I didn’t want to run tonight.

I spent all weekend at school covered in dirt and fake blood, learning how to save lives, splint injuries, clean wounds, conduct a full body physical exam and focused spine assessment, and record patient data to pass records off to the helicopter (or car, donkey, or mule) evacuating them from the field once we’re done administering wilderness first aid.

So I was tired. And I didn’t want to run tonight.

But I did, because tomorrow night is back to school night and therefore I’ll probably be even more tired on Wednesday.

Turns out, this run was the best thing I could have done tonight.

I took a long route by mistake. I told myself I’d turn around and then I forgot because the run felt good and steady. I was in East Coast Park, the grass was springy, the breeze that comes every evening smelled like salt and ocean, and there were fewer people around than usual. So I kept running.

About halfway, I stopped. I took a breath. I sat on the rocks in the sand, as low as I could without getting wet, for about 15 minutes. What I began to understand on those rocks qualifies this as perhaps the best run I’ve ever had.

As I always do when I pause in the park, I just looked at the water. I found it in the air and I breathed in it. But waves are mesmerizing , hypnotic, and I felt my eyes close. I let them. And then I listened.

I know that the remaining senses sharpen when one is removed. I know that you can see waves roll and hear them crash. I didn’t realize that you can also hear waves roll. I had never thought about the energy that keeps waves in constant motion. For the first time, I heard the waves rolling down the beach. I heard them crash and I heard the crash ricochet, tumbling down the beach. And when I opened my eyes to see what I was hearing, I lost it. I love watching water, but I’ve never spent much time just listening to it. I sat there on the rock for those 15 minutes, eyes closed with occasional peeking, feeling a giddy smile on my face each time closing my eyes brought the sounds back. Brought the energy back. My rock was just above the tide line but I wasn’t always sure based on the sounds I was hearing, the water pulling back, rolling forward, like rocking a cradle.

I was surprised how quickly time passed and how lost I’d been in the sounds of such a powerful force. It literally swept me away to a different understanding of energy and how it drives all things. Energy is everything there is, everything we touch, everything we are, and the connections we form with each other. I could say those words before, but I understand them now.

Learn something new every day.

Take time to be still and quiet.

On the run home, and even now still in the wake of endorphins, I felt happier, calmer, more connected to the natural world and the people around me. At the end of the day we’re all part of the same thing. And I have to believe that on the most basic, human we’re all just doing the best we can to hold it all together.