The Moment

Oh, of all the things I so enjoy about life one of the most amazing, fascinating and humbling opportunities I am blessed with is to witness human beings having a "moment"--maybe "the moment"--when they realize they can overcome something they never imagined they could, or discover something they have been searching for only to realize it has been in front of them all along.

Or, when I ask an aging Somali woman with chronic "all over body pain" if somedays she feels like she just wants to raise her fists to the sky and yell, and she begins to weep silent, subtle, sweet tears and looks up at me in wonder and says through a Somali interpreter, 'How could you possibly know? How could you possibly know how I am feeling. You must be a magician."

Those moments. Sometimes I am part of the awakening, sometimes I only show people what they allow me to see. It is magic, and I get to watch it unfold every day.

Depression's Cure: Training for a 50K trail race

Training for a 50K is grueling: Forcing me out for a 2-hour run in the dark after an 8 hour work day and now sucking up the majority of my Saturdays as I've taken the time to find and complete a visually inspiring 15 mile + run (next Saturday, 18 miles!) Not to mention how tired I feel most of the time; my muscles thankful, but achey.

To many of you, the above sounds dreamy. In a world where we are increasingly "running out of time" - who has time, you may ask, to go and run for 3 hours!

Well, right now, I do. But that doesn't mean it doesn't suck.

Yesterday I decided to start dedicating each of my long training runs to a cause, a person or a situation I care about. Inspired by the following video of a runner in the Grand Canyon and recently posted on Outside Online, I decided that yesterday's run was for depression. Irrefutably, medication and therapy are beneficial in treating depression, but evidence has shown that strong social relationships and EXERCISE are paramount to keeping the mind healthy.

Lacing up the shoes now. Today, I run with awareness for the blue, perfect, sun-filled Seattle skies.

http://vimeo.com/105194950