This wonderful man with his Wongface and rubber wrist is a genius

it's time to rise up lazarus.

it's time to rise up from the floor.

i see the butterflies burning in your eyes

as you dance 

just beyond my fingers

always.

i rise

like the candle flame between us

running through the forest

you create in the circle of 

your arms

to save you

(skraalvoet)

Saturday and I was up early, forcing down food but loving my coffee, strong, bitter and hot enough to interest lucifer. That done I made my way to the railway station to meet the rest of the Fourdaysrunning mob.
I am early, always early, waiting for the rest of my life and other interesting things. Some see this as a flaw but I love to observe and reflect. I also hate being late.
Saturdays rumble from London Victoria Station to Weatherspoons pub in Bromley, a run of around 15 miles was no different, I stood in the draughty doorway of the station concourse watching people going about their lives and trying to gain some clarity for my own.

As for my life I can only write what is before me, the sharp knocks of my heart bouncing down my fingers and leaking out in a jumbled disordered mess.
Thursday was a bad day, my fickle bastard emotions betrayed me and I went down under their black weight, crushed again and functioning mechanically and without hope. I am having more good days but they are like a house of cards that collapse without warning.
I needed to run and I needed to run long. 
I keep rising only to stumble back down, Sisyphus with his stone, rising and falling in endless futility.

I rise because I am stubborn and something puts life into me even when I am dead.
Running is rising and so is genuine friendship.

If you find a companion with butterflies and candlelight in their eyes who will walk through hell with you grab hold of them and don't let them go, they are angels and steadfast spirits that can calm storms and cast mountains into the sea. They are often broken themselves because only the broken can understand, empathy is the electric current along which healing flows.

I say this over and over, it is running that keeps me on the right side of sanity and people, both broken and unbroken with their stories. You can't force this connection and the right people come along when you most need them.
I have digressed though. 
Back to Saturday's rumble, We caught a standard London train on a windy morning into a grey London, posed for the obligatory photo and ran off towards home.

The first two miles were uneventful, the streets empty of activity but full of architecture and marked only by the usual groaning made by runners of a certain age as they set out. Around two miles, on the edges of Brixton, I entertained people with a stunt fall, sliding along on my hands and knees into the sidewalk and managing to bleed.

Kissing London.

No one apart from me was amused so I rose, shrugged off their concern and we ran on like the middle aged delinquents or insane escapees that we are.

We all have a story to tell.

Brixton was a hubbub of life and colour as it always is, we dodged and swerved and probably left a few curses behind us on the pavement.

In Brockwell Park a butterfly crossed my path in an orange swirl, it gave me hope.

Inspired I had a conversation about depression and counselling, separation and suicide. Mental health and not allowing yourself to leak emotionally at work. We touched on the alpha male syndrome.

In Dulwich Park, we stopped for a coffee and discussed male and female orgasms. Fifty five and still learning new stuff man.

Through to Crystal Palace via Forest Hill it was education that became the topic, anxiety in the younger generation and the addiction of technology, how art is communication and the importance of the outdoors and sport as a counterpoint to tech and depression.

I discussed my failed vasectomy which led to my son being born. It's a great story.

We talked about Autism, learning social skills and social isolation. I said as I often do that the Autistics are my favourite people.

Around Beckenham it grew quiet for a while, we started to contemplate the finish and the pub. As parenthesis there was the usual groaning at the end of a long run by runners of a certain age when they begin to creak and we fell through the doors of the pub with joy and thirst. I drank Cider and ate chips.

Fab.

Thanks to Steve J for his impeccable navigation, we never went wrong once.

And then there was Saturday night.

I went to The Electric Ballroom in Camden with the child whose face eclipses the sun to see the incredible Cory Wong play his Stratocaster. This wonderful man with his Wongface and rubber wrist is a genius, for two hours he and his band bounced around and gave us a glimpse of the joy of life in all it's positivity. Cory told us to embrace our creativity and have no fear. The connection between himself and his band flowed from the stage to the audience, as Cassie said on the Saturday rumble, art is communication. Through their art Cory and his band shared their story with us through the music and their stagecraft and I rose with them. You can't help but feel joyful when people are so energised and so in love with their passion.