Year: 2017

june 4/3.75 MILES

67 degrees
mississippi river road path, north

Still getting used to the heat. Otherwise the run went well. In the summer, I don’t have nearly as much stuff to put on before I go out for a run. No extra jackets or base layers or buffs or gloves or double socks. Just shorts, a shirt, socks and some shoes. Here’s a description of my running attire in the summer, in the form of an abecedarian poem:

Attire:

1. black shorts with white trim. Not black as
coal, they’ve faded in the sun. The
drawstring is gone too. It was a pretty bright blue. Now
elastic is all I have to keep the shorts from
falling down.
2. Green
headphones, if I’m listening to music, and
if I am, that music usually includes a
Justin or two: Bieber or Timberlake. My
kids wouldn’t
like me to admit that,
mostly because it embarrasses them. I say, here’s something to look forward to: when you’re 42, almost 43,
nothing embarrasses you!
Other favorites to listen to: Barry Manilow,
Prince. 3. A
quick-drying tank top, either in black or blue. I
really don’t care which.
Sometimes I wear a green tank-top, but it’s
thicker and not quick-drying, so only if the temperature is
under 70 degrees. Otherwise it’s
very uncomfortable.
4. White ankle socks, with an orange
x on the heel, at the end of the word, “Power Sox,” and mismatched trim that is
yellow on one foot and blueish green on the other. 5. Bright blue shoes with
zero swooshes, only coral swishes.

And here’s a poem describing my morning routine in the poetic form of nonet: 9 lines, first line has 9 syllabus, second has 8, and so on until ninth line has 1 syllable.

Morning Routine

Wake up at 6. Feed dog. Make coffee.
Write some while drinking the coffee.
Eat: cheerios, banana.
Wash face, brush teeth, comb hair.
Put on running clothes
and running shoes.
Go outside.
Walk some.
Run!

I wrote both of these poems because I was having some difficulty sorting out all of my ideas about ritual and repetition, habit as mundane or sacred (I also wrote about these in yesterday’s log). I decided the best place to start was to describe some of the mundane aspects of my run, like what I wear and what my pre-run routine is.

june 3/4 MILES

77 degrees
mississippi river road path, south

Another hot and sweaty run. Scott and I ran together today. We were both struggling because of the heat, although running through the sprinkles when we were almost done helped. We talked about one of my new favorite poets, Chen Chen, and his book When I Grow Up I Want to Be a List of Further Possibilities. We also talked about Scott’s Stravinsky project. And we were almost successful in avoiding talking about dictators and oppressive regimes.

Before and after running, I wrote two new things:

What’s the difference

between ritual and routine?
Superstition and belief?
When is it a prayer and when is it just proper form? Efficient breathing?
When does a habit become sacred?
Does it need:
a doctrine?
a theology?
hymns about souls and rejoicing and kingdoms and conquering and reigning?
chants about fathers and spirits and ghosts and sacrificing sons?
basement potlucks with seven layer dips?
uncomfortable pews?
getting up too early on a Sunday morning?
yes, it needs this.
Could it be that one defining characteristic of the sacred is
a refusal to stay in bed?

my purple toe

Have I told you about my purple toe? It’s on my right foot and it’s the second toe, the one that sticks out just a little bit farther than the others. Did you know, that this toe, the second one, turns purple? It’s not purple all of the time and maybe purple isn’t even the best way to describe it. Eggplant? I wish it were electric purple or purple mountain majesty or grape popsicle purple. Purple is my son’s favorite color. His computer case is purple. His clarinet case is purple. His suitcase is purple. His school binder, which he dissects and disembowels in new ways everyday—first removing the strap, then shredding the front pouch, then taking out the cardboard insert that helps keep it’s structure, then doing something to the 3 ring binders that I can’t quite figure out that makes them only barely close—is purple. The purple he prefers is royal purple. Not fuchsia or pearly purple or phlox.

