feb 13/RUNGETOUTICE

3 miles
locks and dam #1 and back
46 degrees!
75% sloppy

Okay first false spring! So many less layers today: running tights, shorts, short-sleeved shirt, pull-over, cap. No gloves or long sleeved base layers or coats or buffs. And, by the end of the run, I took off my outer layer and was walking back with bare arms. Nice! I’ve told the kids for years, whenever they wonder how they can make it through the long winter, once you get through January, it always warms up for a few days around Valentine’s Day. And, like it usually does, it warmed up right around Valentine’s Day!

I felt good during my run. Happy, strong, able to run through moments of wanting to stop. I wasn’t able to avoid puddles though. Squish squish squish. Soaked socks.

10 Things

  1. patch-work surface below: white and pale blue — will the ice split before it gets cold again?
  2. birds! sounding excited for spring
  3. deep puddles everywhere — they were particularly bad on the double bridge, I had to grab onto the wooden railing and climb around them
  4. a car passed me twice blasting some music that sounded like enya
  5. encountered lots of runners — were any wearing shorts? I can’t remember
  6. drip drip drip
  7. the sun was reflecting off of the water on the path, everything was shiny and bright
  8. at least one or two fat tires
  9. a few walkers in bright yellow vests
  10. the grassy boulevard was a combination of mushy snow, very slick snow, and grass, and mud

When I reached the locks and dam #1, I ran halfway down the hill and stopped to record a thought, and some false spring sounds:

False spring / 23 feb 2026

restless / still

At my annual check-up a week ago, I told my cnp that my legs were restless and I was waking up several times a night (which has been the case for a decade now, I think). She ordered a blood test for my ferritin. Yep — very low: 16; she wants it to be at least 40. So, iron pills for a month, another test, then maybe iron transfusions. This description is for future Sara who likes to remember these things, and present Sara who imagines a future Sara that will. This description is also prompted by two references to stillness in my “on this day posts” from past years. In 2021 I posted a passage from an audiobook I was listening to, Wintering:

There are gaps in the mesh of the everyday world and sometimes they open up and you fall through into somewhere else. Somewhere else runs at a different pace to the here and now where everyone else carries on. Somewhere else is where ghosts live, concealed from view and only glimpsed by people in the real world. Somewhere else exists at a delay so that you can’t quite keep pace. Perhaps I was already resting on the brink of somewhere else anyway, but now I fell through as simply and discretely as dust shifting through the floorboards. I was surprised to find I felt at home there. Winter had begun. Everybody winters at one time or another. Some winter over and over again. Wintering is a season in the cold. It is a fallow period in life when you’re cut off from the world, feeling rejected, side-lined, blocked from progress or cast into the role of an outsider.

Wintering / Katherine May

Here stillness = a lack of movement, frozen in the cold, removed from the action. Reading this passage again, I’m not so sure that I think of stillness, but when I read it a few minutes ago, and then read a line from Elizabeth Bishop, I thought, still. Here’s the line from Elizabeth Bishop’s poem, “Five Flights Up”:

Still dark.

When I read this brief line, I thought about how much I like that still can mean more than one thing at a time. Still dark = it is still dark, the dark continues, it is too early for light, we continue to be in the time/place of not-yet-day. And, still dark = it is quiet, there is a lack of movement, everything is still and dark, nothing moves and nothing can be seen.

Maybe I should spend some time studying Bishop? I have read several of her poems, even studying one more closely — The End of March on 30 march 2023. And now I’m thinking of Jorie Graham and studying her, or finally writing a poem about being still and restless? And all of this makes me think, again, of a film still, a photograph, an image frozen — my “how I see” project!

Get Out Ice

Thinking again about today’s false spring weather. FWA asked how many false springs I thought we’d have before it was warm for good and I said, I wasn’t sure but that I knew it would get very cold again. The earliest spring has stayed is the end of March. I added, no one believes that this warm-up will stay, that we’ve made it through winter. What this warm up does it reminds us that a world beyond winter is possible, which is easy to forget when we’re in the deep of it. This feels like a metaphor for ICE’s leaving of Minnesota. It’s not over, they’re not really leaving. No one here believes that. But this withdrawal of troops does signal a victory and demonstrates that a world beyond ICE beyond Trump is possible.

