bike: 23 minutes
bike stand
run: 3.25 miles
treadmill
Still cold, still inside. Earlier, while I was sitting at my desk, I saw someone run past with their dog. I thought about running outside, but the feels like temp is -6, the wind speed is 15 mph, and the sidewalk is 100% snow and ice covered. Yes, I wimped out, and I’m okay with that. Watched a replay of the Men’s Triathlon at the Tokyo Olympics while I biked, listened to a playlist while I ran.
In between the bike and run, I listened to a recording of 2 new parts of my haunts poem. I’m playing around with adding in more of my story about losing my vision, and the ghosts that surround it. The two parts begin: 1. Before there/was ghost/there was girl and 2. Before there/was girl/there was ghost
I was hoping to think about these lines as I ran, but I was mostly distracted by my effort and the beat. Then, in the last 3 minutes of my run, Salt n Pepa’s “My Mic Sounds Nice” came on and I had a flash of an idea. It happened when I heard the lines, “cuz every curve on my body has a story to tell.” I started thinking about the stories our bodies tell, then my damaged retina/macula, and then how to express that in my poem: scrambled macula, abandoned retina, sleeping retina? It’s not much of an idea…yet.
Anyway, Salt n Pepa are awesome, and their rhymes made me laugh, and remember how much I was into hip hop in high school, especially 89-92.
Here’s a poem I found the other day from Rebecca Lindenberg, who is wonderful.
Letter to a Friend, Unsent/ Rebecca Lindenberg
I haven’t written in a while
because I don’t want to talk
about anything
I’ve been unable to stop
thinking about: the knotted thread
of bad capillaries on my retinae,
money, or that my morning was ruined
by the unusual tightness
of jeans around my thighs,
like the obligations
of having a body
so ill-fitting, oppressively snug
around an obstinate will.
And while I don’t want
to be distracted
from this Duchamp thing
I’ve been working on— I am
itched out of reverie
over and over again
by this feeling I don’t deserve
my raptures anymore.
So I’m sorry. I don’t want to
bring you down. It’s unfair
to have to hear about needles
and envelopes and flies
when you might just have been
enjoying an iced tea outside
and when I would prefer to tell you,
really,
there’s a family of pheasant living
in the massive cottonwood
we call the Tree of Life.
The male’s red, green, gold plumage
makes him look
like a Christmas present
I would want to give you.
So except “I hope you’re well,”
that’s all.