My purple toe is purple from running. Technically, it’s my purple toenail, I suppose, but toe is much more pleasing to write and to hear and to imagine as purple than toenail. Anyone can have a purple toenail; just slap some nail polish on it and it’s purple. But a purple toe is special. A purple toe is a sign of a runner. Before I started running, I was unaware that this was a thing: your toe can turn purple. I read somewhere that it’s called runner’s toe or subungual hematoma. It’s also called black toe. I like purple toe, so that’s what I’ll call it, or “my purple toe” or “my perfectly purple, not painful at all, toe.” Is it the second toe for everyone? I don’t know.

Here’s how it usually works for me. After some random long/longish run, my second one, the toe that sticks out just a little bit farther, feels strange. It looks like it’s splitting. At first, it isn’t purple, but i know what’s coming: in a day or two, it will be purple. The toenail never falls off. It just grows back in freaky ways: twisted, bent, doubled. Maybe I should call it “my perfectly freaky purple, not painful at all, toe.” After the nail grows back, it usually returns to its normal color. That is, until the cycle begins again. The “purple toe effect” has been happening for at least five years now.

In the same online article where I read about “runner’s toe,” it was also referred to as a “runner’s badge of honor.” I’m not sure I’d say i’m honored to have my perfectly freaky purple, not painful at all, toe. More like delighted by how it grosses other people out. Or fascinated by its freakishness. Most of the time I forget about it. It’s just a toe that’s part of my right foot that enables me to run—and walk and skip and saunter—without much pain and hardly any injury. It sticks out farther than my other toes. And it just happens to be purple or, if you prefer, which I don’t, eggplant.

june 2/11 MILES

76 degrees
the lake nokomis loop, long

Hot! Sunny! Difficult! Today’s run was not pretty. Well, the path was pretty. The lake was pretty. The many bridges that I ran over were pretty. But my run was not. It was hard and hot and tiring. But I did it, with the help of several walk breaks.

I decided to do my long run today instead of tomorrow because it is my 6th anniversary of running. I started on June 2, 2011. I used the couch-to-5k program and ran/walked less than 2 miles. Today, 6 years later, 11 miles! My route today included the Minnehaha creek path, which is what I ran on in 2011.

I had grand visions of doing some cool poetry experiment with the run: maybe stopping every mile to compose a line. But, I was too distracted and uninspired by the heat. So, instead, I’ll mark the occasion by sharing something that I’ve been working on about the body electric. It’s inspired by Prince (“electric word life”), a pbs show about Ibex and the harrowing lengths they go to replenish their electrolytes (scaling seriously steep cliffs), Walt Whitman and “I sing the body electric,” the movie Fame and their version of “I sing the body electric.” Marilyn Nelson’s “is” and Marie Howe’s “the this,” Frédéric Gros’s philosophy of walking and my own wanderings on electricity and the beauty of machines, developed while running. I suppose there’s a dash of Emily Dickinson in here too (her nobody).

the body electric

The body electric is not a metaphor. The body is electric. It contains electrolytes, that, when consumed, break up into positively and negatively charged ions that travel by water through the body, triggering electrical impulses in the nerves and muscles. Every body needs electrolytes to function properly. They’re found in sodium, chloride, calcium, magnesium, potassium and phosphate.

The body is a machine.
Not the body as machine
or the body is like a machine
or the body is only a machine.
But, the body is a machine.
An efficient machine,
capturing energy, consuming minerals, converting air into breath.
The body is an intricate machine,
made up of muscles and tendons
and ligaments and joints and bones
and organs and arteries and veins
and fluids and systems
that work together in the complex process of locomotion.
The body is a marvelous machine,
containing strange creatures
with multiple heads and fantastical names.
The body is a beautiful machine,
composed of grace and exuberance and joy.
The body is a powerful machine,
able to endure intense pain and absorb tremendous force.
The body is a delicate and temperamental machine;
it can shut down from overuse, lack of use or repeated abuse.

This body, my body, is not any body and it is not the body. It is just a body, a somebody who is happily a nobody, running and flying and floating free, feeling the sizzle of the sand under my feet on the path and the howl of the wind rushing by my ears, passing under the shadows of the towering tree in the midst of other bodies, who are somebodies and nobodies as well but who feel the earth and the sky, just the same but differently too. Each of us an I. A self. A soul. A body. But also a we. Selves. Souls communing. Charged bodies with electrons flowing freely. The Body Electric.

june 1/REST

I’d love to run today because it’s so beautiful outside, but I won’t. It’s my day to rest. My right hip is a bit sore and needs a break. And tomorrow is my 6 year runniversary and I’m planning to do my long run to mark the occasion.

