A brief interlude

It’s late and I step out of the air-conditioned hotel apartment onto the balcony. I’m on holiday in Turkey and I feel relaxed. It’s more than just relaxation though, and I always wonder what people mean when they say they are relaxed; it can mean a variety of things to so many different people. For me everything feels lighter and more distant, it’s almost as if all the things going on back in the UK are a distant memory. Something that happened a while ago and there is no need to recall those events or even dwell upon them.

The heat of the September night hits me, as I step outside of the apartment. The previous booming sounds of clubs and cafes have started to die down, with the laughing and chatter of revellers starting to become quieter. I can smell cigarette smoke from a neighbouring apartment, as I look out across the bay. Lights start to switch off, as the last guests make their way back from the bars towards the hotel, with the music becoming ever quieter and in some cases being switched off.

I lean on the balcony railing and look up across the bay and watch the sea from the bay onwards laying in a state of complete calm. It provides a mirror-like surface to reflect the moon that appears to be shining a path of light from the sea all the way towards the bay. The sun beds are empty on the beach of the bay and a few lonely figures stumble along the beach, no doubt feeling ‘jolly’ from their activities at the various bars.

I let out a deep sigh, one that I didn’t realise was in me, but with it comes a deep sense of peace. It’s nearly the end of September and October is fast approaching. I have come to accept that there will be no big races for Autumn or Winter, no personal bests that I can attach my running activities from the Summer to. Instead I will try to live vicariously through other people’s running achievements, by that notoriously fickle medium of social media. With the various set-backs during the Summer I have found myself just being grateful to run again consistently and potentially- even hopefully- taking part in races again. Right now on this balmy September evening all my aches and niggles feel like they are resting, maybe they too are on holiday! I can feel those familiar emotions and thoughts- of uncertainty and possibly apprehension- from returning from injury. Then something catches my eyes near the swimming pool.

I can see a relatively large black object with smaller dark balls circling the large object. I can feel myself becoming sleepy and I have to squint to make out what it is that I am looking at. After a few more seconds of trying to focus I can see what it is, a cat with her kittens. There is something fascinating about them, the kittens seem to be completely oblivious to the world around them. Choosing to focus on leaping from sunbed to sunbed, play fighting with each other or pestering their docile mother. It’s almost as if they are in their own world of play. I watch one kitten try to jump on top of the cat, and is pinned down immediately by its mother. I can’t help but chuckle and feel envious of the ‘games’ that they are playing.

I can’t tell if it is me becoming sleepy or that I am being mesmerised by the playful cats, but I feel almost drunk, like I am frozen to the spot watching the cats and that any movement (however slight) would take a great effort.  A butterfly flutters past one of the kittens and it attempts to leap from a sun bed onto the butterfly, and misses. Almost immediately it is pounced upon by another kitten and their play begins again. It strikes me that their fun has no end, no time or ultimate objective. It is just to learn for when they become adult cats. It is this moment of stillness of watching the kittens, that I realise that there do not have to be any times or massive goals, just the simple joy of going out for a run will do for me.