Month: July 2021

july 21/RUNSWIM

run: 3.55 miles
2 trails
68 degrees
air quality warning, smoke from fires in canada

The air didn’t feel too smoky this morning, not hard to breathe. Overcast. A dark green. For a few minutes, heard a roller skier approaching from behind, their ski poles click click click clicking. Encountered more runners than walkers, a few bikers. Turned down at 44th to the start of the Winchell Trail. A wonderful dark, mysterious green. Heard the steady dripping of the sewer pipe. Also heard the rowers on the river. 2 coxswains, 1 male and 1 female, instructing the rowers: “Make sure you use your legs in the first half of your stroke. It should be mostly legs.”

Last week I mentioned to STA that there was some asphalt on the part of the dirt trail between 38th and the savanna. He didn’t think so. Today, running, I noticed that it was almost all dirt, but that there were a few chunks of asphalt–at least it looked like asphalt to me as I ran by it. Was it? I think so. How long ago was this trail abandoned to the dirt–the glacial till? The chain link fence beside it is in rough shape–this is the spot where there’s a tree trunk growing through the fence and a fence growing out of the tree limbs. Was it in the last century–the 1980s or 90s–that they repaired the fence or repaved the trail here?

Ran by the ravine up the steep gravel hill. Past the overlook and the ancient boulder–no stacked stones today. Down through the tunnel of trees, voices floating up from below. Rowers on the river, or hikers on the trail?

Speaking of trees growing through things, which I was just a minute ago, I found this wonderful twitter thread a few days ago about things to google when you feel bad (to make you feel better). Excellent.

And here’s a poem I discovered by W.S. Merwin that is wonderful:

Exercise/ W.S. Merwin (may 1972)

First forget what time it is
for an hour
do it regularly every day

then forget what day of the week it is
do this regularly for a week
then forget what country you are in
and practise doing it in company
for a week
then do them together
for a week
with as few breaks as possible

follow these by forgetting how to add
or to subtract
it makes no difference
you can change them around
after a week
both will help you later
to forget how to count

forget how to count
starting with your own age
starting with how to count backward
starting with even numbers
starting with Roman numerals
starting with the old calendar
going on to the old alphabet
going on to the alphabet
until everything is continuous again
go on to forgetting elements
starting with water
proceeding to earth
rising in fire

forget fire

swim: 2.25 miles / 6 loops
cedar lake open swim
85 degrees

Another wonderful swim! Windy. The water wasn’t choppy, but it was moving. Pushing everything off course, including the buoy. I didn’t notice it in my first loop until I realized I was way off course–far into the other side, almost swimming parallel to the shore instead of towards it. In other years, this would have bothered me. Not today. No panic or fear or frustration. Just getting back on course. This year, I am enjoying the challenge of figuring out how to adjust. Tonight the solution: swim hard at an angle into the current. At times, it felt like I was swimming in place. I wonder how many others swimmers enjoy this like I do?

The milfoil or whatever aquatic vegetation it is (I couldn’t find any more information), felt feathery today as it brushed past my arm and shoulder. The vegetation is thicker, growing up from below, at Hidden/East Beach, but in the middle of the lake, there were only a few stray plants being carried by the current.

Anything else I can remember? My left (OG) knee felt a little sore, so did my back. I don’t recall hear any strange sounds. No music or snippets of conversation. At one point, I thought I saw some big and dark hulk off to the side. Was something there? I never checked. In my first loop, I thought I saw the lifeguard on a kayak marking the edge of the course so I swam slightly away from them. Realized it was the buoy. Later, thought I was swimming towards the far buoy, realized it was a lifeguard. My skin felt itchy after I exited the water, on the drive home.

july 20/SWIM

2 loops/2 miles
lake nokomis open swim
88 degrees
air quality warning: smoke from canada

A strange night. Very hazy from the wildfires in Canada. Choppy water. Right as we were about to start, the lifeguards cleared the beach. I couldn’t see it, but I think someone had to be rescued. I’m assuming they’re okay because there was no ambulance and we were able to get in the water just a few minutes late. So crowded! Lots of people at the beach because of the heat, tons of open water swimmers. They’re must be a triathlon soon that people are training for.

The far green buoy, the one closest to the little beach, was not close at all. As far out to the left as I’ve seen it. Every week it’s different. I am so happy to know that this doesn’t bother me at all. I’m not worried about getting off course or needing to stop and check where the buoy is. I’m confident I’ll eventually find it and I won’t get lost in the middle–how could I? I know this lake very well by now. Instead of scaring me, when I can’t find the buoy, I enjoy the challenge. I look for the splash of an arm, or keep swimming in the direction I think it is, knowing that it will show up…eventually. Building up this confidence in the water, makes me believe that I can be okay on land too, even when I can’t see.

