5.5 miles bottom of franklin hill and back 9 degrees
Outside! Very bright today. A mix of moments of feeling great and feeling not so great — more feeling great. Foot prints in the snow, lamp post shadows, patches of brown ice. Black capped chickadees! A white river, a barren beach, a fat tire e-bike buzzing past me. A BLUE! sky — wow! Fogged up sunglasses. A delayed greeting: Hi Dave!
Thought about a blueberry looking more purple than blue, then the shade of purple: sucker. I like the word sucker — a candy, a fool, someone who sucks on something, a person on a straw, or something that sucks on something, a plunger on a toilet, an octopus on an arm.
Listened to the birds, the cars, and the gurgling sewer on the way north. Listened to an energy playlist — Don’t Stop Me Now, Work it, Sabotage — on the way back south.
the purple hour
12:45 am / dining room
restless, difficult to be still enough to type/think
(remembering, 7:05 am) looking out the kitchen window, seeing 2 dark forms in the white snow — bare patches or something more? Staring for a few mnutes — am I imagining that slight shift? No, 2 animals, standing still for minutes. What are they doing? Quick movement, then bounding figures. Rabbit-like. But these animals look so dark — is it a trick of the dim light — bunny fir darkened in the lilac light? [there is no indigo in a backyard illuminated by neighbor’s security lights.] Or, could these creatures be racoons?
2:44 am
a word appears in my head: amethyst — February stone, quartz, ancient Greeks believed it would prevent intoxication
Release one leaf at break of day; At noon release another leaf; One from our trees, one far away. Retard the sun with gentle mist; Enchant the land with amethyst. Slow, slow! For the grapes’ sake, if they were all, Whose leaves already are burnt with frost, Whose clustered fruit must else be lost— For the grapes’ sake along the wall.
A myth created in the 1500s about a nymph and Bacchus:
In his poem “L’Amethyste, ou les Amours de Bacchus et d’Amethyste” (Amethyst or the loves of Bacchus and Amethyste), the French poet Rémy Belleau (1528–1577) invented a myth in which Bacchus, the god of intoxication, of wine, and grapes was pursuing a maiden named Amethyste, who refused his affections. Amethyste prayed to the gods to remain chaste, a prayer which the chaste goddess Dianaanswered, transforming her into a white stone. Humbled by Amethyste’s desire to remain chaste, Bacchus poured wine over the stone as an offering, dyeing the crystals purple.
You are for me as you cannot be For yourself, chaos without demand To speak, the amethyst nothing Hidden inside the trinket shop’s stone, Dark eyes dark asterisks where light Footnotes a margin left blank. You Don’t look up to look up at the sky. Your ears parenthesize nothing That occurs, that I keep from occurring, In the poem, on the page, as you are For me, not a shadow, but a shade Whose darkness drops from no object But is itself yourself, a form of time Spanning nothing, never is your name.
9:46 am / kitchen
Telling Scott about how the word amethyst popped into my head and that it was the birthstone for February, he said that he knew that because his grandmother was born in February and she often wore amethyst jewelry.
12:31 pm / front room — chair
Thinking more about Dan Beachy-Quick’s lines:
not a shadow, but a shade Whose darkness drops from no object
Thinking about shade as a hue with black added to make it darker (as opposed to tint, where white is added to make something lighter). Also thinking about shade as relief on a hot day, a welcomed darkness.
added hours later: Rereading the poem, “Anniversary,” I looked it up: amethyst is given for the 6th wedding anniversay.
bike: 30 minutes run: 3 miles outside temp: feels like -13
Thought briefly about going outside for a run then remembered if I stayed inside I could bike and watch more of The Gorge, which I did. I have 30 minutes left. Lots of action and jump scares and secret military operations and old film reels that reveal science experiments gone wrong and evil private corporations forming unbeatable mutant armies and chemical leaks and spiders with human skulls and more spent ammo than seems possible and . . . . I’m not sure how I feel about it all yet. One thing: earlier, when they first entered the gorge, the poet-sniper-main character (Levi) quoted T.S. Eliot and “This is how the world ends. Not with a bang but a whimper.” This sure sounds like a bang. Two possibilities: 1. he nods to the line and has some witty quip about it, like if we’re going to end, let’s do it with a bang, not a whimper (ugh!) or 2. a much quieter conclusion, where they are not destroyed and the gorge is not destroyed evil is only slightly contained and will continue to slowly simmer and spread. Will Levi finally read Drassa his poem about her? Will he quote some other poetry? Will the movie end in poetry instead of war?
While I ran, I listened to an amazing podcast with a poet I just happened to write about yesterday: Rebecca Lindenberg. Wow! What an amazing conversation.
about how acceptance and resistance co-existfor her as she lives with chronic illness (type 1 diabetes)
I mean, what I feel is not acceptance. I did use that word earlier, but I don’t think that that is what I feel. I think what I feel is persistence more than anything.
And I feel ongoingness and I feel hope. . . . I don’t experience hope as a passive feeling, like hope is a thing with feathers that perches in the soul, I’m like, maybe, but you have to feed it and change the food in its cage and take it out and let it fly. . . . I understand hope as a series of acts of meaningful devotion. And I feel that because so much of the maintenace of a diabetic body is routines that you do every single day, if I think of them as small rituals instead of routines, then it doesn’t feel like I’m obeying my disease.
