5 miles
bottom of franklin and back
58 degrees
humidity: 91%
A good run. I’m looking forward to even cooler temps — I wore my shorts and a tank top, which is the same thing I’d wear on the warmest summer day. I wasn’t cold. When I started out, I felt good. Around 2 miles in, I didn’t feel as great but kept going. I planned to stop at the bottom of the hill and walk all of it, but when I got there I felt good enough to keep going. I made it almost to the very top before I stopped to walk for about a minute. Then I ran the rest of the way back.
10 Things I Noticed
- The path covered in leaves, making it difficult to see the edge of the asphalt
- Chirping birds — not sure what kind, but not geese or crows
- Circles–with minneapolis park logo or something else?–stamped into the trail. I saw at least 2
- The buzzing, whirring of a speeding back rushing past me at the top of the franklin hill
- The branches with red leaves poking out of the big hole at the edge of the trail heading down the hill
- Voice below, somewhere on the Winchell Trail
- A group of people — in their 60s, maybe — standing at the top of the old stone steps, contemplating whether or not to descend. One person saying, “It’s pretty rough” or “uneven” or “dicey down there” (I can’t remember their exact words)
- Someone on a fat tire, talking on a phone, powering up the steep franklin hill, not even out of breath — maybe they were on an ebike?
- A walker either talking to herself or through a (invisible, at least to me) bluetooth headset
- At least 2 different people walking with 2 dogs each, letting their dogs stretch out over the entire path
Chanted some berry triples: “strawberry, blueberry, raspberry” and recited Mary Oliver’s “Wild Geese” in my head. Didn’t get very far because I kept getting stuck on the second and third lines: “You do not have to walk on your knees/ for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.” I couldn’t remember the order of the clauses: was it walk for a hundred miles, or walk through the desert, or walk on your knees. Not sure why I struggle with this bit.
a theme for october?
I was just starting to write that I’d decided to devote the rest of October to the peripheral, but then, as I typed those words I suddenly thought about ghosts and monsters and october as a scary month. So now I’m not sure. Because I love Halloween and scary movies — at least ones from the 70s and 80s — I think I will spend some time with ghosts, and then maybe monsters, like Medusa. I could also try to find a poem or two about creepy dolls/mannequins. Maybe think about the uncanny valley some more? All of these things are fascinating to me, and have started appearing in my writing (and my thoughts about my writing). Haunting and haunted places; feeling not quite there, floating; dead people, things, ideas suddenly being remembered or forgotten.
I’ll start with a poem that I found in a special feature on ghosts in poems at poets.org:
Unbidden/ Rae Armantrout
The ghosts swarm.
They speak as one
person. Each
loves you. Each
has left something
undone.
•Did the palo verde
blush yellow
all at once?
Today’s edges
are so sharp
they might cut
anything that moved.
•The way a lost
word
will come back
unbidden.
You’re not interested
in it now,
only
in knowing
where it’s been.