writing and running on holy ground

One of the first stories I ever wrote was inspired by the painting above,Snow at Louveciennes by Sisley.I was so drawn into the picture that I started to write of the woman in the alley who became me.What unfolded was so meaningful that I wept as I penned it .

Loneliness,widowhood,a loved cat,a light in a garret,neighbors,my mother's childhood Christmas gift of an orange, a deacon at church and St.Faustina all came dancing across the page .And because of the investment of my soul in that alley,for me it is holy ground.I want so to go to Louveciennes to find it and walk it,snow or sunshine.It is my alley.I don't know how else to describe this feeling of ownership.

I bet if I went to this town near Paris and held out the Sisley picture and said Ou est?,someone would direct me.Maybe my Camino friend Guy would show me the way and tell me he still has the rosary that I was led to give him.In a writer's world anything can happen.My friend and mentor ,Garnette would say that it sounds like there's a story there.

I thought of all this as I jogged around the track at our new recreation center.With the kind of winter we have had,I think that my running would have gone by the wayside without this place.I know every inch of that green rubber path on the third level of the center.I have dropped sweat and done an intercessory alphabet:A, praying for Alice a  high school friend and my Dad, Al.B, for old friend Bobby and new friend from the Camino Betty and so forth.That can take up some time along with hymns,carols and writing stories such as this.The effort,the discomfort of the jogging all mark this path as my own.

The streets of my old neighborhood where I ran my first mile in 1986 belong to me.My running shoes were old sneakers,red and white and I noticed today that my New Balance are red and white.I should have kept that old pair as partners on a journey.The roads that I trained on to get ready for the Peachtree Road Race,the golf course where I ran with my dogs,the six miles from our family country home down along the West Kill to the Post Office in the Catskills.All sacred.

A further connection that I notice:in 1987 I started a running log that became a journal that became a blog and in all this I fell in love with writing as I had with running.This is what I entered on January 31 of that year:"Ran 2 and a half miles with Charlie(my dog).Hills.Old man encouraged me ,told by his doctor to walk.Legs felt awful.Warm out.Race tomorrow.Hope it's not hilly.Can I finish?"

My journal says that I did.