Persistence, ongoingness, the practice of hope, a series of (small) acts of meaningful devotion. I feel these things in me as I navigate diminished vision and potential blindness.
the purple hour
4:05 am / dining room
Tried to sit down and think about Monica Ong’s “Lavender Insomnia” but was too restless, agitated — not from thoughts, but a buzzing left leg.
11:10 am / front room
the violet hour (twilight)
T.S. Eliot’s violet hour in Waste Land: At the violet hour, the evening hour that strives Homeward, and brings the sailor home from sea, The typist home at teatime, clears her breakfast, lights Her stove, and lays out food in tins.
Civil twilight = dim but artificial light is not needed, bright stars are visible = violet
Nautical twilight = dimmer, sailors can use stars to navigate horizon, you need artificial light to do things = plum?
Astronomical twilight = almost full darkness, dark enough to see galaxies, nebulas = eggplant
I’m still thinking about T.S. Eliot and “The Hollow Men.” Hollow is such a great word. I didn’t realize T.S. Eliot lived until 1865, and long enough for there to be a recording of him reading it. Those last lines!
bike: 30 minutes run: 3.05 miles outside temp: -1 degree / feels like -18
Public schools were canceled today because of the cold. I don’t have a kid in public school anymore (hooray!) but I do rehearse at a high school on Tuesday nights for community band. When schools are closed band is canceled. Bummer.
I have run when it felt like 20 below, but 18 below was too cold for me today. Also, I figured out something I wanted to watch while I was biking: The Gorge. There is very little talking in it; it’s almost all visual. Luckily, I had the audio description on. I think I would have missed most of the movie without it. What a relief, for my eyes and brain, to hear the descriptions. About 20 or 30 minutes in, the movie was dragging and I wondered if I could keep watching it. Then bam, a suprise! I was done with my bike so I stopped, but I’m looking forward to watching more of it now. The lead actor is a poet and writes every day. Will he ever mention one of his favorite poets, or quote a line from them? In one of the last scenes I watched before I stopped, he told the other main character that he was writing a poem about her. He would only give her the tentative title: She collapsed the night (I think it was collapsed, but it could have been collapses?). added, 20 feb 2025: Finished the movie and Levi’s poem is mentioned, but Eliot’s line is not — an unsatisfying ending.
I started the run with a podcast, but moved to my energy playlist again. Listened to a few rock songs with electric guitar and thought: electric purple. Then, purple sparking on the surface or on the underside of the surface shimmering shaking distorting and dis or mis or strangely coloring my perception of the world. Purple as energetic electric chemical reactions with ganglion cells. Then I heard another song — why can’t I remember which song? — with a great beat that I was able to get inside of: feet, the beat of the song, the speed of the treadmill, a chorus in tight unison. Could this be the purple part of the beat?
During my morning poem-a-day practice, I read this:
The title is from [Immanuel] Kant’s description of reason, and I want to pry what’s moving and plaintive about it apart from what’s world-ending. Not because I care about Kant but because, from the standpoint of reason, genocide can be justified.
This explanation brings me back to my first year of grad school — fall 1996, Claremont, CA — in a class on Horkheimer and Adorno and critical theory. I remember learning about the limits of reason and the violence of modernity and the hypocrisy of claims for freedom and democracy by those in power.
plum = part of the rose family, prunes when dried, something sweet — a plum job, a plum deal, plummy (adj)
plumb = pipes/plumbing, plumbum (Latin/lead), lead weight attached to line — used to indicate vertical direction, vertically (adj), absolutely — plumb wrong / exactly — plumb in the middle (adv), plumb the depths (v)
plump = having a full rounded form (adj), dropping placing or sinking suddenly and heavily — they plumped down (v), making or becoming plump — plumping a pillow (v)
a plum assignment plumb out of luck plump up an ego
the stain of love is upon the world! Yellow, yellow, yellow it eats into the leaves, smears with saffron the horned branches that lean heavily against a smooth purple sky! There is no light only a honey-thick stain that drips from leaf to leaf and limb to limb spoiling the colors of the whole world—
you far off there under the wine-red selvage of the west!
Yellow and purple. Reminds me, again, of Robin Wall Kimmerer and asters and goldenrods!
If a fountain could jet bouquets of chrome yellow in dazzling arches of chrysanthemum fireworks, that would be Canada Goldenrod. Each three-foot stem is a geyser of tiny gold daisies, ladylike in miniature, exuberant en masse. Where the soil is damp enough, they stand side by side with their perfect counterpart, New England Asters. Not the pale domesticates of the perennial border, the weak sauce of lavender or sky blue, but full-on royal purple that would make a violet shrink. The daisylike fringe of purple petals surrounds a disc as bright as the sun at high noon, a golden-orange pool, just a tantalizing shade darker than the surrounding goldenrod. Alone, each is a botanical superlative. Together, the visual effect is stunning.
Why do they sand beside each other when they could grow alone? Why this particular pair?
Color perception in humans relies on banks of specialized receptor cells, the rods and cones in the retina. The job of the cone cells is to absorb light of different wave lengths and pass it on to the brain’s visual cortex, where it can be interpreted. The visible light spectrum, the rainbow of colors, is broad, so the most effective means of discerning color is not one generalized jack-of-all-trades cone cell, but rather an array of specialists, each perfectly tuned to absorb certain wavelengths. The human eye has three kinds. One type excels at detecting red and associated wavelengths. One is tuned to blue. The other optimally perceives light of two colors: purple and yellow.
