problem; I had an expectation of how it would go, which seems always to be deadly. But far from the euphoria of this morning, I’m feeling discouraged this evening; recriminating myself for not doing more, doing differently, doing better. (Get over it, ‘Lissa. Remember how it’s not about how good you do?)

Yeah, yeah. Shower. Sleep. Put something on those inner thighs and do it again tomorrow. That’s all I can do. That’s enough.

I miss you all,
Alissa