Beyond the Blog Day 19 (May 15) - A Quiet Place Before A Tough, Beautiful Moment

There were a lot of logistics to consider over the last few days..Monty was picked up the night before from our hotel in Sanford, returning to Raleigh for a family reunion of sorts.  His wonderful wife Carolyn came by after our return from an epic day.   The next morning, Matt and I met in the lobby and said our goodbyes for the day, since he would be returning home as I would be.

I had long since planned this return, knowing that Claire and Amelia’s dance recital would be this evening.   Nothing would keep me from missing this event, particularly as it was Claire’s “senior solo”.   She has taken dance class almost her whole life, and yeah, I’m speaking like a proud parent, but she is incredibly graceful when dancing.   Her senior solo was a lyrical piece to the Beatles’ “Yesterday”...sweet but a little melancholy, very much Claire.  I had to be there by 5 pm, so I planned out two rucks along the way home.   I was really looking forward to some shorter distance in some more remote areas.   At this point during the Ruck, everything seemed to be changing and my head was in a weird place.   Weirder than it usually is.  I felt that time was elongating within the space of micro-moments...those times when I would stop by the road, or a field, or looking out into the swamp...and everything slowed down.   It was a peaceful feeling.   At the same time, I was becoming aware of the end.  Just 11 days left and I knew, at this time, that I was going to do it (a little foreshadowing here...this confidence left me entirely during my breakdown in the woods a few days later, but we will get to that eventually).

So, I needed the time alone and wanted to meander back home at my own pace.   After mixing my concoctions in the parking lot (captured here by Matt), my first stop was in a lovely, empty municipal park in Moore County.  It was early Saturday morning, and I was one of only two people in this space that consisted of a play area, several ball fields, a disc golf course, and running trails.   It was quiet and not-too-hot, so I enjoyed running around the perimeter.   The disc golf course was the loneliest I had ever seen, with the poles overgrown by vegetation, slowly being consumed by the surrounding green.  Another quiet and lonely place was a centuries-old graveyard, with headstones marked only by a name and date of death.   It was most likely a burial spot for people whose families could not afford otherwise, but the county kept this isolated spot in good care, and for the accidental visitor like myself, there was some comfort in that.

 

After getting in about 7 miles, I left Moore County and headed to another quiet spot that Cheryl had picked out, Roy Maness Nature Preserve in Troy.  This was a stunning and magical place, although nothing more than a pond surrounded by its natural surroundings.   It was perfectly preserved, and overflowing with life….turtles, frogs, a wild cacophony of birds.   There was a nice little walking path that surrounded the pond and the azaleas were in bloom, like walking through a hallway of blossoms.  I sat here for a good 30 minutes in between my very slow miles, enjoying the sunshine, the sounds and smells.  The turtles that had indignantly splashed into the water upon my approach now made their way back up their sunning spots on choice tree trunks and rocks, each one crawling over the other for a better spot.   I could have stayed there for hours, but I knew it was still another 90 minutes to home, and it was already mid-afternoon. I will return to this place some day.

 The dance recital was the tough, beautiful moment referred to in the post for today.  The girls have been going to dance their entire lives, and it is a huge part of their whole childhood experience.  Amelia does hip-hop and jazz, Claire does jazz, ballet, and lyrical.   It fits their personalities, of course.   Or perhaps that is where we nudged them, knowing their personalities.  Either way, the recital showed off their work for the year, and Claire’s solo effort brought Cheryl and I to tears.  As I said in my post for that day, any parent watching their daughter in her last solo dance knows the feeling.  I hope she will continue in college but she will be so busy with other things. 

 

I had a hard time sitting still throughout the recital, with my legs protesting and my body sweating profusely for no reason.   We got our dance daughters home after all of their tearful goodbyes...this was a rite of passage, after all.  At home, we had a glass of wine, thinking of all that had come to this moment, and I attempted to get some sleep before an early morning departure. The Ruck, my friend, waits for no man.