Month: October 2020

oct 30/RUN

3.25 miles
turkey hollow
31 degrees

I love this weather for running! Right around freezing. Not much wind. Clear paths. No rain or snow or ice. Ran south on the river road trail, listening to an audio book. Near 42nd, I heard a wedge of geese honking as they flew south to my right, and a playground of kids, yelling and laughing to my left. Which was louder? Not sure. Ran by those same kids again later as I ran north. So loud–there’s no way they were wearing masks and I doubt they were keeping distance from each other. Is that safe?

Ran past turkey hollow looking for the turkeys. All of sudden, there they were. 7 or 8 of them bunched together in someone’s yard. So close to me. They gobbled and started running a little as I passed by. Nice!

Admired the river again. A wide open view.

The Friday before the election. Woke up this morning and made the mistake of scrolling through twitter and finding some tweets about how violent it might get if Trump loses. How worried should I be about this?

Thankfully twitter isn’t all bad. I only go on it because of the poetry people and all their posts about poems. Here’s one I found just now. I love the first stanza:

Black Cat/ Rainer Maria Rilke – 1875-1926

A ghost, though invisible, still is like a place
your sight can knock on, echoing; but here
within this thick black pelt, your strongest gaze
will be absorbed and utterly disappear:

just as a raving madman, when nothing else
can ease him, charges into his dark night
howling, pounds on the padded wall, and feels
the rage being taken in and pacified.

She seems to hide all looks that have ever fallen
into her, so that, like an audience,
she can look them over, menacing and sullen,
and curl to sleep with them. But all at once

as if awakened, she turns her face to yours;
and with a shock, you see yourself, tiny,
inside the golden amber of her eyeballs
suspended, like a prehistoric fly.

A ghost, though invisible, is still like a place
your sight can knock on, echoing; but here
within this thick black pelt, your strongest gaze
will be absorbed and utterly disappear

oct 29/RUN

3.2 miles
43rd ave, north/32nd st, east/edmund, south/river road trail, south/edmund, north
33 degrees

A nice run on a windy, gray morning. Still a few patches of snow on the grass. Most of the leaves off the trees. Everything brown and golden and rusty red and burnt orange. I love this time of year. Late fall. Everything almost bare but not yet covered in snow. Clear views of the river. Noticed my favorite late fall view, just past the oak savanna. Beautiful. I don’t remember seeing any bikers, just walkers and runners and one roller skier getting ready to start skiing up the hill on Edmund. No dogs or squirrels or coyotes.

Running past a modern house on Edmund–the house that was built last year on the extra lot next to a huge traditional 1980s-style house that was on the market for over a year but didn’t sell because it was too big and outdated and expensive (asking over a million)–I noticed some loud noises and white powder or smoke or something coming from the garage. Then I ran by a truck with the words “concrete specialists” on it and I guessed they were doing something with concrete. Maybe a poured concrete countertop? I hope so. I’d like one of those.

Listened to an audio book–The Alchemist’s Daughter–so I didn’t think about much or hear hardly anything except the narrator. Briefly I thought about how dreamy everything looks, all fuzzy and out of focus as I run. Partly because of the light, partly the motion, but mostly my vision. I want to write about this as a mood–dreamy? fuzzy? blurry? I was thinking I’d like to incorporate the line from a Diane Seuss poem, “the world italicized.”

Only a few days until Halloween and then election. Can it please be over? Can we please start trusting science and doctors and thinking again?

oct 27/RUN

3.2 miles
turkey hollow
17 degrees/ feels like 10

Coldest day of the season. Double tights + green shirt + orange sweatshirt + vest + buff + stocking cap. Sunny. I must have glanced at the river but I don’t remember what it looked like. Too busy trying to avoid other runners and walkers. A wonderful morning. I like (love?) this cold. Clears out the sinuses and keeps me from getting overheated. Running on Edmund, heading back home, I saw my shadow. It was nice to run with her. Thought about another mood ring poem: doubt. Had some ideas as I moved–something about how the doubt is related to the awe and the brain’s remarkable ability to enable me to keep seeing. It’s a relief but when I can still see I question whether my vision is really that bad. I doubt myself. I want to think more about doubt and what it means today. Here’s a poem to get me started.

