running

                                        Running

               I am running….David and Camille are 8000 years behind me in the Tomb of the Eagles high on a cliff in Orkney Scotland.  I was back there just a moment or two ago having crawled on my hands and knees into that ancient space, underground, exploring, breathing in the warm earth smells, feeling for a split second those oh so long ago people brushing by me, carefully bundling their love ones into the small forever niches in the walls.  I want to ask why they are also burying a magnificent Sea Eagles with the bones but thieving Time intervenes and I will never know.

The air is so clear and the rollicking, rolling North Sea far below is blue green and white with foam against the jagged stones that form the cliff base.  A long path reaches back to everyday, to the modest building that now houses the skulls and bones that once lay in the Tomb, to our car and to stable NOW.

The path slopes ever so slightly. The short, rough grass smooths down and as I begin to move the clutching pull of gravity lets go a bit. My feet begin to flow along the path…faster and faster.

Caught for a short time between the worlds, untethered, I am free… I am running…I am almost flying!

For five long minutes I am filled with an eager, youthful joy. Laughing aloud, knowing I will not fall I jump and twist a bit building a forever memory. 

It was the last time I ran.