The Great River

In the last few weeks, Stodgy Legs Elf had discovered something about herself. She had lived many hundreds of years, but it had taken her all this time to discover this thing. Once in a while a thing is so obvious that it is hard for an elf to see it. Like the leaves of trees on the path beneath her feet, or glowing green of the moss on a quiet river. Those things that cover everything, are everywhere... which makes them nowhere. Discovering the something that is everywhere and nowhere is like carefully turning the focus on a camera lens to sharpen a new plane within the depth of field. What was invisible, suddenly leaps into view.

The thing that Stodgy Legs had discovered about herself was this: Stodgy had always believed that she failed at fitness plans because she didn't try hard enough, but this was not true. In fact, Stodgy Legs had set many extremely difficult goals, like running 26.2 miles through the woods in bare feet or walking 1,000 miles in one season. She had always succeeded at these goals. It wasn't that she was not trying hard enough, it was that she tried too hard. In the attempt to reach massive goals she worked so hard that her beating elf heart and stodgy legs had rebelled against her once the goal was accomplished. The wicked bansheebrigs in her brain had told her that she was too worn out and deserved a long break. The cunning borgabrigs in her muscles, told her it was all too much and to give up for a few weeks. Before she knew it, Stodgy Legs Elf would not only lose all the strength she had gained, but would end up a dumpy and sad and pudgy Elf with extra stodgy legs all over again.

Stodgy decided it was time to change the pattern of the last several hundred years. She began to set new, more reachable goals that were things she could do for the next hundred years and not be plagued by bansheebrigs or brogabrigs. She slowed down and looked at the moss on the slow, slow river as it moved slow, slowly along. The tiny, winged mossmorphers who flitted just above the moss where they could only be seen by the keenest eye, whispered to her,

Come join us as we float above the lichen,
soft and glowing
Be carried by the river without fighting,
without rowing
Let your effort fit the hushed flow of water,
of the motion
Join the river in repose, yet advancing
to the ocean.

-- Stodgy Legs Elf