10 - wednesday

after all that talk, I cancelled my personal training appointment this morning and decided that from here to boston, no fancy new workouts - no spinning, no pilates, no weight sessions. I'm going to focus on is the quality of my scheduled workouts, eating well, sleeping well, and staying injury free.  my scheduled run this morning was 5 easy miles.  I put on my garmin and headed outside, but it was completely dead. "ok," I thought to myself, "it's an easy run anyway.  time and pace don't matter.  just run how you feel."  about half a mile into it, my iPod died.  I almost turned around.  then, I remembered matengemano.

the spring before I moved to tanzania, where I studied abroad, I was taking swahili lessons so that I wouldn't be completely clueless on arrival.  I fell completely in love with the word "matengemano."  look.  I even had it embroidered on a pair of shoes.  I was delighted by it - the way it rolled off my tongue, the way I felt the first time I mastered the "nge" sound in the middle of the word, the things it meant.  matengemano is not a word that has an english equivalent.  it means many things.  it means tranquility.  stillness.  peace.  the calm after the storm - the rush of euphoria after a really good cry or the way the world smells after a thunderstorm.  it refers to the peace of being balanced, of being alive, and it describes the solitude of being alone on a clear, new morning.  


which is how I found myself today.  alone, without my fancy watch to tell me how fast I was moving.  alone, without music to drown out the huffing and puffing of pushing myself uphill.  just alone by myself for fifty tranquil minutes for myself in an otherwise hectic week.  


matengemano is a gift, and I think you should try to find it somewhere today, too.