run: 3.1 miles
turkey hollow loop
70 degrees
9:00 am
Overcast this morning. Listened to an old playlist and ran a route I did a lot during the early days of the pandemic. No turkey sightings. Bummer. Don’t remember much about the run, except for that it felt pretty good. No need to stop and walk.
Read more of Alice Oswald’s Nobody yesterday and decided that I need to reread The Odyssey to get her references. So I picked up FWA’s copy from his first year of college. I recall reading it my freshman year too. It’s great, especially this recent-ish translation by Emily Wilson. Very cool. How long will it take my slow eyes to finish? Unsure.
Found a great poem by Linda Pastan on twitter yesterday:
Imaginary Conversation/ Linda Pastan
You tell me to live each day
as if it were my last. This is in the kitchen
where before coffee I complain
of the day ahead—that obstacle race
of minutes and hours,
grocery stores and doctors.
But why the last? I ask. Why not
live each day as if it were the first—
all raw astonishment, Eve rubbing
her eyes awake that first morning,
the sun coming up
like an ingénue in the east?
You grind the coffee
with the small roar of a mind
trying to clear itself. I set
the table, glance out the window
where dew has baptized every
living surface.
Speaking of the sun coming up, this morning I woke up too early, around 5:45. I was going to try to fall back asleep then suddenly I thought: if I get up now, I’ll get to see the sunrise. Wow! What a sunrise. One half of the sky the color of a neon pink crayola with edges of bright blue. It lasted less than 5 minute. I sat out on the deck, wrapped in a blanket with my coffee and marveled at it. I remember thinking how ridiculously simple it seems to make a day worth it, and how difficult it is to remember to do it.
bike: 8.6 miles
lake nokomis and back
82 degrees
4:45 pm / 6:45 pm
Biked with Scott over to the lake. Perfect weather for biking and being outside!
swim: 3 loops
lake nokomis open swim
82 degrees
5:15 pm
Another wonderful swim! Why does open swim have to end in 2 weeks? Oh well, then it’s time for fabulous fall and winter running, and listening to crunching snow and breathing in the crisp, cold air.
Tonight it was crowded — at Sandcastle, on the beach, in the water. Lots of menancing sail boats and swan boats and kayaks. I kept seeing them at the edge of my vision and feeling wary.
Scott asked how the water was. I said there were waves, but they were gentle like a cradle, not rough like a spin cycle.
I felt strong and fast and amazing, cutting through the water. What a great feeling!
Looked down: opaque, almost greenish-yellow.
The water was warm. No pockets of cold, just warm.
Rounding the far orange buoy, a sudden shadow and coldness. Strange.