The human eye is superbly equipped to detect these colors and send a signal pulsing to the brain. This doesn’t explain why I perceive them as beautiful, but it does explain why that combination gets my undivided attention. I asked my artist buddies about the power of purple and gold, and they sent me right to the color wheel: these two are complementary colors, as different in nature as could be. In composing a palette, putting them together makes each more vivid: In an 1890 treatise on color perception, Goethe, who was both a scientist and a poet, wrote that “the colors diametrically opposed to each other . . . are those which reciprocally evoke each other in the eye.” Purple and yellow are a reciprocal pair. Our eyes are so sensitive to these wavelengths that the cones can get oversaturated and the stimulus pours over onto the other cells.
Goldenrod and asters appear very similarly to bee eyes and human eyes. We both think they’re beautiful. Their striking contrast when they grow together makes them the most attractive target in the whol emeadow, a beacon for bee.s Growing together, both receive more pollinator visits than they would if they were growing alone.
Braiding Sweetgrass / Robin Wall Kimmerer
3:06 / dining room / 18 feb
the rattle of the vent as the warm air is forced through it
my dark reflection on the stainless steel dishwasher door, caused by the dim string of lights in the front room cast on me as I stood on the rug in the dining room — silvery purple
a creaking house, settling after the heat stopped
a hiss in my head
what are the origins of magenta? why were the vikings purple and gold?
purplish blue = indigo
reddish purple = magenta, purplish red = fuchsia
the crab apple trees and their fuchsia funnels (Ada Limón)
Magenta is named after a town in Italy (Magenta) and a bloody battle for independence in 1859
10:00 am / front room
Searching for magenta on poetryfoundation.org, I found some very cool looking exercises from Rebecca Lindenberg about perception, including one using Ezra Pound’s ideogram. Lindenberg offers this example:
CHERRY FLAMINGO ROSE IRON RUST
Say the students choose, for example, yellow. It is likely they will start by suggesting, again, the usual concrete items we associate with that color—lemons, bananas, the sun, corn on the cob, sunflowers. After they’ve exhausted those, it’s important to keep asking—what else is yellow? Taxis, rubber duckies, corn tortillas, rain slickers, caution tape, butter. Then, onion skins, sticky notes, school buses, yield signs, egg yolks, urine, grapefruit rinds, fog—and now we’re getting somewhere. Now we’re not talking so much about what we think of as yellow, we’re talking about what we actually see as yellow.
Once the board or screen is full of things we see as yellow, it’s worth pausing to remind students that we aren’t just making a picture of yellow. What the class chooses will suggest something about yellow—but it doesn’t have to be everything there is to say about yellow. It doesn’t have to be comprehensive, just visceral, evoking “yellow-ness” (or “teal-ness” or “tan-ness”). Then, another vote. Or rather, a few rounds, in which each student gets two votes, until you narrow it down to the final four. And ka-pow! You’ve made an ideogram.
Lindenberg suggests a homework assignment: pick a color, brainstorm at least 25 things related to the color, narrow it down to four, write a paragraph of explanation. I think I’ll try this with purple — just one, or a series of purple moods?!
note: I’m resisting the inclination to dig deep into articles/essays/posts about Pound and imagism. I might (will) get lost in theories and concepts and schools and jargon and devote all my time to understanding and knowing instead of making and feeling. That’s Dr. Sara’s style, not mine!
updated a few hours later: Watched about 20 more minutes of The Gorge. In one scene they’re walking through a yellow fog and into a purple wood. I used my phone to take a picture. Don’t think it quite captures the intense colors.
yellow into purple
In this scene, yellow and purple are used to evoke a hellscape. The half-dead skeletons with trees growing out of them are referred to as hollow men, which is a reference to T.S. Eliot’s poem. The poem keeps coming up; I think I should read it. Wow — just read it. Here’s a bit from the middle and the last lines, which Levi, one of the main characters, recites as they walk in purple (violet) air.
Shape without form, shade without colour. Paralysed force, gesture without motion;
Those who have crossed With direct eyes, to death’s other Kingdom Remember us—if at all—not as lost Violent souls, but only As the hollow men
II
Eyes I dare not meet in dreams In death’s dream kingdom These do not appear: There, the eyes are Sunlight on a broken column There, is a tree swinging And voices are In the wind’s singing More distant and more solemn Than a fading star.
—
This is the way the world ends This is the way the world ends This is the way the world ends Not with a bang but a whimper.
note: I’m starting this post at 9:50 am. The temp is 4 degrees / fees like -11. The wind is 11 mph with gusts up to 20 mph. At this point, I’m thinking I will run inside on the treadmill. Will I, or will some part of me convince the rest to run outside?
3.5 miles ford bridge and back 7 degrees / feels like -10 50% snow-covered
We did it. Good job legs and lungs and heart, you convinced brain that we really needed to be outside this late morning! Almost all of the layers were on: 2 pairs of black running tights; dark gray tank top; green long-sleeved shirt; orange pullover; dark purplish/blueish/grayish pullover with hood; purple jacket; orange striped buff; black fleece cap with ear flaps; black gloves; pink striped gloves; 2 pairs of socks — gray (long) / black (short). At times, I was too warm.