Love

I’m working on the introduction to my love, minnesota-style chapbook. Since I’m a little stuck, I tried to think about it as I ran. A sentence popped into my head, and I recorded in the middle of the run: “Words don’t merely describe something, they do something.” And I added, and I’m particularly interested in what these words did/do to me, to others here in Minneapolis and St. Paul.

feb 12/RUNGETOUTICE!?!

5.4 miles
bottom for franklin and back
41 degrees
40% puddles

Puddles everywhere. After about a mile, I could hear the squish sound of my wet sock with every foot strike. Who cares? Not me. I’m happy for warmer weather and clearer paths. I wasn’t sure how far I’d run, but I just kept going and made it to the bottom of the franklin hill. First I was going to stop at the trestle, then I wanted to make it a little closer to Franklin. When I reached Franklin, I looked down at the uneven, cracking ice on the river’s surface and decided I needed to run to the flats to get a closer inspection. Very cool — cold (temp) and aesthetic (strange and interesting and other-worldly).

I heard birds, felt warm sun on my face, smelled sewer gas (below, near the rowing club), saw a woman biking in a tank top.

Get Out Ice!?!

The official word, announced this morning by Homan, is that ICE is leaving Minnesota and Operation Metro Surge is over. But, is it over, or just taking more hidden forms? And was this move made primarily to get the budget passed and/or ease the pressure being applied in D.C.? Whatever the case, it does seem to be a failure for the Trump administration and it also seems to be bullshit. They are staying and will continue doing bad (as in unconstitutional, terrible) things here and all around the country.

love

While all that I wrote in the last paragraph seems to be true — and scary and difficult to imagine and endure — something else is true: people are speaking out, resisting, caring for each other, paying attention, reclaiming democracy, organizing together, refusing to be intimidated or overwhelmed by the administration’s tactics. Will this stop ICE or Trump? Maybe not, but whatever happens, the love that has been expressed/practiced in Minneapolis for the past 2 months isn’t going away and too many of us have witnessed what it has cracked open that can’t be fully fixed by the administration. There is another world possible.

feb 11/RUNGETOUTICE

4.5 miles
minnehaha falls and back
35 degrees
15% sloppy

Sun! Above freezing! Melting and melted snow! And I think I remember hearing chirping birds somewhere. Plus, the falls were faintly falling! Today’s run felt much better than yesterday’s. I felt stronger and calmer and more capable of handling everything — running included.

10 Things

  1. two benches at the park were occupied, one near Sea Salt and one just across the road from the Longfellow House
  2. a low, dull whine coming from the indoor ice rink at Minneahaha Academy
  3. the gentle curve of the retaining wall wrapped around the ravine between 42nd and 44th, covered in white
  4. much of the snow near the bench above the edge of the world was melted — the bench was empty, the river was white
  5. a few cars in the parking lots at the falls
  6. two people standing on the path at the edge of the falls looking up at something — but what?
  7. 2 fat tires
  8. a man and a dog emerging from a snow-covered trail, climbing a snow bank and then crossing the road
  9. a long honk from a car across turkey hollow
  10. the soft sound and the slide-y feel of my feet striking the grit on the path

As I ran, I thought about my low ferritin and wondered what impact it has made on my running. Is it why I struggle to run more than 4 or 5 miles at a time? Then I imagined how much better my running might be after a few months of taking the iron pills my np (nurse practitioner) prescribed for me.

Here in Minnesota, we have a few months (if we’re lucky!) before it’s spring, but it sure feels like it today. In honor of that feeling, here’s a Mary Oliver poem I just discovered in my recently purchased Little Alleluias:

A Settlement / Mary Oliver

Look, it’s spring. And last year’s loose dust has turned
into this soft willingness. The wind-flowers have come
up trembling, slowly the brackens are up-lifting their
curvaceous and pale bodies. The thrushes have come
home, none less than filled with mystery, sorrow,
happiness, music, ambition.

And I am walking out into all of this with nowhere to
go and no task undertaken but to turn the pages of
this beautiful world over and over, in the world of my
mind.

***

Therefore, dark past,
I’m about to do it.
I’m about to forgive you

for everything.

I love this poem! To turn the pages of this beautiful world, to forgive the dark past, to declare, I’m about to do it in a poem. I want to borrow that line.

