2.3 river road, south / lena smith boulevard, north 15 degrees / feels like 0 50% snow-covered
Many of the sidewalks were completely bare and dry, almost all of the trail was covered in slick snow. In some stretches, the trail was covered with chunks of snow from the snow plows that had just passed by. Running south, with the sun and the wind at my back, and on the short strips of bare pavement, it felt good. Then I ran through a puddle. I didn’t notice that my foot was soaked for several minutes, but when I did I decided I should head home; it was cold enough that I was (mildly) concerned for my wet toes. Good call, past Sara! When I got home, one of my toes was burning.
10 Things
bright BLUE sky
the sounds of shoveling and scraping and snow-blowing all around
at the end of each block, I encountered an almost knee-high wall of snow where the plow had come through
the surface of the river looked eerie and strange, pale and spotted with chunks of ice
no kids’ voices from the school playground: for preK – 5th graders, school was closed, for 6th – 12th graders e-learning — that would suck! give the big kids a snow day too, I say!
the rumble of two plows approaching, first a small one, then BIG one — I moved to the far side to avoid the spray of snow
I encountered a few other runners but no skiers or bikers
head north, I ran into a wall of wind — ugh! howling and biting
I bet it was pretty and looked very winter wonderland-y — I couldn’t tell you because I was too busy trying not to slip!
if it hadn’t been for the terrible wind, my wet toes, and the slick and uneven path, it would have been a great run — even with the bad conditions, I had some wonderful moments outside
mind-body connection
On last week’s episode of the podcast Nobody Asked Us, Kara Goucher talked about how she started taking a low dose of some (unnamed) anti-anxiety medication and it’s helping with her dystonia (“a movement disorder that causes the muscles to contract. This can cause twisting motions or other movements that happen repeatedly and that aren’t under the person’s control” — Mayo Clinic). She has discussed many times on the podcast how dystonia has made it very difficult for her to run, especially on pavement.
mind body connection — watch until 15:58
This mind-body connection is fascinating to me. Does her anti-anxiety med just make her more relaxed, or does it do something more to the brain — and maybe the neural mapping of her movements?
HOLES 4
Today I’m mapping my words on a copy of the “Still Life” article. I”m trying something different. In Holes 1, 2, and 3, I taped the paper together first and then found the words and drew the holes over and around the words. Today, with such a long article, I’m finding the words and drawing holes around them first, before I tape the pieces together. Will that make a difference? Not sure, but I might switch around the order of the pages to shape how the holes look together.
I drew and colored in holes on 3 out of the 8 pages, and tried adding some color to a few. I’m wondering if some of the holes should messier, with less defined borders or jagged, rough. I have limited ability in drawing; can I push myself some more? Here’s an image of one of the pages:
Bring Me the News is saying we got 8.5 inches, but that reading was from 10:30 this morning, and it has continued to snow all day, so I’m not sure how much is on the ground. I’m guessing a foot. It felt like a foot as I tried to shovel it. So heavy! I joked with a neighbor that it’s heart attack snow, which is funny until it’s not.
I wonder if it the paths will be clear enough to run above the river tomorrow? Future Sara, let us know!
holes 4
This one, which takes words from “Still Life” is my biggest one yet: 6 pages! Here’s a draft of the poem (the || represent when the words are taken from different places in the article)
you look at sky, || you look at || words || and || don’t || see || the || gaping hole || and || its || graveyard || for || failed || cone || cell || s || you see || snow flake marble dust || seltzer || fizz|| a || nothing|| that || is || something || not || shar|| ing|| its || secrets
you || can’t || exhume || the || bodies|| but || you can || make || room || for || life || in this place || where || the dead || are || interred
crack || open a grave|| with || a || new || way || of || seeing
One last run on clear paths before it snows tonight. The forecast predicts more than a foot of snow tonight. It will probably melt fast, which will be as much as more of a nightmare than the actual snow. Walls of snow, then mush, then jagged ice, then little lakes and puddles. Oh well, I bet it will be pretty and I might get to see someone skiing down the street!
Today’s run was good. My left knee was a bit stiff and grumbly, but otherwise I felt good. In the last mile I started to feel relaxed, with my legs and arms and the space around me in sync. I was moving through the air, hardly noticing when my feet touched down — the space between beats! I love when I run like this!
10 Things
honk honk honk honking geese all around the gorge, 1: down the hill, under the ford bridge, a lone geese floating in the middle of the river
geese, 2: I heard their honks first, behind me, then beside me, then in front of me — finally saw them: 2 geese flying low
overheard: one runner to another: it didn’t even taste like salmon!
the bells of st. thomas
someone in an bright orange jacket down below, on the stretch of the winchell trail that I call the edge of the world
the river surface below the ford bridge was dotted with bright white slabs of ice — a strange sight; I wish I would have brought my phone today to take a picture!
an empty parking lot at the locks and dam
empty benches
traces of snow in the grass
a laughing pileated woodpecker
HOLES
Flipping through my past New Yorkers, I found an article from the 9 june 2025 issue that looks promising. It’s called “Still Life” in the print issue and “Greenwood Cemetery’s Living Dead” in the online version. The only test for whether I can use it or not: it must have at least one use of the word hole, or of a word that contains hole. This is a long article, so I’d hope there’s at least one hole, but is there? Yes, 4!
