Patriot’s Day

The news is coming in from Boston as I type this. The twitter stream rolls like a river, but there is rarely news. It’s all very confusing and heartbreaking.

April days can be very much like those in September. They start dark and cold. This one was also trying to rain. It’s not that I did not want to get up, it’s that I almost did not have a choice. Sleep weighed heavily on my eyes. My morning prayers were said in a state of consciousness that some might characterize as “sleep.” I conceded that I was awake enough, up enough, to go to the gym. I already had my workout clothes on anyway, and the dress clothes were in the car. That’s why we do that.

I had decided that I did not have to run. I could ride a recumbent bike. Listen to a podcast. Something like this NPR story on the radio. The story was about the upcoming marathon. I can’t find it now. It was about people from Newtown Connecticut who were planning on running. There were 26 victims. Each mile would be dedicated to a victim. The last two tenths, they would sprint, “fly, like those children flew from that awful scene.” I decided I could run. I wanted to run. I wanted to be with them.

Now I don’t know if some of those people from Newtown have been caught up in whatever these explosions were. This day, which began to show the triumph of the spirit over the darkness, is now an episode of darkness too. And I don’t know why.