Tuesday morning, I woke up after a full 8 hours of sleep… at 5:30am.
There is only One Best Activity at 5:30am, especially in a perfectly quiet little town in the perfectly quiet but grand-as-all-getout Welsh mountains. Running.
I imagine walking is okay, too. ;}
So, just think of this.
Marty is still totally passed out, and I get out of bed and feel impossibly compelled to go running after my exhausting 32-hour travel sequence and like-the-dead 8 hour slumber. It’s 5:30am, but it’s light out in that silvery grey early-morning way. So I put on my sweats and a t-shirt and I pin my hair up, and I close the door quietly… and I go gently down the stairs. VFFs don’t make a whole lot of noise; it’s just like being in your bare feet, so it’s easy not to clomp. Stealthy.
When I go to open the door, there’s a newspaper stuck in the slot in the middle. This strikes me as wonderful — I don’t really know why. That early in the morning in a strange new place, everything is a little more magical. So when I stepped outside and carefully closed the front door behind me, the jug of milk on the step just about gave me shivers.
Silly, maybe. Maybe not.
Outside, the air was cool and clean and delicious. There was absolutely no one about, anywhere. No cars. No pedestrians. Nothing but space, and sky, and mist on the mountains.
I decided to run towards Llangattock, because we hadn’t gone that way yet. I found myself running towards a mountain — which isn’t hard, by the way, in Crickhowell. We are surrounded by mountains, and any direction you turn in puts you in sight of one. It always looks like it’s so close… but you run toward it, and find that there’s always something in your way. I can’t get to the mountain, not from here — not running on my own two feet. (At least, not this week.) But the ache you develop for the mountains that you can’t seem to reach is very present. Very real.
I was able to watch mountains in front of me nearly the whole time I was running, no matter which way I was running. And so I kept thinking the lyrics of Mawl i Ti, O Dduw in my head. Cilied pob tawch o’m henaid i, O Dduw. Clear every fog from my soul, O God. Those words are so seated in Welsh heritage, surrounded by mountains, betimes covered in mist.
And more than that, the mountains reminded me of the very first Welsh song I learned in English from Geraint Wilkes — the Welsh tenor who presided over many a gymanfa ganu and Welsh gathering when I was still swiping my Welsh diction from Bryn Terfel recordings. Geraint always sang a truly lovely piece called My Little Welsh Home.
I am dreaming of the mountains of my home,
The mountains where in childhood I would roam.
I have dwelt ‘neath southern skies
Where the summer never dies
But my heart is in the mountains of my home.I can see the little homestead on the hill,
I can hear the magic music of the rill.
There is nothing to compare
With the love that once was there,
On that lonely little homestead on the hill.I can see the quiet churchyard down below
Where the mountain breezes wander to and fro.
And when God my soul will keep
It is there I want to sleep,
With those dear old folks that loved me long ago.
(Edit: If you want to hear it, I just posted a voice-only version here.)
I never experienced the Welsh mountains so directly as Tuesday morning and the days that came after — not even in 2006 when a friend drove me up onto a mountaintop so that I could see the Rhondda Valley entire. Living in the midst of the mountains is very different from visiting them for a few hours. There’s a different sort of gravity in Crickhowell. The Brecons are deeply emotional, somehow. You feel a spark every time someone refers to them as the Black Mountains, or recommends that you visit a town just over the mountain — you feel a spark every time you walk down the street and start to notice yourself being pulled. A little tug along that line of sight, toward the mountain.
I’m sure this has been inherently religious for many people, and I understand why. And for me, it’s another kind of religious — a connection to something much bigger than me. The dirt under my feet. Mountains that have weathered centuries, 18,000 years of mountains, going back to the last ice age. The world and the weather and the perfection of all of it makes me feel very still and small.
About fifteen minutes into my run, it started to drizzle, and then rain. Big drops — mild rain from big fluffy clouds, early morning rain. On the way back, I saw a woman leaning out of her second story window, watering flowerpots suspended from the roof’s overhang. But I saw almost no one else. It was just me.
Well, and the snail I came across just before going into the house!
It was a breathtaking half-hour. It made my whole day grand.
I know some of these are darker, especially because of the early morning and the rain. Let me know if it’s really a problem, since I have a few things I can try (including the iPhone app Dad suggested) but I haven’t had the chance just yet to give it a shot.
What do you think? (I think I want to go running again…)