I wanted to accomplish just two things today : laundry and walk
in the big wooded park beside my shack. But while I was doing
laundry I overheard some people talking about an evening
concert up there at the chalet.

So after the laundry I had a little nap, just enough.

I walked up to the chalet after supper. There were already between
4-5 thousand people up there. Not much chance of finding a place
to sit down. Then my attention was drawn to a young couple who
were sitting on a stone planter. They were arguing with the people
in front of them, who would not sit down. Finally the young man
threw a hairy fit and walked away, cursing and being stupid.

I wanted to tell the young woman to go out a find a new boyfriend,
right toot sweet. But instead I just slid right over there and took the
seat. Perfect! I was very close to the orchestra and I colud sit
or stand. Great luck!

This was L'orchestre metropolitain de Montreal. A big, full
orchestra. And there was a natural reverb of the bass notes
bouncing off the stone chalet.

We got rained on in the beginning, walking up there, and then
another blast that sent the musicians scurrying back to the chalet.
There was just a slight delay, and everyone was patient.

Tchaikovsky's Romeo & Juliette came first - big chunk of it.
The music for the fight scene between Tybalt & Mercutio
was super electric and intense, gave me goosebumps and
chills down the spine.

Then Dvorak's 9th Symphony, complete. Talk about passion
and drama! A lot of us kept turning around to look behind to
see the nearly full moon rising up over tha St. Lawrence River.
It was a thoroughly charmed event. Every single person looked
radiantly beautiful and serene. I heard only one cell phone ring!

We brought them back for an encore - just a wee portion of
Elgar's Enigma Variations. Maybe total 100 minutes of music.

Walking back home in the dark, I was delighted to see that there
are still a few fireflies.

This city is ridiculously beautiful.

Lordymama! I have such sweet fatigue in whole body this
evening. The street mission where I volunteer sponsored an
outing, in the eastern townships, to the east of Montreal. We
took a busload of poor people, whole families and loners and
everybody out to a national park called Yamaska.

I had been resisting the idea of going, because Wednesday
is a dedicated running day in the huge, sprawling, wooded
park right outside the door of my shack. But then I thought
that I might enjoy running along the lakeshore at Yamaska,
and then swim with the others.

I was one of the last people to get on the bus. I found a seat
at the very back. I was surrounded by women from the middle
east. Most, but not all were wearing the headscarves on their
heads - what do you call them? Is it babooshka? Yes, babooshka.

Some of the women were related, but not all. They giggled and
laughed with each other, taking cellphone photos of each other,
and communally managing all the children. They are very affec-
tionate and generous with each other.

We ate a big picnic lunch together, worrying about rain, but it
did not happen. I had a few sprinkles of rain later when I went
out to run on the lakeshore trails. The forest is so serene and
fresh and silent. I heard the wind in the quaking aspens, and
heard birdsong, but nothing else. My stride was calm and
steady, but I had no idea where I was. What a treat!

After about 36 minutes I stopped and turned around and ran back,
a bit faster on the return. When I got back, many of the others were
already swimming. I changed outta my running gear and into the
lake. Such clear, clean, fresh water. It felt so good!

I had done one big set of beaucoups of pushups in the woods at
the end of the run. I did not stretch because I did not want to cool
down too much.

I am so grateful for the chance to commune with the green world
in such an intimate way. And I said prayers for all those people
out west who are running away from their homes as the forest
burns out of control. I have family members who are climate science
deniars. They have to breathe the smoke every day, yet they continue
to drive their cars as single occupants, never taking public transport.

Instead of getting sad or depressed or sick about all the bad news
about ecological disaster and imminent destruction, I come here
to Newbie Nudes and look for the Goddess. There is something
about women discovering their erotic power that gives hope.

Glamour encourages consumerism, which gives permission
for all the resources to be used up, thrown away in ignorance.
I am looking for something other than glamour.

Not yet into the middle period of running season. But I feel
now that I am picking up where I left off last november. Some
times I get so inspired to run it is not rational, not reasonable.

I am not going out this evening to see Shakespeare In the Park.
I knew that it was going to be a difficult choice to make. It takes
about 45 minutes to walk to the place where the production of
TwelfthNight is going to happen.

I have been working through the re-awakening of some old
injuries in right hip & knee. I don't believe there is any new
damage. But the old adhesions have been provoked and
challenged. I feel a sense of restriction & tightness in upper
lateral hamsters, but when I get down in the grass after the
run to do stretches there is zero evidence of hypertonicity.

I could not have kept my legs at home and wait for the walk
to the park. And I was completely unable to tell my legs to
cool it and not sprint uphill. My legs completely ate up all
the jam. It was all out bliss of running hard.

I banged out three sets of pushups during the run. 50-50-74.
Took off shirt & shoes to do abdominals down in the grass,
and then good long stretching session.

I might go for a brief walk after supper, but not a long Shakespeare
In The Park walk.

That was a wonderful run in the rainy woods. 65 minutes total
time. There were a few runners out there. It was brilliant ecstasy.
There is something so sublime and precious in an elemental
run like this.

Doing an exhaustion set of pushups down in the mud produces
an agony that is quite sublime and delicious. I always do pushups
in the presence of a tree, sometimes keeping my foot or hand
in contact with the roots. The tree rises vertically against gravity.
So I poetically borrow some of that upward thrust.

That delicious agony is something worthy to offer the Goddess.

Dull and constant steady rain all the livelong day. There will
be no percussion jam in the park today. Drenching rains.

The alternate celebration and elemental devotion would be
a long solitary run in the woods. Running in the mud is very
rich and sensory exaltation like crazy much. Therapeutic &
nourishing.

My 21 year old cat insists that I wait and share some catnip
with him. Whom I to say no thanks?

