Black wool and bright colours

I went for a 12km run today. I had planned a totally different run - I was going to leave the house at 7.30am, as soon as Joshua was on the school bus, drive up to MacRitchie Reservoir and run all the way round - 10km through the jungle, up and down hills, a great trail run. I haven't run all the way round MacR for over a year and yesterday it seemed like a good plan. Then - I was up late working and waiting for a call from Bob in the UK, and didn't get enough sleep....couldn't get moving this morning and hadn't even started my coffee at 7.30 when I took Joshua out to the bus. So MacR went by the wayside. I considered not going out at all. Then I decided I would probably spend the whole day regretting that decision, so I thought I'd do a short-ish jog through the park and leave it at that. I hauled myself off the sofa, got my kit on, filled a water bottle and off I went. Without the water bottle. Forgot the water bottle. Didn't realise I'd forgotten it till about 2km into the run. Ooops. Oh well, I thought, there are water fountains in the park.

So I headed off, thinking - OK, I'll shoot for 10km, but I'll go through town rather than do multiple laps of the Botanic Gardens (I find laps a bit tedious - would rather meander along Orchard Road and head up to Bukit Timah Road, and then go home through the Gardens, and I can stop and buy water on the way if I need to). I found a good, steady pace and immediately felt better. Felt great, in fact! The music was rocking, my legs seemed to be working fine and my heart rate wasn't too high. Maybe I can push it a bit....10km became a possible 11km, a possible 12km.....let's see.....

As I ran along, I was thinking about things (this is what I do, when I run - I listen to music, zone out and sort through all the thoughts rolling round my head, trying to get them into some sort of order). I thought about a couple of blogs I'd read this morning, posted by friends who had a bad day yesterday. I thought about a couple of FB posts I'd seen, again posted by friends having a rough time. I thought about the things going on in our family at the moment and spent a few minutes sending 'prayers' (my version) over to the UK (my version, if you're wondering, is visualisation - today I imagined a giant rainbow starting in Singapore and stretching all the way round the globe to the UK, ending in a shower of sparkles, stars and hearts - possibly a bit girly but it worked for me!)

Then I remembered a book I'd read years ago, with a story in that I have never forgotten. I read this book many years ago - pre-Bob, pre-diabetes...I think it was when I was a teenager and going through all the usual teenage crap, giving my poor Mum all sorts of trouble.

(Mum, if you're reading this - sorry, and I know I have it coming to me a hundredfold in about 8 years' time when Miss Isabel hits puberty!)

I digress. Anyway, the story in this book went something like this. The main character in the book was going through a really hard time, and was in a very dark place. His life had spiralled out of control, he had done some silly things, made mistakes, had a run of bad luck and was right on the edge. He went to see a priest. The priest didn't talk to him about finding God, going to church, etc.. He told him a story about two weavers, both making carpets. Both decided to use brightly coloured wool, to make their carpets as beautiful and glowing as possible. One, however, decided not to use any black wool - he felt that black represented sadness and death, and didn't want to 'ruin' his carpet with such a funereal colour. The other weaver did use black wool, to pick out the pattern in his carpet. When the two carpets were finished, the two weavers tried to sell them. The one without black wool didn't sell. Nobody wanted it. The colours blurred together, had no definition, didn't glow. The one with the black wool was sold immediately - it seemed brighter, the colours were more intense, glowed more. The moral of the story? Without the black wool, the bright colours didn't seem so bright. Without the bad things in our lives, the good things don't seem so good. We take them for granted. We don't see them, or can't pick them out - they all blur into one. But when the bad things happen, the good things stand out and we appreciate them more. The bad things are the black wool and they are needed as part of the pattern of the carpet, as part of the pattern of life. We are all weaving our magic carpets and we need to weave the black wool in, make it part of the pattern and make sure it makes the colours stand out and glow.

I guess this is similar to the shining stars analogy in my last post. The story struck a chord with me at the time, and I have never forgotten it (although sometimes it is buried so deep in my memory that I don't think of it for months and months at a time). So, in amongst the black wool that's woven into my magic carpet at the moment, here are the colours that stood out today - today's shining stars....

 - Well, the first one has to be the 12km run! That's the furthest I have run for well over a year :) OK, it was slow....but it was 12km! 12km! And I felt SO much better for it :)

 - Cold water! There is nothing, NOTHING like reaching 9km on a run in Singapore, having stupidly forgotten to bring water, and finding a water fountain.....drinking, drinking, drinking the ice-cold water....then splashing your face.....then soaking your baseball cap and putting it, dripping and cold, back on, with the cold water running down your back. Gorgeous!

 - Running out of the park gates onto Holland Road, I passed a Mum with two little boys. The older one would have been about Isabel's age - 4, maybe 5. He was wearing what were clearly his Mum's sunglasses - upside down! And screwing up his little face, trying to keep them on as he walked. So cute! It made me smile :)

 - I came home to find Jenny had put Isabel's hair in pigtails! Nearly fell over in shock - her hair normally looks like a bird's nest and she's not a pigtails child at all. Awwww.....she looked like a proper little girl!

 - Spicy pomelo salad with shrimps for lunch, in the company of a great friend. Nuff said :)

 - More sunglasses - later on, as we left home for her swimming lesson, Isabel decided she wanted hers. She doesn't wear them very often. She picked out her cute little flowery ones and skipped off down the road in her pink Crocs, pink swimmers and pink flowery sunglasses. So happy after a lovely morning out with her BFF Sofia, playtime at home, a good lunch (yes, she ate lunch!) and looking forward to her lesson. Love it!

I feel it's important for me to find these colours, these shining stars at the moment. Not just at the moment - all the time. Every day. This isn't about me repressing my feelings about the challenges that life is throwing our way right now, or about being in denial - I'm not. It's about staying strong so that I can meet those challenges head-on, take them on the chin and become a brighter, braver, stronger person for it. Life IS good :)

Now I have 3000 words to translate - better get on with it otherwise I'll be up late tonight as well!