My Doubt/ Jane Hirshfield – 1953-

I wake, doubt, beside you,
like a curtain half-open.

I dress doubting,
like a cup
undecided if it has been dropped.

I eat doubting,
work doubting,
go out to a dubious cafe with skeptical friends.

I go to sleep doubting myself,
as a herd of goats
sleep in a suddenly gone-quiet truck.

I dream you, doubt,
nightly—
for what is the meaning of dreaming
if not that all we are while inside it
is transient, amorphous, in question?

Left hand and right hand,
doubt, you are in me,
throwing a basketball, guiding my knife and my fork.
Left knee and right knee,
we run for a bus,
for a meeting that surely will end before we arrive.

I would like
to grow content in you, doubt,
as a double-hung window
settles obedient into its hidden pulleys and ropes.

I doubt I can do so:
your own counterweight governs my nights and my days.

As the knob of hung lead holds steady
the open mouth of a window,
you hold me,
my kneeling before you resistant, stubborn,
offering these furious praises
I can’t help but doubt you will ever be able to hear.

oct 26/BIKERUN

bike: 15 minutes
bike stand, basement

The first time biking since last April. Left my bike on the stand all summer, didn’t bike outside at all, partly because of the pandemic, partly because of my vision. My tires were totally flat. Started watching Enola Holmes. Not sure yet if I like it.

run: 1.75 miles
treadmill, basement

It wasn’t too cold or icy or windy outside but I felt like staying inside so I ran downstairs. Listened to a time capsule playlist on Spotify: She Don’t Use Jelly; Sabotage; Kiss; Freedom. If I would have kept going I could have also heard Cake’s I will Survive and Deee-Lite’s Groove is in the Heart. Oh well. Next time. I don’t remember thinking about much as I ran. My mind was shut off. I enjoyed the repetition and the movement and the absence of everything else.

For some reason, I’m feeling tired and unmotivated today. Maybe it’s because I’ve finished five mood ring poems and I’m not sure if I want to write any more. I’m very happy with them. Sometime soon I’d like to write about the process of creating them.

oct 25/RUN

3.15 miles
turkey hollow
28 degrees
snow flurries

Another colder day with some snow flurries. Ran by turkey hollow. Forgot to check for turkeys. Distracted by a dog with its owner on the far sidewalk. I do remember wondering (again) where the turkeys go in the snow. Are they up in the trees? Listened to a playlist as I ran. Started on the trail right above the river but when I encountered some people, crossed over to the grass between the river road and edmund. Cold, hard, packed dirt with some snow in the ruts. Not too difficult to run on. Yesterday’s snow was wet and steady, today’s was intermittent flurries swirling in the wind and in my face as I ran north. Noticed at least one bike but no fat tires or roller skiers. No groups of runners. No peloton on the road. Anything else? Noticed that I had a clearer view of the Oak Savanna. I wonder if one of my favorite winter views is clear? It’s the spot where the hill in the Savanna slopes down and suddenly the river appears.

Surfaces I Ran On

  • clear sidewalk
  • cold, hard road–I could hear my feet loudly striking the pavement
  • yellow leaves slightly slick with snow
  • green leaves, thick and soft
  • rutted, hard dirt
  • brittle grass

Watching the Vuelta a España with Scott. Today Primož Roglič crapped out on the final climb and lost the red jersey. Bummer. So strange to be watching a bike race while it’s snowing. It looked very wet and cold for the cyclists as they climbed the mountains.

Here’s a poem I discovered this morning. So lovely with such quiet grace.

Beginning/ JAMES WRIGHT

The moon drops one or two feathers into the field.   
The dark wheat listens.
Be still.
Now.
There they are, the moon’s young, trying
Their wings.
Between trees, a slender woman lifts up the lovely shadow
Of her face, and now she steps into the air, now she is gone
Wholly, into the air.
I stand alone by an elder tree, I do not dare breathe
Or move.
I listen.
The wheat leans back toward its own darkness,
And I lean toward mine.

oct 24/RUN

3.15 miles
river road trail, south/edmund, north/32nd st, west/43rd ave, south
28 degrees/ feels like 24

This weather! My favorite. Not much wind. Clear sky, clear path. Just below freezing. So much easier to breathe. I felt tired this morning and wasn’t sure if I should run or not. So glad I did. Noticed the river today; clear but no sheets of ice yet. Smelled smoke from a fireplace and some hot chocolate. Saw a fat tire heading down to the Winchell Trail, a roller skier who didn’t move over far enough (or at all) on the upper trail. Most of the leaves are off of the trees in the boulevard. Heard some kids playing at the playground by Cooper School. Admired some bright yellow leaves as I ran over them in the street. Anything else? Didn’t hear any geese or crows. No near collisions with spazzy squirrels. No dogs or large groups of runners or loud talkers.