It was wonderful and sometimes hard, especially when I was running into the wind on the way back. It was also bright — glad I had my sunglasses. Encountered someone in orange with their hand up to shield their eyes as they walked south. Saw the round shadow of a street lamp and the jagged shadow of a small tree. Passed a group of four walkers, laughing and yelling and having fun on the double bridge.
Did I think about purple at all? I can’t remember now. The only color I recall noticing was orange.
the purple hour(15th and 16th of feb)
3:38 am / dining room / 15 feb
the heat turnning on, the house shifting settling, my legs restless purple mountains — in Japan, looking out at the mountains, different shades of purple — fall, 1994 Emily Dickinson purple — sunsets and sunrises someone shoveling at 4 am
[discussion below added at 10:30 am on 16 feb]
Where Ships of Purple—gently toss — / Emily Dickinson
Where Ships of Purple—gently toss — On Seas of Daffodil— Fantastic Sailors—mingle— And then—the Wharf is still! F296 (1862) 265
No one does sunsets better than Dickinson. I wonder if Amherst sunsets are still so colorful. Where I’ve lived sunsets are primarily red, pink, and gold, but the ones she describes often have purple. This one does, too. Here she sees great ships, large purple clouds, gently tossing in their moorings. The sea beneath them is tinted golden, “Daffodil,” from the setting sun. The mingling and fantastic sailors are no doubt smaller clouds that move among the larger ship-like ones, their shapes constantly changing. When the sun sets the sky turns dark and “the Wharf is still!”
The prowling bee has been such a wonderful resource for me. Reading the comments for this poem, there was speculation about why the Amherst sunsets were so brilliant and purple:
Romantic era sunsets WERE particularly vivid, due to volcanic ash from several cataclysmic eruptions worldwide. The Hudson River School artists and their sunsets might not have been hyperbole, after all, nor were ED purple sunsets.
Volcanoes can cause some of the world’s most spectacular sunsets. An eruption spews small particles of gas, dust and ash, called aerosols, high into the atmosphere where they can spread around the world. The particles can’t be seen during the day, but about 15 minutes after sunset, when conditions are right, these aerosols can light up the sky in brilliant “afterglows” of pink, purple, red or orange.
The impact of climate/climate disruptions on how we see color? Fascinating. Earlier this morning, while doing my “on this day” practice, I reread my entry from 16 feb 2024. In it, I described a photo I took above the gorge.
The most important thing about this image is how the branches create a net which mimics how my vision often works — I can almost see what’s there, but not quite. Secondary, but connected, is the feeling of being disoriented, off, almost but not quite, untethered, which comes from swirling forms and the climate crisis — there’s almost always snow on tthe ground here in February. Where are my Minnesota winters?
This last bit about climate crisis and lack of snow returns me to the ash in the sky and its effect on how 19th century artists saw and depicted the world. Many places to go with this, for now I’m thinking about how my vision loss (or the making strange of my vision) has enabled me to be more open (than many people with “normal” vision) to understanding vision as complex and not as simple or straightforward as “what you see is what you get.” Does that make sense?
1:50 am / dining room / 16 feb
doorways/thresholds are definitely purple — a deep, dark purple the air above the gorge: different versions (tints/shades) of purple purple hums, a soft lavender static in my ears lachrymose purple originally wrote violet static, but looked up the color again and thought it was too dark for the static I was hearing in my head
9:46 am / front room / 16 feb
Thought more about violet. Decided to search, “Alice Oswald violet.” Found this beautiful poem:
Violet/ Alice Oswald
Recently fallen, still with wings out,
she spoke her name to summon us to her darkness.
Not wanting to be seen, but not uncurious,
she spoke her name and let her purple deep eye-pupil
be peered into.
‘Violet,’ she said
and showed her heart under its leaf.
Then she leant a little frightened forwards
and picked a hand to pick her.
And her horrified mouseface, sniffed and lifted close,
let its gloom be taken and all the sugar licked off its strangeness
while we all stood there saying, ‘Violet! Violet!’
fingering her blue bruised skin.
Finally she mentioned
the name of her name
which was something so pin-sharp,
in such a last gasp of a previously unknown language,
it could only be spoken as a scent,
it could only be heard as our amazement.
“purple deep eye pupil”: so good!
“the name of her name” — I wrote in my notes: the flower is never one solid, consistent color — the color is an abstraction, a taking one part for the whole, a disconnection — to name a color is to reduce the experience and perception of that color to one thing — colors cannot be fully named
What is lost — in our perception, experience of the world — when we reduce what we see to a fixed color/fixed name?
This question reminds me of something I read in Turning to Stone on the importance of naming yesterday:
The names themselves are, of course, human constructs, but the act of naming requires making distinctions that sharpen the powers of observation.
*
Taxonomy is comforting because it creates a sense of control and finitude in a chaotic and open-ended world.
Turning to Stone / Marcia Bjornerud
Lists! I love lists. My lists aren’t taxonomies, but something else . . .
The proper name of God is a list.
Valentina Izmirlieva in Aster of Ceremonies
Once I get the audiobook of Aster of Ceremonies, I want to put name as taxonomy and control in conversation with JJJJJerome Ellis’ “Liturgy of the Name” and “Benediction.”