Get Out Ice

An IRL friend shared a post on Facebook with some wise words about care and love. The whole post is great, but here’s an excerpt that explicitly discusses care and another form of love: relational humility and the de-centering of needs/desires

So beloved white women kin, please let us watch each other. If you see this happening, please turn towards our kin and ask them to hold a contradiction with you: we need the efforts and care that are being brought forth, this strategy that uses our privileges to build things that are needed but, at the same time, and with the greatest of humility, we have to recognize that we carry within us deeply rooted survival needs that are about our own comfort and centering; our desire to feel and be seen as valuable and worthy. And because those needs are deeply rooted, we often don’t see them when they crop up, although others do. Which is why practicing relational humility rather than defensiveness is key to this moment.

Link arms with each other and say, hey, while we are doing this work, let’s check each other on what we are bringing to it. Who else are we in relationship with? How are we checking our actions against something other than the minds of other white women? Is there anyone else doing the same thing or something similar and can we help them rather than start something new? Is there a part of us doing this thing because we have an image of ourselves as brave and selfless, a kind of inner hero narrative? Come on, loves, tell the truth. Where are we holding on to control rather than care, feeling a sense of ownership to our work that we are attached to, expressing false humility when we actually want the attention, and believing that we know what is best for whatever moment we are in? Are we trying to build an empire or just a moment for the people nearest to us, people we want to create safe? Loves, beloveds, there are a number of white women engaging in empire building right now, even though it is called care.

Raffo Susan

there are a number of white woman engaging in empire building right now, even though it is called care.

love

I have written 14 love poems using words/lines/phrases from the social media statements of local businesses. For Valentine’s Day, I want to gather them in a small chapbook to be shared and spread. I’d like to include a brief introduction that would explain what, why, and how I put these together, and might offer a more straight-forward description of how love is being imagined and practiced here in Minnesota. This afternoon and tomorrow, I need to write this introduction.

feb 10/RUNGETOUTICE

3.7 miles
lena smith hill
33 degrees

Windier today. Colder too. The run wasn’t as easy. As always, there were moments that felt great, when I was strong and joyful. And there were moments that felt not so great, when I was tired and overheated. I did the hill on the river road once and the hill on lena smith 4 times. The road and the trails were mostly clear. It was only when crossing an alley or a block or running up the river road hill that it was icy and uneven. And somewhere — where was it? — there were several deep puddles covering the sidewalk. Oh, I remember: near Minnehaha Academy. 3 deep puddles, at least.

Someone was walking with a dog and holding up a sign. I couldn’t read what the sign said, but people were honking in support, which didn’t sound like support to me. All honks sound threatening or aggressive or seem to signal a warning, especially now when people are using them to alert neighbors of ICE.

Get Out Ice

Read this great story about reclaiming ice on Facebook from Sean Snow:

In an incredible display of solidarity on the East Side of St. Paul, thousands of neighbors gathered at Lake Phalen this weekend for the “Shine Light Over ICE” vigil. Organizers transformed the frozen lake into a massive canvas of resistance, placing thousands of LED luminaries and candles on the ice to spell out messages of welcome and protection for immigrant neighbors. The event was organized by local interfaith and community groups, and was designed to reclaim the word “ICE” from a source of fear back to a source of shared Minnesotan joy.

Freezing weather makes our hearts warm

In Minnesota, we know something the rest of the country doesn’t… the cold has a way of clarifying things. It strips away the unnecessary and forces us to huddle together for survival. We don’t hide from the winter… we drive right out onto the frozen water and light a fire. By turning a frozen lake into a source of warmth and light, our communities proved that no matter how cold the political climate gets, the hearts of Minnesotans burn hot enough to melt the fear. We are winter people, and we know how to keep each other warm.

Source: https://www.twincities.com/…/st-paul-lake-phalen-event…/

We are a winter people and we know how to keep each other warm. Also, the line about the clarity of the cold.

Love #14

In today’s love cento, I took words from 3 different posts by a pub near my house, Merlins Rest. I was unsure what to make out of them until I read this line,

“Community. Connection. Conversation. The Three C’s that Merlins Rest Pub was founded on.”