Thinking more about my latest mood ring poem and what name to give it. Initially it was acceptance, then persistence. I mentioned resilience to Scott and he liked it. I’m thinking about the last line of the inner poem: ” Hear the water slowly seep through the limestone down to the river.” I see myself as the water, not the limestone. Not slowly being worn away until I no longer exist but continuing to find a way to the river, no matter what obstacle is in my way. This seems more like persistence than resilience but I’m not sure. I looked it up in the online OED and found this helpful definition:

5. The quality or fact of being able to recover quickly or easily from, or resist being affected by, a misfortune, shock, illness, etc.; robustness; adaptability.

The image of the water eroding the limestone doesn’t seem to fit here. I think it would be better if I used another gorge image: the vegetation that perpetually finds a way to poke through fence slats or bust through asphalt. Yes, I like this better.

Returning to my discussion of limestone, I claimed that I see myself more like water than the limestone. Not always, and that’s not a bad thing. Sometimes I’d like to be the limestone. The eroding of limestone could be like the losing of the self (hubris, worries, being overly attached to status and material things, fear of death, false beliefs in control and invincibility). Not sure if that makes sense, but I think it’s the start for a different poem.

oct 23/RUN

3.2 miles
turkey hollow
33 degrees
wet snow

It was snowing, I think. Or was it raining? So wet it was hard to tell. Just on the edge. I didn’t mind. Another day with hardly anyone out on the trail. Wore a baseball cap today to shield my eyes. No sharp shards only soft, wet drops. I remember hearing at least one crow cawing but forgot to look down at the river. I wonder if there were any chunks of ice on it?

Ran past turkey hollow and searched for turkeys. Where do they go when it snows? Do they live under the branches of an evergreen tree? Under the bridge? I just looked it up and discovered that wild turkeys roost in trees at night. Which trees? Where? Now I’m imagining taking a walk at night and passing under a tree loaded with turkeys. What a strange sight that would be!

The sidewalk was wet but not slick or snow-covered. I thought about the inner part of a mood ring poem I’m doing about acceptance. Trying to build on my line: Sink deep into sensations other than sight. I though about feeling the river or smelling it? Tasting the air seasoned with mulching leaves? Striking the soft ground?

(a few hours later) Here’s a completed draft of my acceptance mood ring. I can’t decide if acceptance is the right word for describing this mood.

oct 22/RUN

2.15 miles
43rd ave, north/32nd st, east/edmund, south
33 degrees
tiny and sharp snow

Rain and snow coming later this morning so I tried to get out early before it started. Ended up running most of it in the snow–small, sharp pellets that felt like little knives on my face. I wish I would have worn my visor or glasses. I was concerned that the snow might cut my eyes–although it doesn’t really matter for me because my retina is already pretty thin and damaged. (Writing this in my front office, I suddenly saw a flash. Was that lightening? Then thunder. Holy shit. Snow then thunder and lightening. What’s next?)

I was the only fool out there and I loved it. I didn’t mind the weather, except for the sharp shards on my face. The rest of me was completely covered and warm. I didn’t have to worry about avoiding people. It wasn’t slippery. If all winter running could be like this–the uncrowded, not slippery paths–I would be happy.

It was dark and out of focus and other-worldly outside. And loud! The falling snow or freezing rain or sleet or whatever it was was so loud. When I got home, I did a recording.

falling snow, 22 october

I ran past the aspen eyes and by the house that finally sold and several trees still covered in orange leaves. I recited the excerpt from October by May Swenson that I memorized a few days ago. Favorite lines:

See, along the scarcely gliding stream
the blanched, diminished, ragged
swamp and woods the sun still spills into

and

Reversing his perch, he says one
“Chuck.”