Total Kapow! That really was exactly the right thing to do.
Sometimes I surprise the hell outta myself with a correct
decision. Cancelling the gym workout and running back
through that piece of trail was exactly right.

My stride was a little less fluid on the right side in the
beginning, and I understood that I had challenged some
old adhesions in upper lateral hamstrings. It's an old story.
But my legs were full of gitty-up in the middle of run.

I did pushups two days ago, but I decided that I was ready
to do them again. 50-50-73. De mieux en mieux.

George Sheehan was an orthopaedic sturgeon who wrote
books and magazine columns on running. He was sort of
like Mark Twain and Robert Bly, rolled together. When he
wrote about running posture and mental attitude in a long
run he said "let the meat hang on the bones". Relaxed state
of flow, don't you know.

You can let the meat hang on the bones when you are running
on asphalt & straight lines. Every stride is identical and measured.
But when you run on rough trails with tree roots, rocks, scree,
muddy mud mud, etc. you have to maintain some ready tension
in the myofascial structure. I am very fond of leaping & bounding.
I do only a little bit of plyometrics in wintertime. Not good to do
it if your muscles & tendons are not well-warmed up.

Constant novelty is the name of the game in trail-running. It helps
a lot to have ready tension that is appropriate to the shock of
uphill scrambling and leaping downwards, etc.

Now I am ready to look at all the naked bums again.

I had a long walk on Mt. Royal yesterday. I did inventory of
all components of running, and ran just a little bit to see how
it felt. Saturday's tumble and crash was not that bad afterall.
I have a bruise on my shoulder & on my rump, but not serious.

Monday is usually a day to run on treadmill and do free weights.
But I think there is good psychological/spiritual value in going
back to that place in the woods and run through again. I don't
feel like the gym today.

Running is a very elemental activity. Fusion with the air element,
all that fresh oxygen pumping out from the green world. Half of
my awareness is on the hard stuff, rocks, dirt, trees, bushes, the
melodic contour of the trail underfoot, etc. The other half of my
attention is on my kinaesthetic flux, the proprioception, breath,
sounds and sensations of my body in space and time. After all
I am INFJ, so that is where the Mystery lives.

Gonna go back and run that piece again.

I was having an excellent tough & delicious run in the woods
in the early afternoon today. There were beaucoups of people
out cycling, walking, running, so I chose the more remote,
rougher trails.

I did not lift my toes up enough coming across a loose, rocky
surface and I stubbed my big toe really hard and I was suddenly
airborne. My feet found the ground again, and I accelerated in
a desperate attempt to stand up tall again. Could not catch up
and my upper body was parallel to the ground.

I stretched out my palms and made first contact with the ground
just for an instant before deciding to roll out over my right
shoulder, no longer accelerating quite so much, but I did
clonk my noggin begainst a big log.

I lay still for a moment just to see if everything was working.
I was on all fours and realized that I was only slightly banged
up. I stood up slowly and said - oh, man, I gotta go tell my
cat about this.

Right side hamstring deep into bum bone overstretch tendon
cramp persists. Right shoulder no problem.

Before I continued on I went back to where I first stumbled
and looked forward to where I landed. About sixteen feet
altogether, so I must have been really cooking when I hit
that spot.

The mountain of love takes very good care of me. Even the
rocks are my friends. That is only the second fall of the new
season. I did go for a tumble in the muddy mud mud a couple
of weeks ago.

I will turn 63 years in 10 days. I still know how to tumble like
a cowboy.

Saturday is normally a solitary running day. I am very pro-
tective of my solitude and do not yield easily if the schedule
has to change. I need to develop my focus and desire for the
run in advance, beginning first thing in the morning.

Today we had our annual Open House/Porte Ouverte at the
street mission where I volunteer. I had to be there to help out
this morning. We had picnic tables out on the sidewalk, face-
painting, BBQ, hot dogs, some local folkie/jazz players with
a little soundsystem, etc. Excellent weather. We hustled the
motorists for change at the intersection. I stayed until around
1:30 and then decided that we were not understaffed at all.
Lots of volunteers. So I said bye bye time to go run.

I not only had a serious powerhouse one hour run in the woods.
I also cranked out 70 continuous pushups down in the grass.
I had coffee at breakfast and I put that buzz to good use.

I always say to my 21 year old cat that I am going out to run
on the mountain of love. You are in charge while I am gone.
He just looks at me and says, Get Lost!

I was glad that I was able to be of good use with volunteer
chores, get the run in the woods done, and lounge around my
shack afterwards, naked, and looking at all the naked people
here in NN. Kiss all the lovely bums.

Lordymama! Last night I slept like a rock at the bottom
of the sea! I have been waiting for sleeps like this to
return. 9 hours of delicious deep sleep.

Normally Thursday is a rest day. I walk in the woods on
the big rockpile right outside my door, but I do not give
my back or shoulders much work to do, because Mon -
Wednesday is peak of workout cycle.

I had to go to the street mission where I volunteer for
a meeting, and I found myself hauling heavy bags of
clothing and throwing them back up high into our
storage shed. I worked hard for about 90 minutes.

I drank 200 ml of 10.5% beer as a nightcap, and then had
another 200 ml about 4 hours later. Sometimes I can
sleep okay with less than that. Damn that fucking zopiclone.
It screwed up my sleep machinery Big Time.

But last night was just like the big monumental deep
sleeps that come with regular use of the ling zhi mushroom.
I did have some flying dreams, semi-lucid, as the sun was
coming up.

I am enjoying a cup of coffee with breakfast at home. Look
at all the naked, sexy bums. Listening to classical music
on CBC Radio 2.

Food Bank chores start in about one hour. I better put some
clothes on and walk over there. I feel ready to rock & roll.