Medina extended a tape measure into the hole and said, “Six-ten.”
Usmanov and I stared down into the gaping hole, its walls marbled with grass roots.
went to Green-Wood almost every day for weeks this spring, and the most unnerving thing I saw was an enormous hunched figure, wearing a cloak, with a gaping hole for a face.
Scientists were only starting to piece together that contaminated water, not flawed character, caused cholera; that smallpox probably originated in rodents;
I’m surprised that an article about a cemetery only has 4 mentions of holes. Isn’t a cemetery more than half holes?!
some notes as I read through the article:
One, I am reading it backwards, section by section. Two, one rule in the cemetery: no skylarking. I looked it up, skylarking is frolicking and playing jokes on others. It’s also the name of one of my favorite XTC albums. Three, reading the text, which I’ve put in a pages document, I’m noticing a few things about the text: the text surrounding the word or phrase that I can see sometimes looks like it is scribbled out. Sometimes it looks like it has sparkles around it that are moving — not quite flashing. The text always seems to be vibrating. How can I translate that into a texture on my blind spot Four, as I read through the sections, I jotted down words or phrases that stood out to me:
entrance flaming torch welcoming appears mirror ink you’re never alone you’re never disconnected love full of little secrets inhabit center recreate experience remaining time offer everyone gently between seeing moment you look at space, you look at background, you look at sky hope visit already thinking I don’t know why there was room about to open up turn and follow her gaze staring hands waste bigger picture across threshold neglect and care art cone cell
heart needed landscape fizz snow flake marble dust seltzer balance fills up keeps the grass space enough out of the water upkeep grounds public spaces essentail failed possible efficiency requires can stand on a sidewalk people who never look up out of room true mapping crevice easy circular elipses inside walls outside dark happen here nothing pale-blue cluttered wasn’t a place searched
certainunmarked is now used other-siders skylarking exhume make when you see in place of a road the word down through the plywood a plank settling glacial till earth inches from a layer of turf dirt unstratified jumble of sands, cobbles, and clays caves in on itself all-weather like a bird bench what do you want stone slabs a door uncut grave terrain geologically life this is a place to inter the dead no good place to put all the boies walked around faces believing piece together rotting disease inspired crowded
By the way, as I write, the snow has started. We officially have a blizzard warning that begins around 10 pm and lasts until Monday morning.
One of the reasons I picked this article is because I wanted more land language, like grass and dirt and dust and terrain and stone slabs and sands, cobblestones, clays, caves and glacial till. I want to connect the hole in my vision with the gorge — as a landscape, and a very big hole. I think of it as a powerful metaphor for my vision loss and what comes during and after. Of course, the gorge is also the actual place I go to for my writing practice.
The word plank stood out to me because of ED’s “I felt a funeral in my Brain” — and then a plank in reason broke/and I dropped down and down — I think of ED also with the stone slabs and the dark.
And, I like crevice and opened up, inside, outside, this is a place to inter the dead, room — a gaping hole, a threshold between,
I also like fizz and snow flake marble dust, which is what the words (and what I) sometimes feel like — fly, like a bird, sky — the words, cluttered, crowded and between walls
my eyes: a graveyard for dead cone cells
you look at space you look at sky you look at words and don’t see the gaping hole and its graveyard for dead cone cells you see snow flake marble dust seltzer fizz a nothing that is something
I’d like to keep going, but it’s time to get ready for Scott’s birthday dinner!
Wasn’t planning to run this late afternoon, but snow is coming and Scott was going out for a run and I got my new pair of shoes, so I decided to go for it (or get after it as Carrie Tollefson would say). Scott and I didn’t run together, just at the same time (5:45 pm) and in the same place (near the gorge). What a great run! Was it the sun and the crisp, early spring cold? The healthy food I ate for breakfast and lunch? The new shoes? I’m not sure, but I felt strong and fast and free. On my way back, I encountered a HUGE group of runners running north, all much faster than me. At some point, I heard someone call out, good job Mill City Runners! Of course, Mill City. That’s one of the biggest running groups in the twin cities. Wow, I knew they were big, but I had no idea they were that big!
I liked running in the early evening. Other than the huge group of runners, there weren’t that many people out on the trails. I noticed the light was lower, but it was too early to see any evidence of a sun about to set. The favorite thing I noticed: wild turkeys! Half a dozen grazing in the grass just north of turkey hollow, another one of them grazing in the grass between the trail and the road.
I stopped briefly at Rachel Dow Memorial Bench and took a picture of the blue water and the thin branches softening my view:
blue / 13 march
Friday the 13th! Tonight Scott and I will do our annual tradition of watching Friday the 13th. It’s not as good as Halloween, but it has its moments.