4.5 miles minnehaha falls and back 18 degrees / feels like 6
The bike path was clear and not crowded. The air was cold. I heard a few birds, kids on the playground, dry leaves still on the trees imitating the waterfall. My legs felt heavy, my lower back a little sore. Waved a greeting to almost everyone I encountered. Thought maybe I heard some kids on the sledding hill at minnehaha park but couldn’t see anyone.
About a mile in, I started thinking about how purple represents both very hot temperatures and very cold ones. Purple = extreme. Then I thought about Basho’s line about poetry as “a fireplace in summer, a fan in winter.”
small victories: thought about stopping to walk under the ford bridge but kept going until I reached my favorite observation spot, stopped to put in a playlist, then kept running until I reached the double bridge. also: have mostly reached my winter goal of lowering my average heart run to under 160 — today it was 157.
10 Things
cloud-covered sun
yellowed leaves on an otherwise bare tree — a compliment to the violet air
the river was covered in white and looked wider and colder than usual
at least 10 people were standing near my favorite observation spot by the falls
through the slats of the double bridge on the walking side I noticed bright blue graffiti
one car was parked in the far parking lot at the top of the sledding hill
the bright pink plastic bag I mentioned last week was further in the woods today — was it filled with snow?
the falls were frozen and not falling
stopped at the bench above the edge of the world: open, empty, a few tracks in the snow
a small part of the fence near 38th is missing a panel
the purple hour — 2 days
3:18 am(bedroom floor) / 13 jan 2025
Still life painting Heavy shadows and light
Sitting in the dark, wanting to keep the quiet and how I’ve adjusted to the dark, I’m reluctant to take out my iPad and write or to speak into my phone. Now, later (10:00 am) in the morning, I remember the moon (a full moon!) coming through the slats — not as dramatically as the past few nights — and the window-sized square of light with its soft slat shadows and the deep, solid shadow of the couch and the dark almost emptiness of the closet — almost empty because I could see the hint (inkling?) of the exercise ball with the slightest outline of light. The image of the ball just barely emerging from the shadow reminded me of a still life painting — the one that Diane Seuss writes about in Quince, Cabbage, Melon, and Cucumber/ Diane Seuss (see 3 may 2024).
At night, when others are asleep and it’s more dark than light, the world stills for my restless eyes. The static stops. Finally objects freeze. Mostly I do too. A chance to look for longer, to stare and study.
I like “seeing” the darkness in the closet — its accordion doors wide open — as a deep purple. It’s not pure black; there’s color there but it’s dark and deep.
Writing this last sentence prompted me to search for Monet and purple. Why? I can’t remember now, a few minutes later. Jackpot. First, a quotation wrongly attributed to Claude Monet on the search, but actually spoken by Manet — poor Manet. How often is he overshadowed by Monet? Anyway, here’s the quotation:
I have finally discovered the true colour of the atmosphere. It’s violet. Fresh air is violet. I found it! Three years from now everyone will do violet!
found in The Secret Lives of Color, which sites Bright Earth: The Invention of Color, 208.
Bright Earth? This books looks great. Just requested it from my local library!
The impressionists were enamored with violet. Critics claimed they were afflicted with violettomania. Some theories on why:
a belief that shadows were never merely black or gray but colored — this sounds familiar!
complementary colors: bright yellow and soft purple. Robin Wall Kimmerer and Goldenrods and Asters!
Talking with my sister on the phone in the afternoon about my purple hour, she mentioned a paint color made from human remains. I think she meant this one:
Caput mortuum, Latin for “dead head,” is a dark brown paint that looks violet in some lights, maroon in others. It is earthy and intense, and like many browns, it can run in opposite chromatic directions when diluted. Some versions of caput mortuum paint tend toward the yellow end of the spectrum, while others wash into a light, yet slightly murky lavender. Despite its foreboding name and strange history, it is a rather simple, homey color. The substance reached the height of its popularity in the 18th and 19th centuries. It gets its hue from pulverized, mummified bodies (both human and feline) and its name from alchemy.
That moon! noticed a thin line of light on the kitchen floor then went over to the side (south facing) window and noticed the moon through the thick wooden slats. wow! sitting at the dining room table, the heat kicked in — creaking everywhere through the vents. I have a short, repeated passage from one of our community band pieces running through my head. looking off to the side I caught a glimpse of myself in a mirror, my face-blob glowing from the computer screen — wistful wisteria — all parts of wisteria are toxic to humans — small purple flowers
I’m not sure why the phrase “wistful wisteria” popped into my head. Where do I know wisteria from? Searched for poetry wisteria and found a poem by Lucie Brock-Broido, Extreme Wisteria
Wisteria is, first: a hardy, deciduous, capable-of-earnest-grasping shrub which bears small flowers. After that, it can be pressed (violently if you will) into an attar of its former self. In this poem, wisteria is also a state (of mind), the place one heads toward when feeling wistful.”
Wandering with purple: Part of this purple hour project, part of any of my projects really, is to find reasons to wander and wonder about new, unexpected things that I might not otherwise encounter or care about. Mission accomplished! It started last night with a random phrase that whispered to me, wistful wisteria. This led to reading about the purple-flowered vine, wisteria, then Lucie Brock-Broido’s poem, then her Q&A about the poem in which they discuss Emily Dickinson, especially her poem, “Essential Oils — are wrung –“. Then the idea of ED as a hard nut to crack. Then this line from some commentary on ED:
When I read Walt Whitman, we jauntily walk side by side down the road within his multitudinous world of wonder. When I read Dickinson, I don’t know if I am inside her mind or if she is inside mine. But I am always in a mysterious, perplexing, deeply thought-provoking, sometimes scary but always beautiful place.