The Three C’s of Love

Cannot close, Committed
Calling attention, aCcountability: Caught.
Community Connection Conversation
Celebrations Challenges Change
Continue Continue Continue
Cold City Compassion

Does this work? I almost wonder if any of these “3 Cs” could be the title of a poem? I like the idea of creating another poem, using Merlins Rest Pub’s words, with this title, Cold City Compassion.

Cold City Compassion

In the bone-deep Minnesota cold
we invite you to join us.

Together, we will continue 
to keep each other warm.

Maybe I could use the quote about being a winter people as an epigraph for this poem?

feb 9/RUNGETOUTICE

4.5 miles
minnehaha falls and back
39 degrees
40% sloppy (snow/ice/puddles)

Ran in the afternoon, which is when I run most days this winter. It felt much better than yesterday. I think the effects of the second shingles shot are lessening. And I was less worried about blood pressure and heart rate too; both have gone down — not quite to normal numbers, but much closer than a few days ago.

It was sloppy out there! The snow and ice weren’t slippery — thanks Minneapolis Parks Department for sprinkling dirt on the trail! — but they were wet, and there were deep puddles in several spots. I managed to avoid completely soaking my shoes or socks.

Today it is gray and a dingy white — writing that, I’m thinking of a line from a Diane Seuss poem; I’ll find it after I finish this recounting of my run*. Gloomy, humid, wet. I didn’t mind. It felt more like early spring than deep into winter. Right after going outside, I even smelled thawing earth! There were some runners and walkers and bikers on the trail, but no cross country skiers or eliptigos or hoverboards. (Earlier today, when Scott and I were heading back from a meeting, we saw someone speed by on a hoverboard!)

The falls and the creek were frozen and everything was still. No one else around, which was a little unsettling. A few minutes later, heading out of the park, I heard some kids at the playground. Earlier, as I passed the parking lot, I heard the train bells and horn blaring. Was it a normal alert that the train was crossing an intersection, or a different warning?

I don’t recall hearing any birds or seeing any squirrels. No wild turkeys or yipping dogs. No bad music blasting out of a car window. Passing a trash can at 42nd, my nose crinkled as it got a faint smell of poop. My first thought: a diaper, but more likely dog poop. Yuck!

Near the end of my run, I decided to recite — again, out loud! — Alice Oswald’s “The Story of Falling.” It helped distract me, or focus me, or moved my mind somewhere other than how much more I had to run. I think it’s time to return to reciting poems on the trail! Maybe I’ll start with my Emily Dickinson experiment: pick a different ED poem to recite for each mile run.

*Here’s the Diane Seuss poem. It’s so good, and not too long, so I’ll post the whole thing again. I first posted it on 1 june 2024, when I was reading Seuss’ Pultizer Prize winning, Frank.

Legacy/ Diane Seuss

I think of the old pipes, 
how everything white 
in my house is rust-stained, 
and the gray-snouted
raccoon who insists on using
my attic as his pee pad, 
and certain
sadnesses losing their edges, 
their sheen, their fur
chalk-colored, look
at that mound of laundry, 
that pile of pelts peeled away
from the animal, and poems, 
skinned free of poets, 
like the favorite shoes of that dead 
girl now wandering the streets
with someone else’s feet in them.

white as rust-stained, certain sadnesses as dull, soft, and chalk-colored

Get Out Ice

This morning, I watched Bad Bunny’s Super Bowl performance. Wow! So much love. Such a powerfully layered f–k you to hate! So many beautiful stories of a culture!

Here’s what was written about it on Facebook:

I watched Bad Bunny deliver the most American halftime show I have ever seen. Then I came home and watched it again. And I am not okay. In the best possible way.

He sang every single word in Spanish. Every. Single. Word. He danced through sugarcane fields built on a football field in California while the President of the United States sat somewhere calling it “disgusting.” Lady Gaga came out and did the salsa. Ricky Martin lit up the night. A couple got married on the field. He handed his Grammy, the one he won eight days ago for Album of the Year, to a little boy who looked up at him the way every child looks up when they dare to believe the world has a place for them.

And then this man, this son of a truck driver and a schoolteacher from Vega Baja, Puerto Rico, stood on the biggest stage on the planet and said “God bless America.”And then he started naming them.

