I went for a run. Walked down the driveway, heard the GPS watch beep, trotted into the street, and turned left up the hill. My plan was to do reverse my cemetery run. Five miles. My happy distance. In reverse, I begin uphill for a mile, pass behind the public school, cross the street, and head into the new section of the cemetery.

Cemeteries are great places to run. Quiet. Gently curving, narrow roads without traffic. In summer, fellows work string trimmers or ride mowers, but on April's first Saturday I met only a couple walking their dogs then an old man wearing two hats who told me it was a good day.

The cemetery is divided in two by a stretch of forest on a hill. An eroded dirt road connects the new section to the main cemetery. I was a mile and a half in at the top of that road. Fifty yards on is a turnout where workers dump brush and, if they're anything like me when I worked at a cemetery, hide from the boss for a moment's peace. I usually pass the turnout, wondering about a trail there that flows up over a hillock and into the forest, but pass on. I'm a creature of habit.

Last week, on a different run, I followed a muddy trail through another forest and felt I could have run it for hours. Today, I went into the turnout, up over that hillock, onto a new path.

It led up through the forested hill, wound between trees with occasional detours out of muddly low points. A quarter mile in the path forked. Left, the main path. Right, a narrow trail I chose immediately, leading up higher through more mud, behind the private school, and around to the suburban road.

I didn't want to leave those woods but knew that just down the road was a back entry to the main cemetery. I trotted down the unshouldered road, grateful for drivers that moved over, trying not to curse those who didn't. I turned left onto gravel, passed an old shed with no doors, into the upper section of the main cemetery, set to run up to the highest point, breathe in the view, come down the other side and rejoin my usual path.

Then I noticed a trail through the grass toward the trees. I turned onto it. The mud there was too wide to avoid. My sandals squelched and the mud and puddles coated my feet, sprayed my ankles and calves. I kept going up and found a narrow trail, firmer and drier that I soon knew would lead back to the turnout where I had begun.

I kept going through the turnout. I have no boss and I was at peace. I went down the eroded dirt road into the lower section of the main cemetery, around my usual turns, up and out onto the busy street. I turned left into the small neighborhood bordering the cemetery, back to the busy street, across into another small neighborhood, to the school, and down the road following the brook, onto our street, into our driveway. I stopped the GPS watch, stood beneath the grey sky, and felt overfilled with joy. A few moments later, I walked my muddy feet inside and up to the shower.

After showering, I read the following koan:

Yunmen taught, "I do not ask you about before the fifteenth of the month. Come, say something about after the fifteenth." And then he responded for himself, "Every day is a good day."

The fifteenth of the month on the ancient Chinese calendar is the full moon, a symbol for awakening, so the question is really I don't ask about before your awakening, but rather for you to speak out of your awakening.

I won't pretend to understand that any more than how running a new path filled me with joy. But I wanted to say something about after the run. Maybe tell you how every run is a good run but especially those on new paths.