The moment of the night

I’ve just rounded the ridiculously far out green buoy for the first time. It’s so far that it’s right by all of the sailboats. Later I joked with STA that I was swimming in the shipping lane. The air is very hazy from smoke. The water is choppy. No whitecaps, just rough water that throws you around a bit. Suddenly, a line of military planes flies over the lake, low and loud. What the hell is going on? I felt like I was in a scene from Apocalypse Now. Surreal.

I only swam 2 loops which I think was the right call. Too smoky. Too hard to breathe. Hopefully this smoke will have cleared by Thursday.

Looked up “smoke water poem” and found this great one by the wonderful poet, Jane Kenyon:

The Pond at Dusk/ JANE KENYON

A fly wounds the water but the wound   
soon heals. Swallows tilt and twitter   
overhead, dropping now and then toward   
the outward-radiating evidence of food.

The green haze on the trees changes   
into leaves, and what looks like smoke   
floating over the neighbor’s barn   
is only apple blossoms.

But sometimes what looks like disaster   
is disaster: the day comes at last,
and the men struggle with the casket   
just clearing the pews.

Wow. Earlier today, I was thinking and writing about how we don’t leave a trace/evidence in the water. No footprints or trampled down grass. The first bit of this poem reminded me of that–the fly that wounds the water but that wound soon heals. I love the idea of a tree’s green haze turning into leaves. Often when I look at trees, they’re just a blur of soft green–fuzzy, hazy. And both the smoke that wasn’t smoke and the disaster that was a disaster. What an ending!

july 19/RUNSWIM

run: 3.5 miles
austin, mn
62 degrees
humidity: 96% / dew point: 60

Cool but humid. Ran through Austin with Scott. We were in town, but parts of it felt like running through the country, especially the parts with narrow, windy roads and no sidewalks. Reminded me of rural North Carolina where I lived from ages 4-9, and where I would, on the rare occasion, “run” with my mom. A fuzzy memory: asking to run with her, becoming separated when I couldn’t keep up, getting trapped for a few minutes by a loose, barking dog (no leash laws in rural early 1980s North Carolina). How much did the Austin landscape really resemble Hickory, NC? Probably not that much, but enough to trigger this memory and make me look around for any loose dogs that might be about to attack.

swim: 2 miles / 5 cedar lake loops
cedar lake open swim
85 degrees

Back in Minneapolis in the late afternoon. Went to open swim at Cedar Lake. Wow, the water was warm near the shore. Almost too warm. Wore my new suit, my birthday suit–the one I bought with birthday money from Scott’s parents. The “birthday suit” joke never gets old for me. I remember turning 7 or 8 or 9 and getting a bathing suit for my birthday. I ran around the neighborhood, wrapped in a towel, looking like that was all I was wearing, and calling out to anyone nearby: “Want to see my birthday suit?” I’d open the towel, show them my suit, and laugh at their surprise–and relief, I’m sure, to see that I wasn’t naked. I was one of those irritating kids.

I think my central vision is getting a little worse. It’s harder to sight the orange buoys, even when the water is calm, the sun hidden. It doesn’t matter too much because I don’t really need the buoys to know where I’m going. I love my brain and whatever else in my body that’s allowing me to gradually adjust to this loss so that by the time it gets worse, I’ve already adapted enough that it doesn’t matter. Do most people have this experience when they’re losing something?

The swim was great. Earlier in the season, I was criticizing this lake, writing about how I wasn’t chill enough for it, but now I love it again. It feels more like a lake up north than one at the edge of Minneapolis. Gravel trails, no buildings, canoes and kayaks everywhere. What a great night for a swim! I felt buoyant and fast and confident. No planes flying overhead, circling like sharks. Only water and a clear landmark to sight: the split in the trees at the beach. Couldn’t see below me–at its deepest point, the lake is 51 feet down. I wonder if that’s anywhere near where I swim? Had a few encounters with vegetation. Scratchy.

Here’s a poem by Ellen Bass that I found on twitter. I’m posting it for the water image, but the idea of loving the world, in spite of its awfulness, resonates for me too.