update, 14 saturday 2026: We watched it and Scott figured noticed something neither of us had in our previous viewings of the movie (5 or 6 or more?): each of the deaths is foreshadowed by something that happened earlier in the movie: the character who is murdered on the archery field is almost hit with an arrow a few hours earlier; another character recounts a dream she had where the rain turns into a river of blood which she calls her shower dream, only a few scenes before an axe splits her skull in a shower stall; Alice (the final girl) is surprised by the town weirdo or town prophet, depending on your perspective, when she opens the door to the pantry and he emerges, calling out, you’re doomed. you’re all DOOMED!, and then hides in that same pantry later that nightonly to be found by the killer
Crazy Ralph warning the kids
Later, Scott also realized that there were connections with the murder weapon. For example: the arrow through Jack’s throat ends up at the archery range where Brenda is killed; the axe that splits Marcy’s skull is later found, bloodied, of course, by Alice in Brenda’s bed
a few memorable lines: Jack (Kevin Bacon), about a coming storm: the wind just shifted a good 180 degrees and it’s going to tear down the valley like a son of a gun Brenda (can’t remember the actor’s name, but Scott looked her up and she died at the age of 49 in 2007 from pancreatic cancer — my mom died at 67 from pancreatic cancer in 2009), reacting to Bill fixing the generator: what hath God wrought
HOLES
Reworking Holes 3 to allow for better spacing of the holes. Here’s the new version of the poem:
read sentences sliced in half with strangeness each one glitch ing just enough to scramble the senses OR scramble the meaning
fall through the hole your reading eyes find and land in a logic of blur and almost on the border between real and imagined
And here’s a photo of it:
holes 3
RJP and I went to the Textile Center and it was fun and helpful to think about translating my ideas about holes into actual fabric and textures. I found some black netting that will be helpful and another wildly color thin fabric that might work. The question now is: how to use the fabric. I’m not sure it’s can be as simple as cutting the fabric in the shape of my blind spot — that just seems like bad decoration. What I want to do is use texture to convey how I see/read and what it feels like to do these things with my blind spot. My blind spot is rarely actually visible, and when it is, it’s not a black, opaque spot.
A few new ideas: cover the words where the blind spot is in plastic that you can see through, but that makes words too fuzzy to read.
A lattice of twigs, gathered at the gorge, covering the blind spot — when I see these twigs, it often reminds of my scrambled central vision.
Some sort of fuzzy, fluffy texture that evokes softness, which is one thing that happens to my central vision with less working cones: everything is softer, less detailed, not sharp or harsh
The key, I think, is to use texture to communicate different aspects of my new ways of seeing with hardly any cone cells: it’s fuzzy and soft; it’s vague; it seems like there’s a film over it and that I can almost see it but not quite
Get out ICE
Read about Minnesota lawyers quietly organizing to help immigrant families:
Lawyers Built a Network: MPR also reported Thursday that hundreds of Minnesota attorneys volunteered during the surge to challenge immigration detentions in federal court, creating a rapid pro bono legal network across the state. Lawyers from a wide range of practice areas stepped in, and the article describes a system that turned scattered cases into coordinated courtroom action. It is one more reminder that some of the most important resistance in this story has happened quietly, inside petitions, filings, and courtrooms.
Sean Snow on Facebook / 13 march 2026
and from the article Sean Snow is referencing:
Since the beginning of so-called “Operation Metro Surge” in December, attorneys in Minnesota have filed more than 1,000 cases challenging the legality of immigration arrests and detentions.
Many of those filings came from lawyers who don’t normally practice immigration law.
Ran over the lake street bridge and to the monument today. When was the last time I ran this route? Just checked, it was 5 nov 2025. Wow! Of course, part of the reason why I haven’t run over there is because of the winter; they don’t plow the sidewalk on the bridge, and St. Paul, where the monument is, doesn’t plow their trails as well as Minneapolis. But another reason is definitely ICE; I’ve been staying closer to home with my runs because it feels safer.
Today’s run was good; I felt (mostly) strong, although my legs/feet are sore from wearing the shoes that make them hurt. It was windy and cold on the bridge, but it was beautiful. Steel gray water, open and high enough to hide the sandbars. Scattered stretches of the east and west banks were glowing with white snow. The sun was dulled by a thin layer of clouds.
10 Things
drip drip drip drip — the steady drip of water falling off the bridge near the east steps
graffiti — pink and orange and black block letters under the bridge
I only encountered 1 or 2 people over the bridge, both walking
the bells of st. thomas chiming at noon! 15 minutes later, at 12:15
running above shadow falls I glimpsed a dark flash of something — a tree? no, a person
with several more glances I realized the person was not hiking but running
they were nearing the worn dirt trail that climbs up and out of the ravine
St. Paul has replaced the port-a-potty at the edge of the monument parking lot — there is much less graffiti on this new one, and the door closes all the way — hooray!
near the edge of an overlook on the east bank, staring out at the other bluff and down at the water — a hiker emerges
a plaque on the bench for, “what a woman” Sharon. She was born 2 weeks after my dad was in 1941 and died in 2002 — so young!
Holes
Currently, I have 3 Holes erasure poems. Holes 1 is about my uneasy fellowship with the word. Holes 2 is about how the hole (my blind spot) makes it unprofitable to have faith in the visible. And Holes 3 is about falling through the hole into “who knows where”, on the border between the real and surreal. I need to do at least one more hole about the small holdout-of-a-hole in the very center of my vision that enables me to still read (even if that reading is slow and sometimes unreliable).
