Sea Change

After a Run
Originally uploaded by Sandee4242

Sea-change or seachange is a poetic or informal term meaning a gradual transformation in which the form is retained but the substance is replaced.

What makes someone a runner? Some would say it's the ability to run a mile in a certain amount of time. Others would say it's the ability to run a given distance. For me, becoming a runner was simply the process of going out the door at 6am almost every morning with my running shoes on my feet. We started out walking. When that failed to budge the number on the scale - the number that had climbed steadily through the winter of my grief - we started running. At first, I couldn't make it halfway down the block, but as we continued to show up each day and do what we could, it got easier and easier. And this week, I knew the transformation was complete. This week I was too sick to run several days in a row and (I still can't believe it) I couldn't wait to be well enough to run again.

Sea-change was originally a song of comfort to the bereaved Ferdinand over his father's death by drowning. The expression is Shakespeare's, taken from the song in The Tempest, when Ariel sings,

"Full fathom five thy father lies,
Of his bones are coral made,
Those are pearls that were his eyes,
Nothing of him that doth fade,
But doth suffer a sea-change,
into something rich and strange,
Sea-nymphs hourly ring his knell,
Ding-dong.
Hark! now I hear them, ding-dong, bell."

Rest well, Mom and Steven.