The Thing Is/ Ellen Bass

to love life, to love it even
when you have no stomach for it
and everything you’ve held dear
crumbles like burnt paper in your hands,
your throat filled with the silt of it.
When grief sits with you, its tropical heat
thickening the air, heavy as water
more fit for gills than lungs;
when grief weights you like your own flesh
only more of it, an obesity of grief,
you think, How can a body withstand this?
Then you hold life like a face
between your palms, a plain face,
no charming smile, no violent eyes,
and you say, yes, I will take you
I will you love you, again.

Thinking about the image of water as heavy, making the air harder to breathe. When I’m running, and it’s hot, the wet air feels heavy and thick on my skin. Oppressive. But when I’m in the lake, swimming, the water feels light, free. Breathing is much easier for me. Somehow, I don’t need to do it as much, even while I’m wearing a nose plug and can only breathe through my mouth. The more I swim, the less I need to breathe. Every five strokes, then every six or seven. To love life, I don’t want to hold it in my hands and look at it, I want to swim in it. What to do with this image/metaphor?

july 18/SWIM

2 miles/ 2 loops
lake nokomis open swim
77 degrees

Another wonderful morning for open swim. It was bright and warm and calm. So bright I could barely keep my eyes open, but once I was in the water, it didn’t matter. I could still see the flash of silver from the bottom of the rowboat at the little beach. I felt strong and confident and happy. I didn’t feel like a fish today, but a boat–a kayak or a small shell, my feet as rudders.

Didn’t see any fish, but several vines entangled me, and when I took my suit off after the swim, I saw that I had taken some of them with me. More than sand and silt under my suit today–leaves and vines too.

Noticed a bird flying above me, and then a few planes. They all looked the same size. Thought about how much perspective changes in the water. Big buoys look tiny, planes look like birds, dragonflies look like planes. Very cool.

Here’s a lovely poem that might fit better with water and stone then just water:

Balance/ Alice B. Fogel

Balance is everything, is the only
way to hold on.
I’ve weighed the alternatives, the hold
as harbor: It isn’t safe
to let go. But consider the hover,
choices made, the moment
between later and too late.
Hesitation is later, regret
too late. You can’t keep turning
and turning, or expecting
to return. This earth

is not a wheel, it is a rock
that erodes, mountain by mountain.
And I have been too soft,
like sandstone, but there is a point
where I stand without a story,
immutable and moved, solid
as a breath in winter air.

I have seen my death and I know
it is my neighbor, my brother,
my keeper. In my life
I am going to keep trying
for the balance,

remembering the risks and the value
of extremes, and that experience
teaches the length of allowable lean;
that it is easier — and wiser —
to balance a stone as if on one toe
though it weigh a hundred pounds

than to push it back against the curve
of its own world.

july 17/RUN

4 miles
marshall loop
69 degrees
humidity: 79% / dew point: 62

10 Things I Noticed On My Run

  1. A shell with a single rower, from above on the marshall bridge. I wondered if they saw me too until I remembered, and then saw, rowers row with their backs leading.
  2. No stones stacked on the ancient boulder.
  3. The river was calm, blue. Saw a small log from high above on the bridge; it looked so tiny and far away.
  4. 2 young (younger than me, at least) runners passed, running much faster. A snippet of their conversation–R1: That was when you just started running again…. R2: Yes, after I recovered from the blood clots in my leg. Not 1, but 2 blood clots.
  5. Brown, dead leaves covering the path for a brief stretch. It looked like they had been dragged from the brush. Why?
  6. The loud buzz, crackle of a cicada.
  7. My right knee feeling a bit strange, almost like the kneecap wasn’t quite in the groove. Almost, but not quite.
  8. A kid approaching me on his bike as I ran over the bridge, doing a great job of staying to his side. Almost wanted to call out and tell their parent what a great job he was doing.
  9. Hearing a beeping sound down in the river, wondering if it was the start of a rowing race, never figuring out what it was.
  10. Running through the Minneahaha Academy parking lot, hearing someone on the field, wondered if they were playing golf

july 16/BIKESWIMBIKE

bike: 8.6 miles
lake nokomis and back
77 degrees

A great morning for a bike ride! I love that there’s open swim at lake nokomis on friday mornings. It was an easy bike ride, mostly because I didn’t have to pass anyone and I didn’t encounter any unexpected obstacles. I noticed that I always look for traffic when I’m crossing, but more often I’m listening for it. This works for most cars, but not for bikes. I need to remember that and try to look and listen extra carefully for the whirr of wheels.