I think we’re all in conversation on the page with that which came before us, or even during us. We inherit whatever canon we’re in the midst of, a great collective influenza.
*
What I mean to say is that, in my own work, often, I may have been with Dickinson, but she was not with me.
5.5 miles bottom of franklin hill 6 degrees 100% snow-covered
A fine mist of snow. A few patches of ice, some slight slips. Cold. Fresh air. Sun behind clouds. For the first mile I didn’t see anyone else on the trails. Then, a few runners and walkers. No bikers or skiers. Sometimes I felt strong, sometimes I felt sore, all the time I was happy to be out there by the gorge.
today’s small victories: wasn’t sure how far I’d run but made it to the bottom of the hill. Almost stopped to walk near the top for a minute, but didn’t, kept going until the bottom. Ran from the bottom to under franklin — 3/4 of the hill — instead of walking like I planned
10 Wintery Things
patches of ice on sidewalk that wasn’t shoveled
cold air on my face — not quite cold enough to give me a brain freeze or to freeze the snot in my nose
small, soft flakes or freezing rain freezing on my eyelashes
the sharp thrust, grinding noise combo of feet walking on snow
the river: a mix of white ice and dark (purple?) open water
white, heavy sky
bird song: cheese burger cheese burger
the bluff on the other side of the river: a mix of white with bare brown branches
all of the walking trails were covered in a few inches of snow, some of it untouched, some marked by tracks — feet and skis
leaned over the wall in the flats and listened — a soft, sharp tinkling of snow hitting the ice on the surface of the river
Discovered Lee Ann Roripaugh’s awesome collection #string of pearls yesterday through her poem, #meteorology on poems.com. I’m thinking of buying the collection. Here are a few bits of it — it’s all tankas — that I thought of during my winter run:
yesterday’s snow sleeps :: late this morning in quiet :: white sheets / while rickety trees comb out fog’s heavy shanks :: of tangled, unruly hair
*
as gusted leaves buzz :: and whorl over snow-sugared :: roofs / but oh! this blown fluttering’s not a swirling :: of leaves, but winter sparrows
~
ugh! snotted hoody :: pinkened tinge faint litmus stain :: (yes or no / minus or plus) watercoloring :: blown-through tissues / torn storm blooms
*
wet-dark tree beaded :: in pearled bits of wintry mix :: excited finch swoops in manic parabolas :: to sip from the leaky eaves’
icicle /
the purple hour
2:40 am — dining room
too restless to notice or think about anything . . . purple mauve lavender orchid magenta is this restlessness a light or dark purple? whatever it is, it’s thick
3:15 am — bedroom floor
shadows slats moon carpet the slats are soft, barely visible the shadow of the lamp, its long neck, and something else. the cup? tin of nuts? nope the arm of the sofa the moon — so bright! how many more days of this moon? this clear sky?
bike: 25 minutes run: 3 miles outside temp: 1 degree/ feels like -7
Too cold for me today. Watched some races while I biked — I need to find a good movie or show!, listened to “Energy” while I ran. I stopped at 15 minutes for a few seconds, but when a good song came on — I can’t remember what — I decided to start running again. Then I kept going until I hit 30 minutes. Nice! My small victory for the day.
During the first half of the run I couldn’t quite lock into a rhythm. My feet seemed slightly off with the belt; I was on the edge of the beat. When I made the treadmill just a little faster, I entered the beat. I could barely hear my feet striking and I couldn’t feel the belt moving. Very cool. It felt similar to when I’ve locked in with the metronome. The other thing I remember is looking up at the dark window with the reflection of the light — the one that I’ve written about several times before, describing it as looking like an inverted moon on lake superior — and thinking it didn’t look like the moon anymore. I remembered why: Scott changed the light bulb from a round one to a rectangle one. It’s brighter too. My moon is gone. Bummer.
the purple hour
3:10 am / bedroom Full moon bright, spied through the dark slats of the blinds Slanted square of window with blinds cast in the carpet
Shadow of the blinds cast on McPherson* forearm: stripes Only seen in dim light; the light of this iPad erases it
*a typo — I decided to keep it in here. I don’t remember what I was trying to write that would have been autocorrected to McPherson. Was it just a slip of my fingers as I typed my?
(written 11 feb, 9:30 am) I remember the moon early this morning. Wow! So bright through the blinds. I wanted to walk over to the window and peek through the slats but I was afraid that it would wake Delia the dog, asleep on the couch. It was so bright that even from the floor with the blinds closed all the way, I could see it if I tilted my head just right.
I turned down the brightness of the iPad as much as I could, but it still made the room too bright. Right after I put my iPad away, the shadows were gone. I wondered if clouds were covering the moon. But once my eyes adjusted, the shadows were back.
We inherited these blinds from the old owner of this house. They let light in even when fully closed. How dark would it be in this room if we had different (better?) blinds? How much longer would it take my eyes to adjust to (grow accustomed to?) the dark?
