Day 7: God, Four Children

I woke up and I was so glad because it is summer and I'm doing what I love in the world! I'm working on one of the prettiest instruments I've made. I'm working on an article for a magazine to promote our nonprofit project, Dulcimers4Vets. I was invited to research dulcimers at the Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage. And there really is so much more.

So last night I slept alone because Val is about in the world. Well, the boys kept me company. This is us snuggling.

I got a note from one of my oldest friends. He was not lamenting the loss of the past, but he was revelling in it.

I've read and reread his note a bunch of times because I had fifteen ways I want to respond! But they all boil down to--hell yeah! I love my childhood.

I close my eyes and go back then at least once every day! And during the summer, like now, I really go nuts and run through the woods and be that barefooted, mostly naked little kid. I let my imagination take me back and I play.

Of course the residue of that play is much different now, but I'm still making stuff out of wood that I find. Making art and drawing pictures. Being one with the woods. And don’t get me started about time of the motorcycle summer, when I rode a YZ 125 I bought and rode.

My childhood fucked me up in a lot of ways for the rest of my life, but it gave me treasures that so many others will never find. I am so lucky to have found God in the freeplay I made. God lives in children who are too young to reason him away.

"...I ain't straight outta Compton I'm straight out the trailer..."! Really. No. Really! My parents became the black sheep of their families for marrying one another--if I understand the history of my families' history--which I don't.

I grew up without an extended family, for which I now crave! So
much so that I'd love for my mother-in-law to live with us when we have our baby. Is that a surprise to you? Yeah. I haven't mentioned it much.

Willow Shoshana Diaz Leroy Runge. If we have a girl. We love it! Too much?

I've been running since the army. It is the one good thing that I've taken from my military service. I really use it as a moving meditation. So many of my life's problems get resolved when I'm running.




I ran in the mountains again today. Here is the view of the beginning of my run. I start off running two miles up the hill and then two miles down. And then I cool off by swimming in the Middle Prong Little River. 

I didn't take a nap today. But the boys napped without me.