Chile. Argentina. Uruguay. Paraguay. Bolivia. Peru. Ecuador. Brazil. Colombia. Venezuela. Panama. Costa Rica. Nicaragua. Honduras. El Salvador. Guatemala. Mexico. Cuba. Dominican Republic. Jamaica. The United States. Canada. And then, his voice breaking with everything he carries, “Mi patria, Puerto Rico. Seguimos aquí.” My homeland, Puerto Rico. We are still here.

The flags came. Every single one of them. Carried across that field by dancers and musicians while the jumbotron lit up with the only words that mattered: “THE ONLY THING MORE POWERFUL THAN HATE IS LOVE.”

I teared up. I’m not ashamed to say it. I sat on my couch and I wept because THAT is the America I believe in. That is the American story, not the sanitized, gated, English-only version that small and frightened people try to sell us. The REAL one. The messy, beautiful, multilingual, multicolored, courageous one. The one that has always been built by hands that speak every language and pray in every tongue and come from every corner of this hemisphere.

That is the America I want Jack and Charlotte to know. That when the moment came, when the whole world was watching, a Puerto Rican kid who grew up to become the most-streamed artist on Earth stood in front of 100 million people, sang in his mother’s language, blessed every nation in the Americas, and spiked a football that read “Together, we are America” into the ground. Not with anger. With joy. With love so big it made hate look exactly as small as it is.

And what did the President do? He called it “absolutely terrible.” He said “nobody understands a word this guy is saying.” He called it “a slap in the face to our Country.” The leader of the free world watched a celebration of love, culture, and everything this hemisphere has given to the world, and all he could see was something foreign. Something threatening. Something disgusting.

Let that sink into your bones.

The man who is supposed to represent all of us looked at the flags of our neighbors, heard the language of 500 million Americans across this hemisphere, and felt attacked. That’s not strength. That’s not patriotism. That is poverty of the soul.

. . .

Bad Bunny didn’t say “ICE out” tonight. He didn’t need to. He just showed the whole world what America looks like when we are not afraid of each other. When culture is shared, not policed. When language is music, not a threat. When a flag from every nation in this hemisphere can walk across a football field together and the only words you need are the ones he gave us:

The only thing more powerful than hate is love.

Michael Garrett — NC Senate

feb 8/RUNGETOUTICE

2.6 miles
river road, south/north
28 degrees
25% ice-covered

A beautiful morning for a run! Sunny, warmer, clearer trails. There was some ice, but most of it had been sprinkled with dirt so it wasn’t slick and dangerous — there’s a metaphor there, right? I was glad to be out on the trail, albeit with some anxiety. Two days ago, at my annual check-up, my blood pressure was in the high zone. High enough to need to monitor it daily for a month to see if I need to go on medication. Some other test results were “abnormal,” too: high cholesterol, high thyroid, low ferritin. Bad test results make me anxious, or is my potentially out-of-whack thyroid? Or maybe it’s just living in a city occupied by ICE for more than 2 months and living under a federal administration that is careening towards full totalitarianism vile evil unhinged extremely dangerous falling apart and is desperate to hold onto power. I’m struggling to find the words to effectively describe this administration. So, yes, I was worried as I ran, wondering if my heart rate should sky-rocket the more I ran. Thankfully it didn’t. The run wasn’t easy, and it wasn’t the big escape I had hoped for, but it did bring me some delight and some beautiful moments to look to when I’m feeling overwhelmed. Can I find 10?

11 Moments of Beauty

  1. the sizzling sound of wind moving through the brittle leaves still remaining on a tree
  2. quiet, then the softest knocking cutting through — a woodpecker somewhere close by?
  3. yes! looking up at a tree, I could actually see the white underwing of a downy woodpecker, it’s tiny head hammering a branch
  4. wide stretches of clear, dry trail
  5. stopping at the Rachel Dow Memorial Bench, looking out at the frozen river, wondering what Rachel would do in this moment, then believing she would be part of this amazing love spreading across the city, the state, the country
  6. a good morning from a passing walker
  7. a feeling of movement below me, then spotting a walker on the Winchell Trail, the remembering running down there, nearer to the river on a warm day
  8. the rhythmic clicking of a passing runner’s snow spikes on the bare pavement — click click click
  9. running over the slick ice and not slipping or sliding because Minneapolis Parks had sprinkled dirt — and not salt — on it recently
  10. speaking — out loud, but softly — the words to Alice Oswald’s “The Story of Falling” that I re-memorized earlier this morning — It is the story of the falling rain/to turn into a leaf and fall again/It is the secret of a summer’s shower/to steal the light and hide it in a flower
  11. (added 9 feb) a woman below, on the winchell trail, calling out, her name is Freya!, and a man responding, you’re a good girl! — just yesterday, Scott, Delia, and I had encountered this friendly woman and her dog near 7 Oaks. She was so friendly and kind that we agreed encountering her had made walking out in the cold, on the icy paths, worth it

