Faith in Butterfly Moments

"The butterfly counts not months but moments and has time enough."

Rabindranath Tagore

I am at the point in my training when I am required to have some "faith." I don't mean faith in the religious sense ( although I suppose you could think of it that way... but I am pretty sure God has way more pressing issues than how I perform in a marathon... like world hunger, war, health epidemics and such). What I mean is, I have to have faith that my training has prepared me for running a marathon in 2 short weeks. Seeing as how I have never run 42.2 kilometers in one day before, and seeing as how I have only run 78% of this distance in training, I am finding that leap of faith a little bit challenging. Sure veteran marathoners will attest to this plan, but really, will it really work for me?

Perhaps it is difficult for me because it seems that I question almost everything.  I feel like visual and political trickery is everywhere. Digital manipulation is rampant ( Did you all see that very convincing video that made its way around social media of a snowboarder who was seemingly being chased by a bear? Well, it was digital trickery. Yep. No bear. ).  And really, I have gotten to the point of laughter at politicians and their constant misdirections and election promises. So, when someone tells me to just "trust the what they say about the training" I feel a little bit apprehensive.

But I must trust something right?

Douglas Coupland in his book, Life After God spoke about small moments in our life. He said that if we take notice of these small moments, collect them and save them over a period of months we would see certain trends.  He said, "certain  voices would emerge that have been trying to speak through us.. and we would realize that we have been having another life altogether; one we didn't even know was going on inside us." There is so much of life that is part of  "clunky day to day" world that we deem as being important, but really it is just "noise" and the important stuff is the "small silent moments"

It is these small silent moments that I trust. It is the moments when I watch my children play together and I can clearly see their imaginary world coming to life. Or, it is when I am running along the path in Port Moody at sunset and the darkness of the trees creates a perfect shadow against the water -or the moment when  my daughter took her first steps ( when she was so proud, and all of us who watched her were glowing with smiles); or watching my son become so immersed in his book that he doesn't notice anything else going on around him; or the moment I finished my first 10 km run,and  the day I finished my first half marathon.  There are countless moments that I trust. If I look at all of these moments several themes emerge. One is, of course, the importance of my family - and another is running.

The butterfly, one of the world's more beautiful creatures, lives life in moments. Watching a butterfly is almost hypnotic. It will stop and pause its wings momentarily on a flower or a branch. And then it gracefully moves on. As with  most creatures, it doesn't have the ability to question its life purpose, destiny or even reason for being.  It undergoes a complete metamorphosis from a caterpillar to a flying beauty and lives its life from moment, to moment, flower to flower. It doesn't look ahead, it doesn't look behind-it just takes what is in front of it.

When I sat down to write this blog this week, I found it hard to come up with a focused idea. I think it is because at this point,  I feel like I could connect every part of my life from past to present to this moment. I am reminded of a few lines from a poem by Ella Wheeler Wilcox called The Law that my dad likes to recite: "Somewhere on some planet, sometime and somehow/Your life will reflect all the thoughts of your now." I feel like everything in my life has led me to now. All of my good, bad and ugly moments have led me to this point.

And so, I am going to take some wisdom from the butterfly and approach the rest of this training and journey to race day living in those "small silent moments,"  I am going to live each moment as it comes. I am going to attempt to let go of my apprehensions and fly gracefully to one flower, and then to the next, because this- this is what I trust.

Life isn't a matter of milestones, but of moments

Rose Kennedy