This morning I worked a bit more on my sonnet about attention. I tried to stay truer to the Shakespearean form by using 10 syllables in each line. In one or two lines, I failed. Not sure if it’s really in iambic pentameter either.

ATTENTION

is the beginning of a devotion
which can be a form of daily prayer
that you undertake while you’re in motion
running in and through the outside air.

A prayer given with lungs and feet
to inspire the trees and absorb the earth
a letting go to a steady beat
desiring nothing but the rebirth

of an earnest and a loving belief
that has the power to break you open
and to spill out the terrible grief
caused by a decreased sense of hope and

increased apathy, a monstrous twinning.
To end, attention is the beginning.

What I’m Fascinated by, a list
  • breathing/respiration as the process of inspiration (in) and expiration (out). I want to play with these some more.
  • absorption: energy absorption + how Frédérick Gros describes it The Philosophy of Walking: “But walking causes absorption. Walking interminably, taking in through your pores the height of the mountains when you are confronting them at length, breathing in the shape of the hills for hours at a time during a slow descent. The body becomes steeped in the earth it treads (85)”.
  • body prayer: how does the body pray? What is praying–the rituals and habits?
  • Simone Weil and attention as prayer.

may 31/6 MILES

62 degrees
the franklin hill turn around + extra

Today was a harder run than yesterday. My legs felt sore. I took it out too fast. And I was overdressed. Decided to walk a few times when I felt like I needed it, which was a good idea, not a failure, I’ve decided. Recorded two voice memos into my iPhone, one about attention as a salve against apathy and another about how bodies are machines.

Before the run, I started working on a series of wanderings around attention. I’ve given years of attention to attention in my ethical work on curiosity and a feminist ethics of care and now, in this running/writing project, it keeps coming up as a primary goal for me: to pay attention to my body, to my surroundings, to my voice, to authentic expression, to nagging injuries, to breathing, to joy, to staying upright, to resisting oppressive regimes.

Attention, Wanderings

Wandering One

Mary Oliver from Upstream

“Attention is the beginning of devotion” (8).

Here’s my (first?) attempt at a sonnet, riffing off of Oliver’s line:

Attention is the beginning of devotion.
Devotion, the beginning of prayer.
Attention sets curiosity in motion.
Curiosity is a form of care.

Attention can lead us to question.
all that we’ve been taught.
Compelling us not to rest on
the assumptions we have wrought.

Attention promotes belief
belief breaks us open,
spilling out a grief
that comes from loss of hope and

apathy, a monstrous twinning.
Attention is the beginning.

Wandering Two

Marilyn Nelson, “Crows”

“What if to taste and see, to notice things,
to stand each is up against emptiness
for a moment or an eternity—
images collected in consciousness
like a tree alone on the horizon—
is the main reason we’re on the planet….”

So many ways to connect this excerpt with my wanderings on the vertical yesterday! The tree. the horizon. The purpose of life.

This is makes me think of Krista Tippet’s interview with the poet Marie Howe. Howe has some thoughts about the is, which she calls the this, and how we struggle to “stand each is up against emptiness” (hover over the following quote to reveal the erasure poem):

“It hurts to be present, though, you know. I ask my students every week to write 10 observations of the actual world. It’s very hard for them. Just tell me what you saw this morning like in two lines. You know I saw a water glass on a brown tablecloth. Uh, and the light came through it in three places. No metaphor. And to resist metaphor is very difficult because you have to actually endure the thing itself, which hurts us for some reason….We want to — we want to say it was like this. It was like that. We want to look away, and to be, to be with a glass of water or to be with anything. And then they say well there’s nothing important enough. And then it’s whole thing is that point.”
Attention

attend to:
witness
keep vigil
be devoted

have a long attention span:
don’t forget
keep noticing
pay attention

give attention:
care
care for
care about

be curious:
wonder
imagine
believe

receive:
breathe in the this and breathe out the that
slowly absorb the is through your skin

note: So many more variations to do, including one with Simone Weil.

may 30/5.25 MILES

55 degrees
the franklin loop

A good run. Forgot that they were doing construction (again!) on my side of the Franklin bridge so I had to wait for the light, which takes a few minutes, to cross over to the path on the other side. As I waited, I didn’t run in place, but I did keep moving my legs. I was a bit restless. How funny did I look to drivers?

