songs of experience

Eyes both blue and green

Turn to me to meet their needs

makes me want to run

                Mimi O’Grady, Carrboro

That’s my haiku.  I recently submitted it to The Chapel Hill News for “Submit your Haiku to be Published” week.  It wasn’t published.  It was supposed to be funny;  ironic and composed for my slim audience of friends and fellow runners.  Instead I simply alarmed the newspaper staff.

My Summer has been loud and interrupted at every turn.  There have been many house guests, a new dog, potty training for both my child and that dog, live music on the porch, construction, early  morning practice for my high schoolers, play dates and swim lessons for the younger brothers, Montezuma’s Revenge, groceries and garbage stacked to the sky, and more and more and more and more.

In the midst of this large and loud life, I received my Janes Packet in the mail.  It contained the theme and layout of our upcoming Fall season.  My heart skipped a beat when I saw the letter amid the catalogs, form letters, bills.  I walked from the mailbox and considered the possibility of twelve uninterrupted weeks of running in a pack of 24, no 25, no 26 gals.  Can this be?  Is this a dream?  Is this letter telling me that moms will assemble twice a week to run and talk and ponder and create and run and talk some more?  Huh?  There will be a goal race at the end too?  Someone has assembled this right here in my town?  Can this be real?

Yes, it’s real.  I know it.  I have been there from the very first day, for 384 Mondays and Wednesdays.  And I’ll be there in a few weeks to drink up the next 24.  

Janes in running skirts

We are the eye of the storm

Wanna run up front