In God's Country

I had a great week of practice this week, but because I was also responsible for getting my kids to camp four of the five days, it was a week of very early mornings. I kept finding that I would get really tired at 7pm, but by the time 10pm rolled around and my kids were finally in bed, I'd get a second wind and would be unable to fall asleep quickly. By Thursday night, when my kids were at their Dad's, I told myself I'd just go to sleep whenever I got tired, which happened to be 6:30pm. I was awake for an hour in the middle of the night, but all told by the time my alarm went off I'd gotten 11 hours of sleep!

As a result, I felt like a million bucks today. My practice felt easy and my Arboretum loop was the second fastest I've done -- not because I needed to be somewhere like the fasted one -- but because I felt like running fast.

When I heard this song on my run, a number of parts spoke to me, starting with the first line of this verse:

Sleep comes like a drug
In God's Country
Sad eyes, crooked crosses
In God's Country, yeah, yeah

Set me alight
We'll punch a hole right through the night
Everyday the dreamers die
See what's on the other side

And then there's the first two lines of this verse, which have always been my favorite:

She is liberty
And she comes to rescue me
Hope, faith, her vanity
The greatest gift is gold

This has been such a gorgeous summer in Madison -- the most beautiful I can remember. And running through the Arb -- well, it does feel like God's country:

Sleep comes like a drug
In God's Country
Sad eyes, crooked crosses
In God's Country, yeah

But I'm gonna have to part ways with Bono on the last verse, because I don't feel burned by the fire of love -- I just feel warmed by it:

Naked flame
She stands with a naked flame
I stand with the sons of Cain
Burned by the fire of love
Burned by the fire of love