Tomorrow, RJP and I go shopping for textiles and textures at the Stashery, so today I’m working on mapping out Holes 3. I’m using “Me, Myself, and I: Helen Oyeyemi’s Novel of Cognitive Dissonance” from The New Yorker, August 25, 2025. Here is the version I just drafted:
swap the dead-eyed liturgy of doomed vision with shadowed acts that leap for the light (OR flee from the light?)
read sentences sliced in half with strangeness each one glitch ing enough to let in the improbable
fall through the hole your reading eyes find / or your reading finds / or your eyes find and land in a logic of blur and almost
Is this too many words to easily/cleanly map out? Let’s find out! And if not, let’s shift the form to make it work! — several minutes pass — Okay, I mapped it, and it seems like too many words. I think I’ll save my “darling” — the line that started it all about swapping the dead-eyed liturgy for another project — a liturgy of shadowed acts and the periphery! Anyway, I’ll try to keep the rest of the poem, and figure out the rest of holes is a project tomorrow morning.
Get Out ICE and Ice
The other day I wondered when the ice would be gone from Lake Nokomis. This morning, Minneapolis Parks and Recreation Board offered a prediction!
Minneapolis Parks Water Quality staff have tracked “ice off” dates on city lakes for decades. Ice off is declared when a lake is substantially free of ice after being fully frozen.
We’re probably not setting any records like 2018 or 2024, which dominate the record books. Staff estimate we could see ice off on small lakes like Powderhorn and Loring as soon as this weekend. It will probably be a few more weeks for larger lakes.
Will the HUGE winter storm we’re expecting on Saturday night and all day Sunday impact the ice off date? BTW, I’m pretty sure that they used to refer to this as the ice out date; I think they’ve changed it because of the very negative association with ICE. I checked past entries on my log, and yes, that was what it was called. Negative association aside, I like ice out better than ice off.
Snow. A dusting last night, then a little more in the morning. An inch? Enough to make everything white. I was happy to be done with winter, but I don’t mind the snow. Since past snow has already melted and the ground has already warmed up, the snow didn’t stick around. By the time I went out for my run in the afternoon, almost everything was clear. The run didn’t feel easy, but I pushed through several difficult moments and kept going. Hooray for mental victories!
I listened to the dripping and gushing and the wheel whooshing as I ran south, 2 playlists — “Bunnies and Rabbits” and “the Wheelin’ Life” — as I ran back north.
10 Things
sh sh sh — the shifting grit under my feet
the wet pavement was shining and sparkling in the sun — so bright sometimes that I thought it was slick ice
entering minnehaha park, the parking lot was empty
exiting the park 10 or more minutes later, there was one car at the far end of the parking lot
the creek was rushing
the sidewalk on the bridge just above the falls was wet and clear — last week someone had chalked a long message on it, which I couldn’t read because of my bad vision
on the walk just before I started, I noticed a small black bird skittering along the grass — it had a small circle of white feathers below its eye
a runner in a bright red jacket stopped at the Rachel Dow Memorial Bench, a minute later they ran down a hill on the winchell trail
only 1 or 2 small patches of ice, a few puddles
I almost didn’t remember this one! — three people on the bridge over the falls, looking over the creek side. One, to the others, pointing down at the creek: look, there’s 75 cents! One of the others, joked (I hope): better go down there and get it!
Rabbit Recap
Slowly but surely, I’m getting to the end of my rabbit recap, but not today! See past rabbit recaps here: 9 march, 6 march, 5 march, and 4 march.
14 — 25 march 2026
Here’s a useful explanation of some reasons why I do monthly challenges about new topics, like rabbits (or wind or dirt, etc.):
And what’s the point of all of this? Following the rabbit down the rabbit hole is a wonderful distraction. It is also an excellent opportunity to learn. And to learn more about rabbits, which leads to caring about them as living things and as symbols. This caring might (is) enabling me to open up a closed part of myself (closed = strong dislike of rabbits). And it is helping me to think more broadly and specifically about the impacts of humans and human encroachment on environments and the consequences of that encroachment for humans and non-humans. Plus, all (or any) of it could inspire new poems.
A quick summary of some rabbits references and reveries: the killer bunny in Monty Python; Bunny Lebowski; Rabbit in Red matchbook from Halloween; Jimmy Stewart’s invisible bunny in Harvey; Max and Ruby; the PBS doc The Pill; Rabbit in Winnie-the-Pooh; the Cadbury Creme Egg Bunny; The Runaway Bunny; fix me hausenpffefer right away!
Rabbits in Diane Seuss:
excerpt from backyard song / Diane Seuss — I LOVE this whole poem. I’d like to use it as inspiration for a hole poem and a bunny poem!
Uncorked, I had a thought: I want the want I dreamed of wanting once, a quarter cup of sneak-peek at what prowls in the back, at what sings in the wet rag space behind the garage, back where the rabbits nest
excerpt from Her first poem had a rabbit / Diane Seuss — I want to bring in the optical illusion of the bunny and duck + the idea of what seems mild but is really wild
She tended toward rabbits back then. Toward the theoretically mild
that are really wild. Like ducks on a pond that is really a moon
New Yorker Experiment: A hole through the bottom of the known world
Today I worked on the template for my hole poem that erases the “Whisker Wars.” It has some of my blind spot, some big circles (from a iron pill cap), some medium sized-circles (lexipro cap), small (a quarter), and extra small (a penny). I want to create texture for the blind spots but leave the circles alone as pencil/gray.
a hole through the bottom of the known world
My choice of blind spots vs. circles, and the size of the circles, was mostly decided by what would fit where, but there might be some room to play around with some of it. I’ll think about it some more.