swim: 2 miles/2 loops
lake nokomis open swim
77 degrees

Such a great swim! It was bright and impossible to see the buoys on the way to the little beach, but I could see the little overturned rowboat, shining in the sun on the shore. Rounding the white buoy, I could see both of the green buoys on the way back. Not always, but enough to know where I was going. The water wasn’t too warm or too cold, although I recall swimming through pockets of both much warmer and much colder. The water was also smooth and easy and fast. I felt strong and steady, gliding through the water, pretending to be a fish. There were several dozen other swimmers, but mostly I felt like I was the only one in the water. No worries or expectations or responsibilities, just me and water–and a few strands of vegetation that kept wrapping themselves around my shoulder.

sighting a green buoy

If I stop at the white buoy near the little beach to look for the green buoys and I’m able to see them, I can usually see little triangles sitting on the surface. Once I start swimming, the most I can see is a green dot. As I get closer, the green dot often loses its color and begins to look like a hulking shape–a boat? a person? some strange thing floating in the water. Even when I’m not too far way, the buoy looks tiny. Only when I’m right next to it, can I see it fully–its green color, large size, triangular shape. Is this how normally sighted people see the green buoys? One day, I’ll ask someone else in open swim–maybe I’ll post a message on facebook and ask other swimmers if they’d be willing to talk to me about what they see? That might be cool.

july 15/RUNSWIM

run: 3.5 miles
2 trails
67 degrees

Ah, what a run! Slightly cooler, relaxed. On the Winchell Trail, about halfway done, heard water dripping out of the sewer and got lost in the sound and the words I could use for it: sprinkling, tinkling, shimmering, twinkling…not sputtering. A steady, pleasing rhythm of drips and drops.

At some point, it looks like most of the Winchell Trail was asphalt. Now, some of that asphalt has surrendered to the dirt, especially in the stretch between the start of the trail at 44th to 42nd and also north of the 38th street steps. As I ran past 38th, heading towards the oak savanna, I wondered: How long does it take for asphalt to crumble? To revert to dirt? How many foot steps? How many rain drops? Spring seeps? Sewer drips? Wheel ruts?

Ran up the hill past the ravine with the concrete then limestone ledges. Loose gravel. Difficult to ascend. On other paved hills, I ran up steep slopes on the tips of my toes. Running down, I could hear my left foot slap the asphalt. Heard lots of birds–not specific birds, just birds. Also heard a roller skier and a large group of kids–a summer camp?–yelling and laughing and rushing down the hill between Edmund and the river road. Encountered a series of pairs of walkers, two by two by two. Felt strong and steady and wonderfully lost in the acts of moving and breathing and being outside.

Returning to the question of how long it takes for asphalt to surrender to dirt, I’m reminded of Eamon Grennan’s wonderful poem about erosion in which he laments never having seen that moment, after countless years of slow, relentless erosion, when water and stone, flux and solidity, sea-roar and land-groan meet. Such a great poem! Asphalt erosion involves the clashing–or coming together–of water and stone, but not with such a dramatic conclusion, at least not on the trail. Just a slow, steady sink into the dirt as groundwater seeps down from above. Grennan’s poem also reminds me of the name the Ojibwe gave for the falls at St. Anthony: Gakaabika or severed rock. And, the idea of never witnessing these big moments and/or the slow, steady break down or build up of something reminds me of a poem I wrote for my collection of poems about seeing and swimming. I want to work on all of these poems for the rest of the summer. Revise them, rethink them, reshape them:

DETRITUS/ Sara Lynne Puotinen

No matter how hard I try to concentrate
I can’t seem to see the slimy sand seeping
inside, settling on my skin
but it’s always there when I take off my suit.

I marvel at the unnoticed murk I have carried with me
streaks on my stomach, half moons under my breasts
then wash it off
before my skin turns red and my mood too dark.

Even as the murk dissolves down the drain
the lake never leaves
I smell it in my suit days later
feel it in my dreams all winter.

With some more work, I think this poem has potential.
update, 12/28/21: Yes, it does. I added more, and turned it into a poem titled, “Haunting”.

swim: 3 miles
lake nokomis open swim
82 degrees

What a swim! A perfect night for swimming and then meeting STA for a beer at Sandcastle. Swam three loops and felt strong and fast. The first green buoy, on the way back to the big beach, was as far to the right, close to the sailboats, as it has ever been. At first I was irritated by how far out it was, but then I was glad. A challenge! A chance to test my sighting skills and an opportunity to swim farther into the lake. Yes!

july 14/RUN

3.25 miles
trestle turn around
73 degrees
humidity: 80%/ dew point: 67

It is supposed to rain for most of the day, starting in the late morning. Decided to run before it started. Hot and thick. Sweaty. Listened to my playlist, starting with my song of the summer: Lorde’s Solar Power. Felt strong. I think all the swimming is strengthening my hips and legs and back. Greeted Dave the Daily Walker twice. Heard the rowers when I stopped briefly at the trestle. Avoided a group of runners near the spot above the Minneapolis Rowing Club. I can’t remember any of my thoughts. Got lost for 30 minutes.