I think these blinds, with their gaps, create a dark that has some light: purple light.
purple thoughts/stories
violet: the very shortest spectral wavelength humans can see to re-create the color purple requires excess: shellfish, lichen
Reading about mauve in The Secret Lives of Colors, I was reminded of the connection between old woman and purple. (I recall thinking about the connection as I ran the other day when the Red Hat Ladies with their purple clothes popped into my head.)
Soon enough, however, mauve went into that most Victorian of things: a decline. Overconsumption, as well as the continuing loyalty of an older generation, meant that the color soon became shorthand for a particular kind o faging lady.
The Secret Lives of Colors / Kassia St. Clair (170)
Then I thought about the final stanza of a poem (this whole poem is amazing, btw). I gathered for this blog a few years ago:
It’s a small deposit, but I’m putting my faith in reincarnation. I need to believe in the sweetness of one righteous image, in Bill Parcells trapped in the body of a teacup poodle, as any despised thing, forced to yap away his next life staked to a clothesline pole or doing hard time on a rich old matron’s lap, dyed lilac to match her outfit. I want to live there someday, across that street, and listen to him. Yap, yap, yap. (I Heart Your Dog’s Heart/ Erin Belieu)
Which led to another random thought about a recent (2019?) hair trend: lavender gray. Looking at some of the pictures I wonder if I could pull this look off — I already have the gray.
The Color Purple
Inspired by my study of purple, I decided to reread Alice Walker’s The Color Purple which I read and wrote about in my masters’ coursework. I was really into Walker and Morrison and the link between women’s spirituality and sexual pleasure. I haven’t read it since then — 25 years ago. So far — 40 pages in — I’m enjoying it. Why is it called The Color Purple? I had to look it up, because I’ve forgotten. There are plenty of answers, here’s one:
I think it pisses God off if you walk by the color purple in a field somewhere and don’t notice it.
Shug Avery in The Color Purple/ Alice Walker
A helpful source: Unearth the Root of Alice Walker’s The Color Purple. It describes the importance of nature and flowers to Walker’s vision of spirituality. This reminds me of Walker’s wonderful essay, “In Search of Our Mother’s Gardens.” Of course, I can’t find my copy of it right now. I’ll have to keep searching. The article also discusses the importance of horticulture for Black Americans and their African ancestors. I’m reminded of JJJJJerome Ellis’ Aster of Ceremony and their project of researching, naming, invoking the Plants that grew in the area where their enslaved ancestors “ran away”. A big chunk of the book is a Benediction, including the names of these plants, printed in purple. I’ve been reluctant to read it because it looked overwhelming with my bad eyes, but now I want to try. I think it will be another version of “The Purple Hour.”
update, a few minutes later: I started to read this section with my eyes, but it was difficult. I looked it up and discovered that my local library has the audio book. I requested it! A 2 week wait, but hopefully sooner. I’ll start on this whenl I can read the audiobook along with the paper book.
4.5 miles minnehaha falls and back 7 degrees 75% snow-covered
Sun, not much wind, cold. Wore by yaktrax today. Even though there were big stretches of bare pavement I still think it was a good idea; lots of icy patches. At least once, I felt the yaktrax help me stay upright. Encountered walkers, runners, one bike, dogs. One dog was with a runner and tried to lunge at me. Luckily the runner had a tight hold on their leash.
10 Things
sharp street lamp shadows
strong smell of tobacco from a passing car
tinted snow — usually I’d say it was a bit blue, but I thought purple today
kids laughing and yelling on the playground
tracks through the snow at the park, skipping the sidewalk and taking a shortcut
tracks on the walking path — skis and human feet
minnehaha creek at the falls was slow, thick, frozen, only one dark and open spot
couldn’t see the falls falling, but heard their quiet dripping muffled behind the thick columns of ice
empty benches
empty falls — I don’t think I saw a single person by the falls today
About halfway to the falls, while thinking about purple I suddenly remembered mimeograph machines and the purple ink on the handouts we get copies of in elementary school. Later, on a walk break, I tried to think of as many purple things as I could. I had a list of at least a dozen, but all I can remember is purple Kool-aid. At the end of my run I thought about the Vikings and how purple is strongly associated with Minneapolis because of them and Prince. Prince made me think of a local radio station, the Current, and how they pull the “purple lever” for the first snow of winter: purple lever = a marathon of Prince music.
the purple hour
12:46 am — dining room to leave a mark, to be marked, bruised, purpled
silence, then a hollow knock, but not silence, buzzing or ringing in my ear, like static cold air (hear turned down at night)
purple purple purple purple violet violent violence silence silvery lilac plum plumb — the depths — plump — soft plums of cloud — plume of purpleish smoke
three white lights illuminating the outlet — not night lights plugged into the outlet, but lights embedded in the outlet — they are white and bright at the top, then fading out at the bottom, giving off gray light that reads as pale purple to me — got up to look closely at the lights and realized I was never looking directly at the light, the white and purplish gray shadow were all reflections on the wall, the lightbulbs were at the bottom of the outlet — what is the real light? where it originates, or where it casts?
