3.2 miles
ford bridge turn around
32 degrees
10% snow-covered
A gray day. A little wind. Warmer weather. Decided to turn right at the river instead of left. Wanting to see my new favorite view: the spot at the edge of the oak savanna when the river is revealed. This view is not possible in the spring and summer, when the leaves are back on the trees. Today, I barely saw it because of the 3 or 4 walkers passing by right at the same time I was approaching it. Boo. The run felt hard on sore legs. Did my triplet chant again: raspberry/ blueberry/ blackberry. Passed a hiker climbing out of the gorge near 42nd street. Heard another one still down on the lower trail. Saw a dog or two. At least one other runner. No fat tires.
I have been thinking about erosion for the past few days as I’ve been wondering about openness and openings and the gorge and its many seeps and leaks and fissures and cracks. Yesterday I wrote in my notes: erosion creates more room/ wearing down faulty foundations/ carving out new spaces I’m trying to figure out what to do with the idea of erosion and its positive and negative connections with unlearning/ becoming undone. Scrolling through my twitter feed, I found out about Terry Tempest Williams’ new book, Erosion: Essays of Undoing. Yes! I must check this out.
While reading an interview with Williams, I encountered this quotation by David Orr from his commencement speech, “What is an Education For?“:
The plain fact is that the planet does not need more “successful” people. But it does desperately need more peacemakers, healers, restorers, storytellers, and lovers of every shape and form. It needs people who live well in their places. It needs people of moral courage willing to join the fight to make the world habitable and humane. And these needs have little to do with success as our culture has defined it.