Between the Rain and Feeling Sorry for Myself

Still under the weather. Not dramatically, not interestingly — just the grey, low-level kind of unwell that asks nothing of you except stillness and patience, two things that don't always come naturally.

The rain has been falling gently for the second day running, and I find it does something to my mood that I can't entirely account for. Making things feel slightly softer, slightly sadder. Though I'll admit it's possible I'm simply feeling a little sorry for myself, and the rain is just convenient company.

I had plans for the weekend. After finishing the 108 on Friday — completing the full form, which felt like a genuine milestone — I'd intended to practice both days, to stay close to what had just been achieved. But best laid plans, as they say, have their own ideas. The body asked for something different, and the body, on this occasion, won.

It was a real thing, finishing that form. Complex, long, demanding in ways that reveal themselves slowly rather than all at once. And yet I know, with the particular clarity that only comes from having been here before, that completion is simply where the real work begins. The road between remembering a form and truly feeling it — between knowing where your hands go and understanding why — is long and unhurried, and cannot be rushed into existence.

So for now there is nothing to do but rest. Recover. Let the rain fall.

And look forward to the week ahead, which will ask me to begin bridging that distance — from the memory of 108 to the meaning of it. Not an easy thing. But the kind of challenge that, on the other side of this rainy Sunday, I find myself quietly looking forward to.