A Beautiful Woman

I honestly can’t think of a more appropriate title, though it’s not likely a reflection of what you’re thinking.

There are moments in life that catch your attention, that bring in to focus the good, the beautiful… the life that permeates existence. This past summer I had such an experience while running the carriage trails out at Bass Lake. Now I wouldn’t call myself a runner, mostly because I do not engage in running for its own sake. I run (some) to keep in relative shape for the things I really do love to do (backpacking, climbing, mountaineering, and more). As such, I’m an ordinary runner… averaging 4-5 miles per run at a manageable pace approximately 2-3 times a week.

While on my runs I consistently find myself engaged in deep thoughts (but not with Jack Handy), wrestling with perspectives, ideas, views in the world that present challenges to my own frame of things. It just so happens that this particular day I was wrapped up in an especially challenging, emotionally taxing, and dark struggle while on my run, and I was fervently engaged with it for the duration of that run.

As I reached the final stretch of my run (deeply engaged in this dark battle of perspective), I broke into my typical sprint for the last 100 yards. And as I was finishing this sprint, reaching the access point for the parking area, I heard a woman’s voice cry out…

“I LOVE YOU!”

… and she was yelling it to me! So, catching my breath I looked up on the hill where a 60ish year old woman and her husband stood watching me as I finished my run. And as I gained my breathe I replied… “I love you too!”  

I didn’t know the woman… or her husband, but was so struck by the beaming smiles on their faces and the power and life in the woman’s expression to me that I was completely freed of the dark battle I had been engaged in. Her expression commanded my affection, and in so doing it called me out of darkness and into light. And so, in obedience I replied… “I love you too!” as I took the steps to talk with this encouraging couple.  

As we talked I learned that they were up visiting for the day as they often do in their retirement. I also perceived that the woman had perhaps had a stroke that mildly impaired her speech and facial expressions. I cannot say for sure what prodded her loving expression to me as I finished my run, but my sense was that she was celebrating and honoring in me what she could not now herself experience directly. She saw in my running (and final sprint) an expression of beauty and life that perhaps she once knew herself, but that was now out of reach. And she knew the beauty and value in it, what a privilege it was to be able to express life in such a dynamic physical way. And though she and her husband could no longer express the life within them in quite this same way, they could express it by celebrating and honoring it in and through me that day.

I am grateful for the chance to have met and talked with this woman and her husband, for the light they brought to my life that day (when I needed it), for the perspective of love and joy they imbued, and for the renewed appreciation they fostered in me for the physical expressions of life I possess and am able to develop further.   

I went on the search for something real, I traded what I know for how I feel, but the ceiling and the walls collapsed, upon the darkness I was trapped, and as the last of breath was drawn from me… the light broke in and brought me to my feet.

The Avett Brothers, February Seven, The Carpenter

*Listen to this song by finding it in the accompanying music at the top right of the blog.