3:00 am (remembered later) — bedroom closed blinds, bright moon beaming through in the form of a strange double circle on my hand in light and dark purple a thin line of light near the closet door
*
My description of the moon light made me think, purple moon, so I looked it up. A video game developer, a type of cheese, a modern furniture company, the name of a dispensary in Oklahoma, a variety of gourmet kale, the cycle when you start your period during a waning moon, the second full moon in April, a Chardonnay, a preschool, an arrangement of flowers with “lavender roses, purple carnations, and cheerful daisies”, a band, a branding company, a color evoking mystery.
Left my desk briefly to tell Scott about the purple moon and he asked, Have you mentioned “The Purple Rose of Cairo” yet? Wow, no! I haven’t seen that movie in almost 30 years. I think it was my favorite in my early 20s — this was before I knew what a creep Woody Allen was. Anyway, I want to watch it today.
This note, “to leave a mark, to be marked, bruised, purpled,” makes me think of two things:
1
This is the light of autumn, not the light of spring. The light of autumn: you will not be spared.
You will not be spared, now will what you love be spared. (from October/ Louise Glück)
2
According to the second, Prometheus, goaded by the pain of the tearing beaks, pressed himself deeper and deeper into the rock until he became one with it.
Kafka on Prometheus
Not becoming one with the gorge, but striving to press deeper and deeper into it, to leave a trace/mark on it, and be marked by it (from log entry on 29 dec 2024).
Another purple thing I just remembered: on a weather map, purple represents very cold temperatures.
a screenshot from local weather forecast for this week
3. under ford bridge and back 9 degrees / feels like 0 100% snow-covered trail
Winter running! Sun, low wind, shadows, snow. I wouldn’t say it was an easy run, but it felt great to be outside and above the river. I don’t remember breathing in the cold air, but I do remember hearing the strange crunch of my foot as it struck the ground. Maybe not a crunch. Some noise that sounded like my foot was slipping or sliding on the snow. A thrust then a momentary stuck-ness before lifting off.
10 Things
the sharp shadow of the street lamp with its pointy top
my shadow crossing over and through another street light shadow
the smell of weed down below in the oak savanna
the thin, crooked shadow of a small tree cast on the snow
an equal mix of solitary and paired runners
the river was mostly covered in still white snow with a few patches of darker ice
today’s small victory: Instead of stopping at the turn around — which is what I usually do — I ran through it and back north, past locks and dam no. 1, past the part of the trail that dips below the road, and up the hill.
With the bright blue sky and the fresh white snow, I would have described the light as blue, but today I saw it as a faint purple. Another purple thought: purple grief is grief tinged with and/or beside joy. Dark, difficult, but more than that, too.
the purple hour
Up twice last night/this morning for the purple hour. Here are my notes:
12:04 am dining room
too many naps today? rich dinner? restless legs
uncomfortable purple
purple gas, purple ache, purple discomfort
the purple buzz of the refrigerator
the purple clicking of the coputer keys
everything chilled, a heavy stillness — not still, as in resting, calm, quiet, but still as in trapped — a purple pause
a memory from a run by the gorge: l.e.d. car headlights — not white but bright and purple, or the suggestion of purple
2:01 bedroom
Womanist is to feminist as purple is to lavender (Alice Walker)
The color purple — should I read it again?
The lavender menace — Betty Friedan’s homophobia
2 sets of snores: dog, Scott
purple light — the air in the room almost gray, but not, soft, dull, patches of very deep purple, and in-between shadows that are lighter than deep purple, but darker than the purple air
morning reflections: Sitting at my desk, bright from the cold sun, I look around and see blue and green and red and yellow and cream. Purple demands a different sort of light, or lack of light. I thought, suddenly, purple is peripheral. Then I remembered standing in front of a mirror this morning, looking directly into it, not seeing my face, but a purplish gray glob. So, purple is my central vision. Maybe it’s both, but in different ways?
Looked up “purple peripheral” and the first page of search results were all about cyanosis and a lack of oxygen to the extremities (hands, feet).
Somewhere in this search I remember something else about purple: it’s the color associated with pancreatic cancer. You wear a purple ribbon to support pancreatic cancer research. My mom died from pancreatic cancer. Looked it up and it’s a purple ribbon in honor of the founder’s mother whose favorite color was purple and who was diagnosed with and died from pancreatic cancer in 1996.
Woke up this morning to snow! Big flakes floating down. I watched them through the kitchen door. Beautiful. Within a few minutes, more flakes, faster, smaller. I sat in the arm chair inherited from Scott’s mom and watched the snow fall as I drank my coffee. A great way to start the day. Several hours later, when the snow had almost stopped, I layered up and went outside to shovel. Soft, fluffy snow, very easy to shovel. I listened to Season 2, Episode 3 of the Severance podcast. There was some wind, but it wasn’t too cold.
an image: shoveling in the back, I watched as a small, dark form swirled and skittered. It moved like a little bird. Was it? No, a leaf. Such a strange sight, watching a leaf that looked alive and not just animated by wind.
After sitting around all day — reading, napping, tracking the runners in the Black Canyon 100k Ultra, doing a FaceTime with FWA — I decided I needed to move. Went to the basement and biked. Then moved over to the treadmill and ran. Watched a few indoor track races during the bike, listened to the rest of the Severance podcast while I ran. That third episode of Severance — woah! The final minutes really freaked me out and triggered a memory from when I passed out last Christmas. Intense.
the purple hour
Woke up with very restless legs at 2:38 am. Too restless to sit and write anything. All I have in my notes is: more restlessness — shaking my legs
