Anadi and I were planking on the grass together one morning last week!
We had shed bits and pieces by the benches, my vibram five fingers, my running belt, Anadis Xero shoes and his T shirt…
A little dog raced excitedly over to our ‘belongings’ and rummaging around, decided eventually on one of my vibrams…
Off he raced; his owner in hot pursuit…
Anadi and I maintained our plank throughout a fit of the giggles.
She retrieved my shoe and brought it back explaining… ‘It’s only his second time off the lead…!’
He continued to race wildly and excitedly about, and was soon back on his (albeit long) lead…
I reflected how a huge part of my life has been unclipping myself from the lead of childhood…
And mine was in many ways a very long lead…
Born at the very end of the 50’s, my young years happened through the 60’s, which meant there wasn’t the same surveillance over children as nowadays.
We were let loose very young and raced for hours alone in the woods and over the common land… No mobile phones and only hungry tums bringing us back when ‘penny chews’ had stopped filling the gaps…
But the lead was there, none the less… Strict rules about ‘how to go on’, expectations of behaviour and a definite realisation whenever we ignited the disapproval of our ‘elders and betters’…
But in some ways, the separation from the adults – and the hours of freedom where there wasn’t a lead in sight – did allow for the space to find our who I was.
Essentially someone whose main purpose in life was to lark about and learn how to become clear within, which was there, even as a child… The awareness that all I ‘wanted’ (an oxymoron) was spiritual growth…
Oh – and to run and run and run! At first with no purpose other than to enjoy the joy of the running step….But then for many years I took up the burden of ‘pressure to succeed’, to eventually return to that original place…
To run about, because of the love of running about…
And along the way I completely unclipped from that lead – which demanded somehow that life was about something more than this…
More than simply larking about
In the moment
Silent
Still
And free
And running about for the fun of running about.
It’s my second time off the lead and this time no one’s putting it back on me again!