Just writing this list, and the words preceding it, have made me feel better, more relaxed!

Get Out Ice

Even if I’ve written this before, I’ll write it again: I am finding that focusing on the fierce love and care that Minneapolis is practicing and de-centering/quieting the endless examples of ICE awfulness is helping me to endure this time. Well, more than endure. The love I am witnessing, and attempting to practice in my own way, is inspiring and making me hopeful about possible futures. It is also restoring my belief in democracy.

Here are 2 examples I shared on Facebook today:

1 — Rebecca Solnit post

One of the nuts things about organizing in the Twin Cities right now is that even the most long term organizers who’ve been here for decades can’t keep keep track of all the resistance that is going on. There are so many self-organizing crews just doing work that in any conversation with someone from another neighborhood you might stumble over a whole collective of people resisting in ways you didn’t think of. There’s a crew of carpenters just going around fixing kicked-in doors. There are tow truck drivers taking cars of detained people away for free. People delivering food to families in hiding. So many local rapid response groups that the number is uncertain but somewhere between 80 and the low hundreds . . . .

Rebecca Solnit on Facebook

2 — @terileigh via Liz May

every restaurant, church, karate dojo, dance studio, school, barber shop, and other small business has created their own underground grassroots supportive network to protect their neighbors, get people to and from work, and raise funds to pay everyday bills.

@terileigh

feb 5/RUNGETOUTICE

4.45 miles
minnehaha falls
33 degrees
60% sloppy and wet

A run outside! Above freezing! Less layers! And I made it all the way to the falls! It was sloppy, but I’ve run through worse. No lakes covering the entire path, only small ponds. I felt stronger running up all the small hills; it must be the hill workouts I’ve started doing. Maybe I should run to the falls and do some loops around the park — I could do the hills there multiple times? It’s strange, but I like running up hills now.

10 Things

  1. birds singing and sounding more like spring
  2. the dull, quiet whine of a power tool off in the distance — a drill on a construction site?
  3. the falls are completely frozen, so is the creek
  4. voices rising up from somewhere down below at the base of the falls
  5. faint traces of brown dirt discoloring the snow, making it less winter wonderland, but also less slick
  6. kids yelling and laughing on a playground — a teacher’s whistle blowing (not a warning about ICE)
  7. empty benches everywhere
  8. a few cars in the park parking lot
  9. another runner behind me, beside me, then in front of me. I delighted in hearing the sibilant sounds of their feet striking the slushy snow
  10. a few seconds of honking above on the ford bridge — someone honking at ICE or another car’s driving or in solidarity with a bridge brigade?

Get Out Ice

Today’s Get Out Ice moment is in honor of my mom, who was a fiber artist until she died in 2009, and my daughter, who is a fiber artist now.

AS OF FEBRUARY 5TH.
WE HAVE REACHED A TOTAL OF
$650,000 IN DONATIONS
Funds last week were donated to STEP St. Louis Park emergency assistance for rent and other aid and the Immigrant Rapid Response Fund.
We are working on donations to other local organizations
– stayed tuned for more info.
We are speechless. We are overwhelmed with the generosity of the fiber community and beyond. This outpouring of love and support is felt around the state.
Because of you, we can help so many people who need it.
Thank you thank you thank you.
Keep knitting. Keep resisting. Keep showing up for your neighbors.
Melt. The. Ice.

Needle & Skein Instagram post

The $650,000 came from people purchasing a $5 pattern for the Melt the Ice Hat:

In the nine years that Gilah Mashaal has owned Needle & Skein, a yarn store in the suburbs of Minneapolis, she has tried to maintain a rule that “nobody talks politics” in the shop. But amid the weeks-long occupation of the Twin Cities by federal immigration paramilitaries, Mashaal and one of her employees decided to turn one of their weekly knit-alongs into a “protest stitch-along”.