The words: nothing still / details drift like snow / cut off heads with pewter-colored faces float / a hole through the bottom of the known world / here it’s unprofitable to have faith in the visible — should it be what is visible?
added an hour later: I realized a further clarification on the idea of the hole and holes. The blind spot creates a hole in my vision, an absence that has created an uneasy fellowship with the world and made it unprofitable to have faith in the visible. But, there is also the small hole that remains in the otherwise dark blind spot that enables me to still read — it’s a small hole, and it’s getting smaller, but it’s still there. I’m noticing that my whisker wars poem offers many different sizes of holes depending on how many words I’m trying to fit in it. I need to have a poem that highlights that tiny hole holdout — ooo, holdout is a word in the whiskey wars article. Should I do a completely different poem using the same text?
Get out ICE
Each morning a local journalist, Sean Snow, offers updates on what’s happening in Minnesota, both what ICE and those in state and federal government that support ICE are doing, and how people and their communities are fighting back. I read them on Facebook, but he also posts them on Threads, Instagram, Tiktok, and YouTube. Today one of his examples
— sitting at the dining room table, drinking my coffee while I write this, I just heard a long goose fly by — honk honk —
was about “a real act of public memory” n St. Paul:
Testimony Builds The Record: Minnesota residents, advocates, and families testified Tuesday in St. Paul before the chair of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights about what they experienced during Operation Metro Surge. Star Tribune reported that people described racial discrimination, abusive detention conditions, treatment of protesters, and the deaths of two citizens, all in hopes of pushing the commission toward a formal investigation. This was not a final ruling or a courtroom win. But it was a real act of public memory and accountability on a day when it would have been easy for the country to start looking away.
Today I had a blood test to re-check my iron and my thyroid in the morning. No coffee or food until it was done at 11, so also no running. Just sitting and writing and witnessing the world outside my windows: walkers, one runner, some dogs, the little girl at the daycare next door named Mabel stopping a walker and forcing a conversation, elementary boys — so LOUD — running down the street.
New Yorker Experiment / Holes
A slight shift in my first hole poem. Instead of, another name for barely not blind is a hole in your vision that makes for an uneasy fellowship with the world, it is, another name for barely not blind is a hole in your vision that makes for an uneasy fellowship with the word. So, word not world. Since this poem is about how I read, word makes more sense to me. Part of me would like to keep both world and word, but most of me thinks I should keep it simple with word.
In my draft version, I’ve hastily shaded in the circles/my blind spot with pencil, so they are all gray blobs and dots. The only times I recall seeing gray blobs are: looking at a backlit face and staring at the wall for several seconds. When I look at text, like on this screen, I see a few words in the center and then . . . what? Difficult to put into words. Everything is buzzing, shifting, textured. I want to experiment with the blind spot blob in my poem by adding texture — I mentioned adding gauze or glitter on 8 march. RJP and I are planning to visit the Stashery at the Textile Center this week to see if I can find some cool materials.
While I let that simmer, I’ll return to the last page of experiment #5 (continued from 9 march):
words that stand out from Whisker Wars, page 3
face / faced
self-mastery
the Lord knows who
hold outs persist ed
who was as devoted as
you might think
emerged
embraced
writing
float /ed
only
unprofitable
propaganda
a sideshow staple / enfreakment
mishaps
cannot fully explains
died
few of us see
express rapture at seeing
poem reads
endures
Here’s what I have so far:
nothing still details drift like snow cut off heads with pewter-colored faces float
a hole through the bottom of the known world.
here it is unprofitable to have faith / to put faith / to believe in the visible / what is visible
an uneasy fellowship with the world
As of now, I’ve decided to use the line uneasy fellowship with the word, but I also do have an uneasy fellowship with the world because I am barely not blind. Here’s an example of that uneasy fellowship from today’s visit to the clinic for a blood test:
I walk into the clinic with Scott and he points out the line for me to stand in as I wait to be checked in. It’s happened so fast that I have not had a chance to read the sign that tells me what this line is, I just know I’m supposed to stand in it. So I stand and wait with the person behind the counter directly in front of me, several feet away. There is another line with people in it, waiting, with a person behind the counter directly in front of them. I wait, looking vaguely in front of me at the person behind the counter and the person they are helping, trying not to stare or look as if I’m impatient (even though I am). To the side, I notice the person being helped at the other counter is done and hear the woman behind that counter tell the person in her line, wait. Then I hear her call out sharply, Scheduled! And then, Scheduled! I wonder what she means; it sounds strange. And then, Scheduled! I feel several quick, sharp pokes in my back. The person behind me is trying to get my attention. I realize that the woman behind the opposite counter is calling out to me. I am “Scheduled” because I have a scheduled appointment.1Oh, I’m sorry! I approach the counter and she barks at me, name and date of birth! She softens a little after I answer promptly.
For a flash, I wanted to cry, but didn’t. It is such a small thing that doesn’t really matter. For a brief moment, I was that person, the irritating one in the line that wasn’t paying attention, holding everything up. Yet, it is a reminder of what I can’t do, or what I can barely do, or what I can only do with a lot of effort — and patience from those around me. It is a reminder that I am nearly (legally) blind.
I suppose these moments might matter less the more I experience them — both because I’ll get better at accounting for them and better at not being bothered by them. And I suppose I should experience them more. I just told FWA and RJP and they disagreed. FWA said “Choosing to be in those situations is like selling your soul!” Yes! Repeated this conversation to Scott and he said, but you do need to learn how to deal with these situations. I suppose. Maybe I can find some middle ground?
