Climb every Mountain

Climb every mountain, search high and low
Follow every by way, every path you know
Climb every mountain, ford every stream
Follow every rainbow, till you find your dream

A dream that will need, all the love you can give
Everyday of your life, for as long as you live

A Capricorn song if every there was one. This song comes from "The Sound of Music", which is also the last musical that Rodgers and Hammerstein would write together. The lyricist Hammerstein died soon after.

I woke up from disturbing dreams about being back in one of the toughest army camps I've ever been to. I wouldn't say that it's as tough as being in the commandos, or even the guards, but I still remember the words of a lieutenant who barked out at us: "this is the tarmac. It is sacred ground. Nobody walks on the tarmac!"

Everything was bigger. The missiles were heavier, the missile launchers are larger. The control equipment is heavier. It was designed for big burly angmohs in mind. It was almost like being in the engineers. Probably the training was tougher because the sergeant in charge was a sadistic asshole who didn't want to brief us properly and preferred for us to screw up time and again until we one day magically learnt our lesson. It didn't happen.

I injured myself and I was eventually deployed to a nicer place where the missiles were smaller, and the equipment was more manageable. But that is another story for another time.

But I had disturbing dreams about being back in that camp, about missiles being twice as heavy, people running twice as fast. The airplanes are everywhere! I was just carrying them over to the launcher as fast as they were being fired off, with all the flak flying around me.

Then you got to go back to what that dream was all about. It was the weekend again, so it's marathon preparation time. I had this troublesome right ankle, and it usually gave me hell after 15 km, but yesterday I managed to run an extra 5 km. It would be almost noon by the time I'm finished with the 20km, and I also promised myself that I would run another 10 km at night because you can push yourself a little further when you split up your runs.

It didn't happen. I guess I was tired and feeling crappy. All I need was a signal to get me to stop running. It was a drizzle when I went to the park last night, and I said, forget about it, and ate a chocolate sundae instead. I couldn't wait until after the rain because I wanted to catch England vs Kazakhstan. Not bad when you can play like shit and still win 5-1.

Well it's Sunday afternoon now and I still haven't done the extra 10km now, but I'll do it after I put this entry up. I'm sure that my body will protest tomorrow but when you got to do that marathon you got to be up to the challenge. My jogging partner is usually a better runner than me but he said, "I'm not doing this again next year. This is crazy. The amount of preparation, the amount of work you're going to put into it..." Yes, me too. I'm just going to show up in December, collect that fucking medal, and then fuck off. Then I can tell other people that I lived the dream.

Whenever you dream you dream, don't forget the other part of the dream - the one that involves the shit work being done.