In my log entry for Sunday, I mentioned how the leaves had filled in on the trees in the woods near the stone steps. Later that day, I found a poem that connects and have been wandering through it. Did I think about it during my run today? I’m not sure. Here are some of my wanderings:

VERTICAL, wanderings

The Starting Point: a poem by Linda Pastan

Wandering One:

Vertical/Horizontal
Perhaps the purpose 
of life is to capture more energy than it takes to survive.
of leaves is photosynthesis
of animals is respiration: inspiration and expiration

Perhaps the purpose of leaves is
to create mystery and wonder: what’s in those woods?
to irritate and annoy: why can’t I see to the other side anymore?

Perhaps the purpose of leaves is to conceal
the gnarled limbs of trees, the textured trunks. Not frail, but tough. Ancient. Wise. 
the branches that stretch wide and far. Wandering. Interrupting hierarchies of sky and ground. Disrupting the seduction of the moon’s glow.

Perhaps the purpose of leaves is to conceal not the verticality, but the horizontality of trees which we notice in December as if for the first time: row after row of
twisted forms sprawling sideways.
weathered forms persisting stubbornly.
wise forms learning how to continue surviving.
ancient forms yearning upwards and spreading inwards and outwards.

Wandering Two: staying upright

“And since we will be
horizontal ourselves
for so long,
let us now honor
the gods
of the vertical…” (Paston)

“Sunday morning—23 degrees, both ponds frozen and glassy. Six miles. About an inch of ice on the trail—frozen snow-melt, frozen slush—but I managed to stay upright….What Wittgenstein wanted from philosophy in the second half of his career was a way to stay upright. ‘We have got onto slippery ice where there is no friction,’ he warned, turning his gaze away from perfection and trying to make out how people actually move and think and make connections…It’s the dailiness of these runs I like—” (Gardner, 54)

One goal of my running? Staying upright. Active. Moving. Grounded. Connected. In conversation with the world, with my body, with my breathing, with dreaming and wondering and real possibilities, rooted in the realities of my limits. Resisting restlessness.

Wandering Three: form

Pastan’s poem is vertical in form. Long and lean, stretching upwards.

“…most experts agree that ideal running form starts by keeping your upper torso straight (with a slight forward lean)….” Some suggest that you should think tall and look to the horizon. Like a tree, your trunk should be vertical, but with a slight lean. The purpose of good form: to be efficient and to conserve energy, which is especially important for long-distance runners.

In an interview with Krista Tippet, Michael Longley recalled something that the poet Stanley Kunitz wrote in the preface to one of this collections about form and conserving energy: “form was a way of conserving energy. Isn’t that wonderful? He said the energy soon leaks out of an ill-made work of art.” What forms work best for conserving energy? Is form that conserves always efficient?

Mary Oliver on form in Upstream: “Form is certainty. All nature knows this, and we have no greater adviser. Clouds have forms, porous and shape-shifting, bumptious [what a great word! “self-assertive or proud to an irritating degree.”], fleecy. They are what clouds need to be, to be clouds. See a flock of them come, on the sled of the wind, all kneeling above the blue sea. And in the blue water, see the dolphin built to leap, the sea mouse skittering; see the ropy kelp with its air-filled bladders tugging it upward; seee the albatross floating day after day on its three-jointed wings. Each form sets a tone, enables a destiny, strikes a note in the universe unlike any other. How can we ever stop looking? How can we ever turn away” (Upstream, 21)?

may 28/4 MILES

61 degrees
mississippi river road path, north

Sunny. Peaceful, even with the wind blowing. A wonderful morning to go for a relaxed, recovery run. Much too nice for headphones. Heard lots of birds and the wind rushing past my ears. Anything else? I smelled a few lilac bushes, bacon and eggs at Longfellow Grill. Saw runners and bikers and speed skaters on roller blades. A few walkers too. Noticed that the small wood that I’ve been tracking all spring, near the stone steps and adjacent to the sandy beach, is now completely filled in with leaves. All I see is green, which I mostly appreciate because green is my favorite color, but also lament because of the loss of my view straight through the wood. Which looks more mysterious and inviting: a wall of green with no way to know what’s behind it or a group of bare trees where everything is almost visible–the browns and purples of the dead leaves on the gorge floor, the blues and grays of the mississippi river, the light brown of the sandy beach–but not quite?