It helped to talk with FWA and RJP and have them not only validate but bolster my assessment of the situation as not my fault. A thought: did the woman say more than Scheduled!, but all i heard was that part? I don’t think so.
Get Out Ice
The ice at Lake Nokomis is fraying at the edges. Will the lake ice be completely gone by the end of the month?!
Not to long after this happened I wondered: why didn’t she call out, person in the scheduled line or something with a bit more of an explanation.↩︎
With the sun and the bare ground it felt warmer than 50 degrees, so I wore shorts! I started with long-sleeves, but by 2 miles, I shed that skin and ran the rest of the way with bare arms too. Ah, spring! Not the easiest run. It might have been because I didn’t wait long enough after my second breakfast/early lunch.
1
One of the best things about the run was heading south and admiring the river. Waves on the surface reflecting the light. A shimmer scene. Dazzling. I haven’t seen sun on open water like this for many months.
2
Since I’m thinking about holes and spots, which also means circles and loops, I thought about a playlist I made a year ago (25 march 2025), and decided to listen to it. Much of it is about seasons and cycles, but as I ran I thought about the hole inside the wheel and falling through it — into another dimension? another way of being? a space not consumed by the expected (normal) life? Then I thought about my growing blind spot and how it has cracked open “normal” life — this cracking can be painful and difficult, but it has offered new possibilities and an entrance to another way of being.
3
After stopping to put in my playlist, as I ran down the hill and away from the park, by right foot felt strange. Was there a rock in my tread? I finally stopped and looked. Not a rock, a hole in my shoe where my middle toes strikes down. I guess that proves it: I’m not a heel or mid-foot but a toe striker! Unlike the hole in my vision, I don’t really see an upside to this hole in my shoe — well, I guess it means I have get to buy new shoes, and, if any are still available, in a bright color!
minutes later: Done! My new Brooks Ghost 17s are dark blue, turquoise, and green!
a hole in my running shoe
I have never had a hole in the bottom of my running shoe. I’ve had holes on the side where my bunion/wide foot has pushed through, but never a hole on the bottom. I think it’s funny that this hole happened just as I’m thinking and writing about holes. I feel like I need to incorporate this hole into my project!
A Return to my Rabbit Recap
11 continued — 20 march 2026
sources of bunny inspiration: 1. rabbits who eat buckthorn bark may pee smurf blue; 2. identifying the dark forms in the backyard as rabbits; 3. origins of “bold as brass”; 4. optical illusion — duck or bunny; 5. a cup full of 3 rabbit breaths (poem); 6. jackrabbit trapped in a wildfire (poem); 7. the rock that is not a rabbit (poem); 8. little girls deciding who will have their bunny when they die (poem); 9. a rabbit offering themselves to quell a woman warrior’s hunger (book)
12 — 24 march 2026
Bunny as muse? nudge? pest? ghost?
What am I doing as I keep putting the two bunnies in my backyard into my poems? And why do I insistent on calling these wild and mature eastern cottonwood rabbits bunnies? I’m not sure these rabbits are indifferent to me, but I think they notice me in terms of whether or not I am a threat to their main activity: grazing in the grass.
A title for a poem? Crepuscular. Why don’t rabbits flee when I approach? Do they see me as non-threatening? Has human encroachment screwed up their sense of friend and foe? My mom, a pesky bunny, and a drive out the country. Peter Rabbit: the horror movie.
the rabbit hole:
“Down the rabbit hole” is an English-language idiom or trope which refers to getting deep into something, or ending up somewhere strange. Lewis Carroll introduced the phrase as the title for chapter one of his 1865 novel Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, after which the term slowly entered the English vernacular. The term is usually used as a metaphor for distraction.[1] In the 21st century, the term has come to describe a person who gets lost in research or loses track of time while using the internet.wikipedia
Out-of-control curiosity. Distraction. Losing track of time. Getting lost in strange worlds. These are presented as bad things. Are they? Many of them are embraced within poetry. And they are great tools of refusal and resistance against late-capitalism and wannabe fascist governments — you’re not working for/perpetuating the system while you’re following the rabbit hole.
The rabbit hole online.
13 — 27 feb 2026
The rabbit hole. “Back to hole-less cottontails. A new metaphor is needed — not falling down and through to other worlds, but something about edges and shadows and the fringes — the periphery! Dwelling on the edges, in the corners, not traveling to new worlds, but noticing the other worlds that are already there, have always existed in the midst of my world.”
I want to think more about this shifting metaphor in my understanding and use of hole in my erasure poem (or poems?)
New Yorker Experiment #5
First, an update on Holes. There’s an empty space without text in the lower left corner. I’m thinking of putting a definition or a quote or a line there. Or, I could put my poem written out in a straightforward way in the space. Would that undercut of enhance the experience of reading the poem? The text could also be an explanation of my version of reading; peripheral — big picture / central — one word or small phrase at a time, often experienced in isolation.
I’ve started (just barely) working on experiment #5. I’m using an article from July 28, 2025 titled “The Whisker Wars.” All I’ve done so far is write down words that stood out to me on two out of the three pages. I want to try experimenting directly on the New Yorker pages so I have a decision to make: two of the pages are back to back, so I need to pick either the first or second page. I’ll read through both of them and see which one I like better.
