bike: 20 minutes
run: 3.25 miles
basement
outside: 38 degrees
Warm enough outside, but wet, and I ran outside Sunday and Monday. And I needed to take a break and bike some today. Watched the next episode of Dickinson, which featured one of my favorite poems:
Before I got my eye put out–
I liked as well to see
As other creatures, that have eyes–
And know no other way–
And it deals with her temporary vision loss when she was in her mid 30s in 1863 and 1864. I wonder how they’ll end this episode? I’ll find out next time. In this season, she’s becoming much more of a recluse, barely leaving her room.
After the bike, I ran and listened to my playlist. I don’t remember what I thought about, except: 1. how many songs do I need to listen to before I check the time?, 2. raising my head, working on my posture, 3. lifting my right hip, 4. is all this running good for me, or will it give me arthritis and weaken me so much when I’m almost 80 that I sometimes struggle to move (which is what is happening to my dad right now)?, 4. who is that walking upstairs, making such loud thumping noises? That’s all I remember–oh, and looking at the lightbulb, reflected in the far window, which is dark because it’s under the deck, and no longer thinking it looked like a moon with clouds above Lake Superior (which is what I thought it looked like last February).
Between biking and running, I managed to not go upstairs to pee. One step closer to breaking that habit (or at least making sure it doesn’t fully form). It’s pretty mundane, but since my work is on ethics and ways of breaking and re-making habits (undisciplining), I’m always interested in our daily practices and how they become solidified into necessary and automatic actions. Often, we don’t notice them forming until it becomes very difficult to change them.
Yesterday, I listened to some amazing podcasts. First, I finished up the Ross Gay interview on Between the Covers. After I finish writing this entry, I’m planning to transcribe parts of it because they haven’t posted the transcript yet. Then, I listened to another interview with Ross Gay on Franny Choi’s and Danez Smith’s amazing podcast, VS. And, finally, I listened to their interview with Ada Limón.
I really appreciate what Limón says about what poetry does for us–and who it does it for:
I do feel like there’s a lot of “the arts will save us.” You know, there’s a part of me that really believes that, right? I mean, I believe that poetry can heal us and help us. But, I mean, if I’m very honest, I think they can only do that for the poet. (LAUGHS) And then they may, if we’re lucky, help someone else or move someone else or inspire someone else or get them out of a rut. But I think it begins with like, I write my own poems to save myself. You know, then if, in, you know, some series, lucky series of events, a poem becomes larger than me and reaches someone else, that’s, that’s beautiful. But I don’t always know that that’s gonna happen, right? I have to start by how is this poem recommitting me to the world?
VS Podcast Interview
Yes! How is this poem recommitting me to the world? And, I write to save myself.
a moment of sound
Today’s sound is water. Dripping water, whooshing water. Water slowly, almost, but not quite, silently absorbing into the ground.