They didn’t want to return to the “pussy hats” that symbolized women’s resistance to Donald Trump in 2016, so Paul, their employee, did some research and came back with a proposal: a red knit hat inspired by the topplue or nisselue (woolen caps), worn by Norwegians during the second world war to signify their resistance to the Nazi occupation.

‘Rage Knitting’ against the machine

Love #13, version 2

This morning, I was trying out all different ways to create a poem out of text from a few local businesses. Nothing was quite working; partly because I am fixated on erasures and blackouts and can’t see (literally and figuratively) how to execute this effectively. One way out: Mary Oliver. My whole poem centers on a phrase from a MO poem, “Lead”:

I tell you this
to break your heart,
by which I mean only
that it break open and never
close again
to the rest of the world.

Here’s my version of those lines, using words from Social media posts:

Here, now, 
on this day,
my heart
breaks, 
and tomorrow
it will stay open
to everything.

Or this variation:

My heart breaks
here, now,
and tomorrow,
it will stay open
to everything.

feb 4/BIKERUNGETOUTICE

bike: 30 minutes
run: 1.4 miles

The trails looked sloppy and slippery, so I biked and ran inside today. I was planning to watch Poker Face while I biked, but I couldn’t find it. Tried “Pluribus” again but it was too much for me . . . again. Finally settled on the new Knives Out movie, which I really enjoyed. While I ran, I listened to a podcast with one of my favorite triathletes, Taylor Knibb. She talked about her season and her experience DNFing at Kona: she had heat stroke in the last few ks and even though she was winning, had to drop out. When they checked her temperature, it was around 105. Yikes.

I don’t remember much about my short run. One thing: at some point I lifted out of my hips, focused on my arm swing, and felt like a smooth, efficient machine. Fun!

Get Out Ice

This morning, read the news that 700 ICE agents will be leaving Minneapolis today. That’s good, but not nearly good enough. All of ICE should be leaving should not exist. On the way to Costco, driving near the road that leads to the Whipple Building where ICE brings the people they’ve arrested or kidnapped, Scott pointed out a truck hauling several Black Jeep Wagoneers entering the freeway. Black Jeep Wagoneers are the type of vehicle ICE often drives.

For much of the day, I was working on another love poem. I wanted to do another erasure poem, but so far, I’ve been struggling with it. Here’s some of the text that I’ve come up with:

Love #`13

My heart breaks
open, will stay
open
for all
who are feeling this occupation

Do I like it? I’m not sure. It all centers around a heart breaking open, instead of just breaking.

feb 3/RUNGETOUTICE

4.1 miles
river road, south / lena smith, north / hills
13 degrees

13 degrees sounds cold (I guess), but with the sun and all of my layers, I was too warm. Lots of sweat dripping down my forehead. On the way to the river, the sidewalks were bare, but on the trail, they were covered in slick ice and uneven snow. Bummer. Decided to turn off the trail at 42nd and run north on the Lena Smith Boulevard, and then do some hill repeats. It was wet with wide strips of icy snow. If it hadn’t snowed 2 days ago, the path would have been dry and it would have been a wonderful day for a run to the falls or the flats or the lake.

After a fun day yesterday, getting lost in baking m-n-m cookies for Scott and crafting erasure poems out of local business statements, today felt draining and a bit overwhelming. I’m not anxious, just tired and uncreative, which is not surprising. It’s an exhausting, unrelenting time here in Minneapolis.

One bright spot: I discovered this morning that there’s a new Mary Oliver book out: Little Alleluias! It’s 3 books in one: The Leaf and the Cloud, which I own and have taken notes all over the margins, so a fresh copy will be nice; Long Life, which I have checked out of the library enough to wish I owned it; and What Do We Know, which I haven’t read; plus, a foreword by Natalie Diaz. I bought it online from Moon Palace, and will pick it up in a few hours!

Alice Oswald

Still making my way through the Alice Oswald interview for the Paris Review. Here are today’s lines to remember:

Interviewer: Is swimming important to you?