A Stand of Trees?

Would “stand of trees” work in my above description of “a group of bare trees”? I’ve seen that phrase used and wondered about it. Wikipedia describes a stand in the forest as: “A forest stand is a contiguous community of trees sufficiently uniform in composition, structure, age and size class distribution, spatial arrangement, site quality, condition, or location to distinguish it from adjacent communities.” What are some other ways to describes groupings of trees? What would you call the area below the gorge, near the beach? It’s not a forest, but is it woods? I’ll have to do some research.

What Color is the Sand by the Mississippi River?

In my above description, I just wrote: “light brown.” How boring! It’s made from limestone and sandstone–is that all? I need to take a walk to this beach so that I can properly describe the sand. I’m sure that Delia (my dog) would enjoy it. Maybe I’ll see some rowers out on the water, while I’m there.

As I’ve been running this past year, I’ve spent so much time alongside the Mississippi River Gorge. I’d like to pay more attention to the details of the landscape.

Random Source

Doing the search, “stand of trees poetry meaning,” I encountered this dissertation: The Language of Trees. Looks really cool.

I Tried Out a New Cap

Early in the week, I posted a writing experiment about the baseball cap that I always wear when I run. Today, I tried out a different cap and it seemed to work! Well, it’s not that different. Like my green one, it’s a twins baseball cap that’s easily adjustable with a cloth strap in the back. But, it’s bright blue instead of sweaty green. Not quite as big. Doesn’t smell. Isn’t fraying at the top. Not road tested, until today. I wonder what color it will be after a summer of sweaty, grimy running?

may 27/10 MILES

63 degrees
lake nokomis loop, long

Such a beautiful morning! Such a hard run! It felt tough from the start as I adjusted to running while carrying water. My legs seemed heavy and sore. It was not fun. Most of it was mental, I’m sure. At one point, I allowed the uncertainty to creep in: How can I run a 1/2 marathon in 5 weeks when I’m struggling to run 10 miles today? But I kept going and I managed to move past my doubt. I finished strong and very happy to be done.

At the midway point I reached Lake Nokomis. It’s all set up for summer with boats on the beach and buoys marking the swimming areas. Just a few more weeks until my favorite season of the year: Open Swim Season! I will get to swim back and forth across the lake, from the little beach to the big beach, as many times I want for two hours on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Sundays!

In honor of open swim and to keep a steady rhythm, I created a few running rhythms while I was running at the lake:

Open Swim
Open Swim
starts next month
starts next month

I will swim
I will swim
across the lake
across the lake

I will see
I will see
the orange buoy
the orange buoy

May 26/3.75 MILES

66 degrees
mississippi river road path, north

It’s amazing how 66 degrees can feel hot. My body needs to adjust to the warming temperatures. The run felt a bit harder, but it was okay. I can’t remember what I was thinking about as I ran. This is often the case. Thomas Gardiner refers to this feeling as “a bit like half sleep. when you’re awake, in a way, but aware of dreams passing in a kind of un-retraceable wandering” (7).  What do we do with these un-retraceable wanderings? Maybe nothing.

Right before running, I composed two acrostic poems. I had been reluctant to try this form because my only encounters with it were through reading the acrostic poems my kids created out of their names in second grade. It seemed like a form best suited for young kids. But, when I looked up the form on Academy of American Poets, I was intrigued by their description: “The intent of the acrostic is to reveal while attempting to conceal within the poem.” So I experimented with creating poems out of two words that I think about a lot when I’m running:

A Daily Reminder

How does it feel to face your limits, when you’re
unable to continue ignoring that
many others will always be faster, stronger,
in better shape,
live longer,
imagine wider, deeper?
This is not a tragedy.
Your liberation is found in this realization.