Hmmm….there’s a cartoon on the second page with the caption, “That’s an area for creativity and unstructured play.” I might want to use a few of those words.
words/phrases the stand out, page 1:
portrait
a game of Now You See It, Now You Don’t
in the beginning, not a whisper
otherwise
drift like snow
wonder
notice
russet-and-gray
pewter-colored
abrupt shift
who left
entanglements
weirdness
yellow
bore a hole through the bottom (of my coffin)
still
page 2
traces
people saw it as separate (from the body)
replaced by a view
faith
framed
revealed
meanwhile
from
however
trends
norms
world all know / known
waves
an area for creativity and unstructured play
lies details
natural
rather
nothing
believe (rs)
teach you
visible
cut
choice
Get Out ICE
On 5 march 2026, NPR posted a story about how doctors and nurses in Minnesota have created an underground network of medical care for people who are too scared to leave their homes. “There are now about 150 doctors — a volunteer “rapid response” team that has made more than 135 home visits” (When ICE came, Minneapolis created underground health networks).
These members of the care network have helped women in labor, babies with the flu, “At the Faribault clinic where Carroll works, staff members deliver medicine, food and other necessities to patients. A staffer drives 12 middle and high school kids to and from school every day in a clinic van.”
walk 1: 60 minutes minnehaha off leash dog park 45 degrees
The hiking with Delia and FWA at the dog park is back! I’ve missed our walks and chats and encounters with other dogs. This morning it was beautiful: sunny, not too cold, calm. There was some mud at the top of the hill, but not much in the flats. We heard woodpeckers knocking and calling. Felt squishy mud and sand that nearly sunk me — so soft and difficult to climb out of! Saw the tall bluff on the other side of the river and remembered moving along its rim during my longer runs to the confluence when I was training for the marathon. A spring goal: be trained up enough to run this loop again by May.
FWA and I talked about rules and norms and our difficulty in following them. Not because we like to break rules for the sake of breaking rules, but because they didn’t work for us and that we recognized otherways to be outside of them.
Often on these walks through the dog park, I hear people calling out the names of their dogs. Today I recall it happening only once: Rosie! Come here Rosie! I mentioned to FWA how I’ve encountered several dogs named Rosie around here. I wondered if they spell the name Rosie, or Rosy, or Rosey?
Two favorite dogs: One was a shiba inu1 that was running around its human in wide circles, with the human holding a long leash and remarking to someone else, I feel like I’m playing with the airplane on a string toy I had as a kid. The other dog was tall and lean and a beautiful gray. He (I heard his human say he) was graceful and gentle and leaped over Delia to avoid bumping into her. I was so impressed, that I mentioned to his human what a wonderful dog he was. The human was wearing BRIGHT blue running shoes. Nice!
walk 2: 60 minutes neighborhood / winchell trail 58 degrees
A wonderful afternoon walk with Scott. We walked through the neighborhood and down to the Winchell Trail at the river. Open water, blue, with glowing white snow on the banks of the other side. A pileated woodpecker: drumming then laughing then calling out. Other walkers in tank tops and shorts. A steady stream of cars.
Scott and I stopped at a deluxe, Scott called it a “high-rise”, free library. It had a shelf of adult books and a shelf with kids books and dog treats. I gave Delia a treat, which was for dogs twice her size. As we left I said to Scott, I would like to find a way to make the kind of delight I feel encountering things like this possible for others. What sort of delightful thing could I put up in our yard?
There was a note on the door of the library explaining that the owner re-stocked it frequently and had an instagram account where she gave book reviews! It’s @beccasnotsolittlefreelibrary. I followed her, and thanked her in the comments for bringing joy to our neighborhood.
Holes (aka New Yorker experiment)
Should I try some new erasures, or continue to work on turning my “hole in your vision” into something? Maybe I’ll try both. I’d like to push at this idea of a hole in the vision, with the hole not being (just) empty or a void, but something — like a rabbit hole: an in-between space, a passageway, a liminal space, a threshold, but also a clearing (JJJJJerome Ellis), the Nothing around which something functions, the gorge.
a note about reading and writing: I like using an erasure to show how I read words.2 Taken as a whole, words are too fuzzy or unintelligible to read. I can only read them as individual words. And when looking at one word, I often don’t see of the others around it, just one word then then next word then then next. I used to be able to grasp full phrases and sentences at once — at least I think I did. This not seeing the surrounding words is a problem when I write. My Plague Notebooks are full of examples of words running into each other, or one word being written over another. Whenever this has happened, I try to make note of it by writing Vision Error and drawing an arrow to it.
vision error from the Plague Notebook, vol. 15 spy balloons, winter class, snow / 13 april 2023
Throughout the day, I was adding blind spots and then, when those were too big for the space, I added smaller circles (made by tracing the bottle caps for my iron pills and my old lexipro pills). Here’s how it looks now:
holes / work in progress
I’m pleased with how it is looking. As of now, I’m imagining this version as a template for another, more polished version. I might replace some of the pencil shading with material — like gauze or netting. Maybe other holes will be filled in with glitter or sparkling something, feathers, twigs?
