Registering for Comrades 2017

Registering for Comrades 2017 : Are you going about it slowly ? 

Great poetry crystallises our thoughts in a way prose rarely can.  

It helps us answer questions in a way prose rarely can. 

I love Mary Oliver's poetry, especially the ones about love ! 

Earlier today, someone called me on phone and discussed her desire to run Comrades.   

She hadn't registered yet she said, and was taking this decision very very seriously. 

She felt that this race is so big, so difficult, so momentous that she needed to go about the registration process after a great deal of deliberation.  

Such deep thinking and evaluation takes time, she said.   One must arrive at the decision slowly, she felt. 

She asked me how I had arrived at this decision to run Comrades in 2009.  After all, at that time, there had been not a single person from India who had run this race. I was to be the first and there was no guidance and no path for me to follow.  

"Did you take slow deliberate thoughtful steps?", she asked. 

I recited Mary Oliver's poem about Love to her as an answer.  

The poem is titled : I DID THINK, LET’S GO ABOUT THIS SLOWLY. 

"I did think, let’s go about this slowly.
This is important. This should take
some really deep thought. We should take
small thoughtful steps. 

But, bless us, We Didn't ."

That's how one registers for comrades, I told her.  Don't think.  Just fall in love.  

I hope she registers for Comrades 2017.