"Centering Down"

Ed Cone's column today is especially delicious and nuggety; just click the link and enjoy yourself.
One of my favoite parts: Ed muses on why his great-grandfather Cone used regularly to row himself to the center of a lake and just sit in the boat:

Centering down, the Quakers call it, reaching a quiet core of your self, and it is all the more essential today in a culture that has lost its appreciation for silence and gentle ambient sounds. The boom-box on the beach that drowns out the waves, the iPod carried on a run around the park, the cell phone required for any car trip longer than five minutes -- it's as if people are afraid to be alone with themselves.

Yes, exactly.

This morning I ran in Country Park, watching shafts of light come through the tree canopy and illuminate the humid air, listening to the shudder and whine of August's aging cicadas, and to footfalls, and to breathing.

Centering down.

UPDATE: After I posted this, my body told me I'd run a bit too far this morning (trying to make up for lapses in my marathon training). So I had to take a couple of Advils and spend the afternoon "centering down" on the bed watching Columbo reruns. Heavenly -- especially when Johnny Cash is the guest star.