It’s fun to say the word, “chuck.”

oct 21/RUN

2.1 miles
river road trail, south/42nd st/edmund, north
35 degrees

7.9 inches of heavy wet snow yesterday. I wasn’t excited about it but I also wasn’t upset. This morning, after shoveling the front sidewalk and the deck, I took Delia for a walk. Wonderful. No wind. Above freezing. Quiet, beautiful snow. Fresh cold air. We walked 2 slow blocks and I breathed deeply and realized that I love winter and being outside in this air, able to breathe without worry or panic. I felt calm, relaxed. Winter will help me get through all of this.

A few hours later, I went out for a short run. Running this winter will be more difficult. Narrower paths with no where to go when others are coming. I will have to start wearing a mask or my yak trax all the time and run in the snow. Or maybe I’ll just run earlier? The path was clear; they must have plowed it this morning. I don’t remember looking at the river or the snow. Did I? I had planned to recite the poem I memorized yesterday but I forgot. On my walk, I noticed a huge limb (or limbs?) of a tree bent down, leaning onto the street, barely hanging on. I forgot to check if it had fallen or been moved as I headed back from my run.

Today’s October Surprise

Yesterday’s snow decorated our backyard trees, leaving thick slabs of white on the limbs. It was especially pretty on the crabapple tree which is loaded to its very tips with tiny red apples that up until a few years ago, when RJP figured out what they actually are, we thought were cherries. The red, covered in white snow, made the entire tree glow pink. And not just to me with my limited color vision. I asked my son and he saw the pink too. Very cool.

oct 20/RUN

3.15 miles
2 trails!
31 degrees

One last run before the snow comes. We’re supposed to get 4-7 inches of snow today. Snow can come early here, but never this much this early. In fact, if we get 4 inches, it will be a new record. What will the trails/roads be like this winter? In the winter I always run on the trails because Minneapolis Parks does a great job of clearing them right away, usually much faster than the road or sidewalks. How crowded will the trails be this winter? I might have to start running with my mask.

Hardly anyone out on the trail this morning. I decided to go for it and head down to the Winchell Trail after turning around and heading north. I only encountered one other runner and no walkers. It was gorgeous, especially the stretch between the 44th street parking lot and 42nd street. Wow! There the leaf-covered trail hugs the side of the bluff. I had to focus on the uneven trail most of the time, but once or twice I quickly glanced down the steep, high bank to the river. Nearing 42nd, the trail curves up and out and at one point you feel like you could run straight off the edge. Amazing! I love this trail. I wish it were wider and longer.

I recited the first half of the October poem by May Swenson I posted yesterday as I ran. I struggled to remember the last line about the roots. I never could so, when I stopped running, I looked it up on my phone and then repeated it several times: “sprawled roots exposed. sprawled roots exposed. sprawled roots exposed.” I’m a little rusty with the memorizing since I haven’t done it in a few months.

Update on the ultra marathon I wrote about yesterday. It is a World Championship and the US runners were competing against other countries virtually. The 2 US runners made it to loop 67 (283 miles). Heading out for loop 68, Harvey Lewis was hallucinating so much that he turned around and came back. Courtney Dauwalter completed the loop and won. Sabbe Karel, a runner for Belgium, eventually won the race completing 75! loops, which is 312 miles or almost an entire marathon more that either US runner. Holy shit. How can a body run that much almost continuously?

In honor of the impending snow (which I am mostly okay with because I love snow and winter and cold, fresh air and watching fluffy flakes from my window and running through it and listening to it crunch under my feet), here’s an Emily Dickinson poem I found a few days ago:

Snow flakes. (45)/ Emily Dickinson

I counted till they danced so
Their slippers leaped the town –
And then I took a pencil
To note the rebels down –
And then they grew so jolly
I did resign the prig –
And ten of my once stately toes
Are marshalled for a jig!

I had to look it up. Prig is a fussy, self-righteous, stuffy person who is too proper to enjoy snow. Dickinson’s idea of snow as irresistibly delightful reminds me of one of my favorite Robert Frost poems:

Dust of Snow/ Robert Frost

The way a crow
Shook down on me
The dust of snow
From a hemlock tree

Has given my heart
A change of mood
And saved some part
Of a day I had rued.