4.75 miles
Veteran’s Home Loop
32 degrees / feels like 26
Colder today. Traces of snow on the ground. Most of the trees bare. Alone on the trail for much of it. Wonderful. Working on a poem about feeling like a ghost, mostly because of my vision — fuzzy, out of focus, disconnected. Thought about that every so often during the run. Stopped on the grounds of the Veteran’s home to record an idea about not feeling fizzy but flat, or a flat fizz? Not so much light but weighted/heavy with distance and separation and invisible layers. Almost protected, wrapped. But…do I feel heavy or something else? Weightless but not light or heavy because in my untethered state, lightness or heaviness aren’t felt so they can’t be used for reference. I am a hovering ghost who is not heavy or light but hidden, unnoticed, lacking substance, insubstantial. Thinking about this more, it might seem like being unnoticed or disconnected is bad/unfortunate/a bummer. Occasionally it is, but mostly I like the freedom it gives me, the chance to observe without being bothered or judged or distracted. Plus, this feeling of being on but not on the path, insulated, is trippy and cool, strange, surreal.
10 Things I Noticed
- Entering Minnehaha Regional Park, nearing the falls: the grass was white with snow, the trail was dry and dark gray, the trees light green. A jarring contrast. Spearmint or peppermint popped into my head
- Rushing gushing falls churning white foam
- Above the falls on the other side of the creek: Big Feet — what FWA, RJP, and I call the tall statue of Gunner Wennenberg, a Swedish composer, poet, and politician (I looked up on june 27, 2021)
- A crow aggressively cawing on someone’s lawn
- The oak savanna exposed, no more leaves, the winchell trail below the mesa clearly visible outlined by the light dusting of snow
- The river: brown, flat, not looking cold but not warm either
- The sidewalk on the high bridge that leads to the Veteran’s Home was snow-covered and slick, icy
- Running on the double bridge, around a ravine, the light dusting of white on the deep brown, mulch-covered hill looked like powder sugar
- Reaching the 44th street parking lot: yelling laughing kids at the minnehaha academy playground across the road
- After my run, walking Delia the dog around the neighborhood, one block over: a huge tree still fully dressed in light green (with a hint of yellow) leaves. Will they turn and fall, or stay all winter?
Still reading Maggie Smith’s Goldenrod. Here’s another poem from it that I really like:
How Dark the Beginning/ Maggie Smith
All we ever talk of is light—
let there be light, there was light then,
good light—but what I consider
dawn is darker than all that.
So many hours between the day
receding and what we recognize
as morning, the sun cresting
like a wave that won’t break
over us—as if light were protective,
as if no hearts were flayed,
no bodies broken on a day
like today. In any film,
the sunrise tells us everything
will be all right. Danger wouldn’t
dare show up now, dragging
its shadow across the screen.
We talk so much of light, please
let me speak on behalf
of the good dark. Let us
talk more of how dark
the beginning of a day is.
Yes. The dark is not always bad. And, while we’re at it, let’s talk some about the “bad” light: too bright, dazzling, disorienting, burning too hot, deceiving, overwhelming/overstimulating. Can I make this poem fit with the November theme of lifting the veil? Maybe lifting the veil, coming out from the dark and into the light, isn’t always good? Or, maybe a veil can be lifted when we stay in the dark?