Alice Oswald: It was probably when I took up gardening that I discovered that being was better than thinking–that actually you don’t have to think things through, you can garden all day and your mind will have been moved by the gardening. And it’s the same when you’re in water. You’re thought through by the water rather than having to think.

 an interview with Alice Oswald

I like the distinction between thinking and being, and the idea that doing something physical, like gardening or swimming, will move your mind. What does it mean to be thought trhough by the water? I’d like to pose this question before/during/after a swim at the Y — which I hope to do this week — and a swim at the lake — which I won’t get to do for 4 months.

Get Out Ice

1 — caregiving as resistance

Here’s a great article that I want to read more carefully when I have a chance: ‘We have to keep showing up for each other’: In Minnesota, caregiving is a form of resistance Wow, I would have loved to write about this on my TROUBLE blog!

2 — protectors not protesters

But behind the violence in Minneapolis—captured in so many chilling photographs in recent weeks—is a different reality: a meticulous urban choreography of civic protest. You could see traces of it in the identical whistles the protesters used, in their chants, in their tactics, in the way they followed ICE agents but never actually blocked them from detaining people. Thousands of Minnesotans have been trained over the past year as legal observers and have taken part in lengthy role-playing exercises where they rehearse scenes exactly like the one I witnessed. They patrol neighborhoods day and night on foot and stay connected on encrypted apps such as Signal, in networks that were first formed after the 2020 killing of George Floyd.

Welcome to the American Winter

3

Minneapolis Parks invite kids to write love letters to the city. I love Minneapolis Parks!

At parks around Minneapolis, heart-shaped love letters from kids are providing some wholesome relief during an especially grueling winter.

(source)

feb 1/RUNGETOUTICE

2 miles
river road, south/ lena smith, north
25 degrees
100% uneven snow-covered

We got about 2 inches of soft, slippery snow this morning. Very pretty and very difficult to run over (through? on?). The trail on the river road hadn’t been cleared yet, and it was uneven. I feel very lucky that I didn’t twist my ankle or roll over my foot. I would have liked to run farther, but decided I should head back after a mile on the road. Lena Smith Boulevard was better, but slippery ~ I could feel and hear my the spikes on my yak trax catching. Even with my not-so-great conditions, I’m still glad I was able to get out to run above the gorge. It looked like a winter wonderland! Everything white and soft gray, sometimes snowing, sometimes not.

I heard some horns in the distance, at least one siren, maybe a whistle. Encountered SUVs and wondered who was driving them. A big part of the resistance and caring for the community is bearing witness and observing ICE. I can’t easily or safely do that with my low vision. I’m trying to find my own ways to show up. One way: I’m writing and giving a lot of attention to the powerful and loving words of small business owners. Another way today: I shoveled the sidewalks of my neighbors on either side when I went out to shovel mine. It’s not much today, but it’s something.

Get Out Ice

Here’s is a recent statement from one of Scott’s oldest clients. They asked him to post it on the main page of all of their restaurants.

Dear Guests and Staff,

Minneapolis and the state of Minnesota have had a very challenging month. Everyone within our communities has been affected by the actions of our federal government these past few weeks. Their original promise, purpose and intent was to ensure safety and to administrate with decent behavior and professionalism. However, it has evolved into a climate and behavior that is unfair according to the principles of our Constitution and individual-civil rights.

Day and night, our owners and staff have been assembling aid in many forms for our immigrant community. During these unprecedented times, we have kept our restaurants open to continue serving our guests and to ensure our workers can remain employed. Any past, current, or future closure of our restaurants in support of a protest was and will be the decision of the majority of the team at each location.

The generosity and care our staff has shown for each other is unselfish and truly inspiring. Many have sacrificed their money, time and efforts in the interest of helping other human beings without asking for anything in return. That is the American way!

We are seeing neighbors and communities come together all around us, and we hope this can be a time for all Americans to unite behind our collective shared values: life, liberty, and happiness.

We believe in civil rights for all and equal justice under the law. Our immigrant-friends and neighbors are one of the many things that make our country great.

In the name peace, calm and law and order for all,
Nova Restaurant Group

Nova Restaurant Group Statement

And here’s a draft of an erasure poem (that needs some work), made from the above text:

I like the idea of centering it all around the idea of what is the American way. I’ll keep working on it.