Here’s a great poem that fits better with June’s theme of water and stone, but I’m posting it anyway. It’s from her new collection, out at the end of this month, Goldenrod!

Wife for Scale/ Maggie Smith

This is a tender age––and in geologic time,
hardly an age at all. But a golden band

of rock, pressed paper-thin, will stand
for these years, a kind of scientific

shorthand. Once I had a professor
whose wife was in every photo he took

of rock formations. He’d click through
slide after slide, saying: My wife for scale.

Isn’t there always a woman in the picture
and isn’t she always small in comparison?

Forgive me: that was my grief talking.
Tell me: how do I teach myself to be alone?

The strata for this age will not be the first
to reveal what salt does to stone, as if

a sea had been here and not sadness only.
Tell me: with God a question, where

is solace but in the earth? The soul
I’m standing on in this moment–––

even as it shifts beneath my feet, as it gives
and cannot hold me—will be rock.

Love this poem!

july 13/RUNBIKESWIMBIKE

run: 3.5 miles
2 trails
73 degrees/ sunny

Warm this morning, sunny too. Decided to try and run as slowly and steadily as I could using my heart rate. I soon realized that I couldn’t see the heart rate on my watch because it’s in red. My cone dystrophy and my struggle with colors and low contrast, makes red on a dark background especially hard to see. All this time, I’ve been looking at my cadence, which is in white. Why can’t the heart rate be in white too? I need more contrast. Looking through the accessibility options, there’s no way to change the color of the heart rate in a running workout.* Later, walking Delia, I noticed that the heart rate is white in the walk workout. Should I try running with the walk workout on? Yes. Another hack for how to make my eyes work in new ways.

*update: Was telling my 15 year old daughter RJP how I was planning to hack the watch. She told me that I can just twist the crown on the side of the watch to make the bpms white instead of red–when something is red that means it’s highlighted. I don’t think I ever would have figured this one out without her help. Such a apple genius. She should get a job at an apple store.

It was a good run. Everything felt fuzzy and dreamy, like I was swimming in air, not quite there. A great feeling. I don’t remember much. I was sweating a lot and I think I swallowed a bug. I remember hearing some birds, but not how their songs sounded. I saw the river–very blue. I put some effort into loving the world and everyone I encountered–not getting irritated by approaching runners, or trail hogging bikers. Mostly, it worked. I heard some trickling through the sewer pipes. I don’t remember smelling anything. No spazzy squirrels, but one darting chipmunk. Not too many bugs–just the one I might have swallowed. Oh–I saw a peleton on the road, not tightly packed but strung out in a long-ish line. Also heard the rowers just as I was leaving the river trail.

a few delightful verses by Lorine Niedecker

We are what the seas
have made us
longing immense
the very veery
on the fence

*

The eye
of the leaf
into leaf
and all parts
spine
into spine
neverending
head

to see

*

For best work
you ought to put forth
some effort
to stand
in north woods
among birch

*

We must pull
the curtains—
we haven’t any
leaves

bike: 8.6 miles
lake nokomis and back
88 degrees

Very happy that biking is not too bad this year. Not really scary at all. No feeling of panic, no moments where I can’t quite see what’s in front of me.

swim: 3 miles/3 loops
lake nokomis open swim
88 degrees/ windy
choppy, wavy water

Yes! Big swells today. At least, big for this lake. I don’t mind the choppy water. I like the challenge and the feeling of being pushed around by the water. The buoys (even more) often disappeared in the waves; swimmers did too. I had no problem staying on course. When I could hardly see anything, which was most of the time–due to the waves and the haze from fires in Ontario–I could always see the hovering, shimmering roof at the big beach.

july 12/RUN

5k
downtown loop
82 degrees

Ran downtown with STA during FWA’s clarinet lesson. Only 3 more and he’s done. He’s been taking them since 5th grade. 8 years. Wow.

Hot and bright sun, but we ran slow and steady so it was fine. Running over the Plymouth Ave bridge, saw a boat below. 1/2 mile later, saw the same boat just ahead. Anything else? Running on Nicollet Island, right in front of The Nicollet Island Inn, smelled something foul, like horse poop. Do they have carriage rides again at the Inn? Encountered lots of lyft scooters, some bikers, runners, walkers. A nice, easy, sweaty run.