New Non-stop bungee leash, first run today — more confidence on the downs, Honey joins the long run this weekend.
For years I kept her off the steep ground — Djouce’s shoulder, the Downs’ loose scree, afraid her joy would be the thing that put me on my back. A fixed line has no mercy in it. When she surges, you go with her, or you don’t, and either way something gets hurt.
Then a stranger ran past with an orange cord strung between himself and his dog, and I went home and read about bungees — rubber at the core, built for exactly the fear I’d been carrying: that the distance between two runners needs somewhere to bend.
It arrived the same length as the harness I already trusted, but stretched like it understood something the old lead never did — that connection isn’t the rope holding tight, it’s the rope knowing when to give.
Today, on the downhill, she pulled and the line simply breathed with her, and I stayed upright, and something in my chest loosened too.
This weekend, the long run. Both of us, on the steep ground, finally — not because the fear is gone, but because now there’s somewhere for it to stretch.
Inspired by Rumi