FWA identified it as a shiba inu; I couldn’t see it well enough to do that — it was all blur and bark to me ↩︎
It might be interesting to do some audio, too. I’d like to record myself reading something for the first time, to show how I struggle to read words. ↩︎
2.5 miles 44th street parking lot and back 35 degrees
Ran n the afternoon. Colder today. I wore gloves and a headband to cover my ears. It felt harder, maybe I ran too soon after lunch?
It snowed last night. Not much — not even an inch, but enough to cover the grass and make everything glow white. By the time I went out for my run, the paths were clear.
omens of spring-to-come: someone was roller blading! Not roller skiing, but roller blading. And, a woman was running in shorts. It’s not unusual to see a man running in shorts during the winter, but it’s rare to see a woman. That usually doesn’t happen until it’s spring, or feels like spring, or is warm enough to be spring.
I was planning to finish my rabbit recap today, but then I started thinking about and experimenting with my holes poem. No time for the rabbits — well, except for several paragraphs below, when I realize that my naming of this poem, Holes (or hole?), is probably at least partly a reference to the rabbit hole!
New Yorker Experiment #4, continued
Today some part of me decided that we (the Saras) would offer a more detailed account of the process of thinking through my latest poem, so that’s what we’re doing.
I want to keep working on my fourth experiment. Yesterday afternoon, I printed out the New Yorker article, “A Screaming Skull,” and found my poem on its four pages. Then I taped the pages together and mapped the poem out. The theme: holes. I imagine it as part of a larger project about my blind spot. Maybe this project won’t be all erasure/found poems; I might try to connect it to some other work on the blind spot — work I’ve been doing for several years now, but haven’t quite figured out how to turn it into something. Yes! Experiment #3 — swap the dead-eyed liturgy of doomed vision with shadow (or shadowed?) acts, wild and improbable could connect with my study of JJJJJerome Ellis, the stutter, and his liturgy of the name! Very cool!
I took a picture of what I’ve done so far:
12
What to do next? The second image offers a possible approach: Applying my blind spot — the one I recently created by staring at a blank wall until it appeared, then tracing it — to each of the “found” words. I could sketch the blind spot directly on the page, around the word, OR I could place a cut-out version of the blind spot on top of the word. Maybe I’ll try a practice sketch. Another idea, which is probably definitely beyond my technical ability: create an animation of the process of reading this that starts with an overview of the poem, then zooms into the first word, encircled by the blind spot which appears as I read it. Then it moves to the next word/phrase, and the next, and the next until the poem is finished. I could also do it as a series of stills (instead of an animation). You could look at each one individually1, the image as a whole, and the series of images in a gallery.
I like this last idea! The focus on individual words — isolated from the other words and the meaning as a whole, which is how I read, because what’s left of my central vision is so small it can only fit a few words, and which is how I often (but not always) experience the world with my big blind spot — in isolation, and removed from others. A question: should I keep the larger poem as a square, stacked 2 x 2 pages? Or should I have it extend as 4 pages across? I can play around with it.
an hour or two later: Here’s something I tried with a paper cut-out of my blind spot as a template. I’m thinking I should ask Scott to make a sturdier, cardboard version of this template.
in progress / 1 PM / 7 march 2026
Something to think about: should I have the blind spots on the entire poem/map? I was going to write: no, because that’s not how I would see it; I would see a somewhat fuzzy version of the map of the poem. But this poem is not an accurate representation of how I see. I hardly ever see my blind spot as a gray blob. But the blind spot is there and it distorts how/what I see and I need to represent in some way that others can see too.
Another question: should I hand-sketch this poem, or figure out how to do it on the computer? I like the hand drawing — the material aspect of it + I can do it all myself — but drawing it by hand is messy and unreliable. I’m thinking that this series will be part of my vision art installation — along with my snellen charts and mood rings. It seems too messy if I don’t do it on a computer.
Also: how should the individual stills look? Should they be a close-up on that part of the poem, or just the word/phrase centered in an otherwise blank page? Should they include the blind ring? If I have more of the text, should it be too fuzzy/distorted to read, or should I have it surrounded by gray? Looking at the words on this screen, I see: 1 or 2, maybe 3 short words in focus, then other words too dim or fuzzy to read, and, after staring for a few seconds, a glowing dark ring around it. This ring is not solid or very dark, it’s almost gauzy, like a veil, or the feeling that there’s a ring there. Does that sound strange?
(rabbit) holes: Today I start a new volume of my Plague Notebook: vol. 28! I’m calling it, What about Epstein, Trump? As I was writing in it, describing my latest visual poem, Holes, a thought: Am I calling this holes (or hole?) partly because of my recent study of rabbit holes?! Maybe! And maybe I could bring rabbit holes into a poem about my blind spot!?
Get Out ICE
“Accountability in this case looks incredibly simple. Minnesota must investigate the violation of constitutional rights at the hands of Noem and her ICE agents and prosecute where appropriate. The best part about this process is that Trump can’t pardon state convictions.” Boom. (from a Occupy Democracy post, citing a MSNOW interview with Tim Walz)
While applying my blind spot to the phrase, “another word for,” I realized that that phrase was too big to fit inside the inner ring. So, that’s a new limit to how I can construct this, and other blind spot, poems: the phrases/lines must be able to fit within my blind spot. It wasn’t a big deal in this poem; I just took out the for from “another name for” and found it somewhere else in the article. ↩︎