Can you Feel Them?

Electrons
live
everywhere.
Can you feel them?
Try.
Really try to
imagine what they feel like, where they are.
Count the
ions.
Try.
You can’t? They’re there, amplifying life and charging it with meaning.

During the run, I thought of another word I wanted to use. I wrote about it when I got back home:

Runner’s Kryptonite

Heavy and thick, feeling
Useless and lethargic
Moisture everywhere
Inside and out.
Don’t want to move. Running
Is hard, harder
Than usual
You have no idea how much I despise this.

So much fun! So far, I’ve experimented with the following forms in my poetry about running: abecedarian, acrostic, anaphora, cento, cinquain, erasure, limerick, terza rima, triolet. Yesterday, I wrote an anaphora poem for my description of the Franklin Loop and limericks for my description of a route I’m calling the Downtown loop, long.

Lake Street/Marshall Avenue Bridge
there is a long bridge with a name
that never does stay quite the same
You start out on Lake
but Marshall you take
if driving in St. Paul’s your aim

Franklin Hill
There once was girl who would run
up big hills ‘cause she thought it was fun
she never complained
although she was drained
Had she spent too much time in the sun?

Bohemian Flats
A place on the path is called Flats
the namer of this was quite bats
the more that you stare
the more you’re aware
the hills here outnumber the gnats!

Washington Avenue Bridge
The bridge that you next run under
makes noises that sound like thunder
if not a rain storm
beginning to form
could be the light rail, I wonder.

I-94 Bridge
A bridge here turns purple at night
in honor of Prince, a bright light
it guides your climb out
of perilous doubt
brought on by sore legs that feel tight.

The Guthrie
run down a short hill and you’ll see
a building that looks like a bee
well that’s not quite true
it’s not black, it is blue
but it sometimes looks black to me

Stone Arch
There once was a girl with gray hair
who ran anytime, anywhere.
She left for Stone Arch
the third day of March
as far as I know she’s still there.

Hennepin Avenue Bridge
there once was girl who would walk
her kid ‘cross this bridge quite a lot
she runs now instead
while her kid stays in bed
he’s grown and no longer a tot!

may 24/5.25 MILES

51 degrees
the franklin loop

I’ve run over 500 miles in 2017. That’s the most I’ve ever done by the end of May. Had a great run this morning. 51 degrees + not much wind + overcast = some of my favorite running conditions. Managed to hold onto some thoughts about Quatro’s ideas on running as prayer and its dis/connections with the runner’s high as a matter of endorphins. I recorded some notes into my voice memo app right before and after the run.

notes: before the run

experiments/wonder/curiosity/why are we curious?/for what purpose do we want to know?/what does it mean to know?/Sir Francis Bacon, exploiter of nature/the drive to know/to understand/to conquer/to control/to own/to use/to exploit/to scrutinize/to dissect/to name

notes: after the run

CONTROL/what about humility?/a curiosity motivated by the desire to feel, to experience, to engage/not to own and control and acquire

The Runner’s High

suddenly, without warning I am
exhilarated
euphoric
effervescent, bubbling over with feeling

sometimes I feel ecstatic
beside myself with joy
beside my shadow with delight
beside the world with reverence and awe
beside my mom with longing, regret, enduring love.

sometimes I feel enormous
capacious
if I stuck out my chest
and opened my mouth a bit wider
I could let in the whole world.

sometimes I feel electric
amplifying sounds
lighting up paths
nothing but pure energy,
a flow of electrons moving through the universe

how to explain these feelings?
are they chemically-induced delusions,
brought on by elevated levels of endorphins or endocannabinoids?
do we need to explain?
can we bear witness to their wonder,
be curious about their origins and impacts
write about them
study them
experiment with them
propose scientific theories about them
without knowing them?
naming and classifying them?
reducing them to chemicals?
claiming that we own the Truth?

I see wonder in the chemicals
their poetic names
their purposes
their possibilities
but only when our theories about them
don’t foreclose
other explanations
other ways of feeling and being.