Year: 2023

oct 19/RUN

4.1 miles
minnehaha falls and back
51 degrees / light rain

Ran to the falls. Everything yellow, red, orange. Wow! Encountered some walkers as I got closer to the falls, one or two runners. Chanted triple berries — strawberry/ raspberry/ blueberry. Also recited Mary Oliver’s “Can You Imagine.” I remember starting it, but I don’t think I finished it, and I can’t remember where I stopped. The Minneapolis park workers were out again, patching up cracks in the asphalt with stinky, steaming tar. The falls were gushing. As I ran by them, 3 teenage boys sprinted past me, on their way to the steps. The mother in me hoped they didn’t fall down the slippery stairs. I stopped at my favorite spot on the other side of the park, near where Longfellow’s “The Song of Hiawatha” is etched into the limestone wall, to admire the falls. Today, before starting to run again, I decided to take some video of my view:

The view from my favorite spot of Minnehaha Falls

notes about what I saw: As I was taking this video I saw a flash of movement below: it was one of the teenage boys running over the bridge that crosses the creek after it’s fallen. I tried to pan down to capture him on video, but I can’t see him. Can you? Also, to the left of this frame, there was a person with an easel set up, painting this view from a different angle. When I had approached the spot, I knew there was something/someone else there but I couldn’t tell what/who it was and I didn’t want to stare. It was only after I started walking away and saw the person through my peripheral vision that I figured out what was there.

The rain came in the last mile of my run, right after I finished filming myself running up the edge of the world. (Oops. I screwed up the camera by not starting it when I thought I did. I’ll have to try filming this view some other day). Good timing! I didn’t mind getting wet — I already was, from sweat.

I listened to water dripping, kids yelling from across the road, a dog yipping, the falls rushing, leaves squeaking on the way to the falls. I put in Beyoncé’s “Renaissance” on the way back, but took it out and listened to more water and wheels and my own breathing while running on the Winchell Trail.

We’re getting closer to the end of October and the cold is coming. Looking back through old entries, it had already snowed by this day in past years. Here’s a poem I found in the New Yorker that gets me in the mood for that cold — and it features the color blue!

Childhood/ David Baker

I miss the cold, but not the cold breaking,
not the small limbs sheared, nor the icepick cold
white wind working its whole way through you
no matter your coat and gloves, and no matter
the blue scarf someone tied and tucked tight.

The same cold blue all day in the sky. Frozen
blue through limbs of the two standing elms.
Brilliant each blue. Blue the color of new
snow like wafers on the fields. Come in cold then,
and the dark comes with you, kick off your boots

and someone is rubbing your feet so they
sting, then stop stinging. Now the bruised-apple-
red bottle at the foot of your bed, steaming,
and come morning woodsmoke in the kitchen.
I miss the cold then, so cold there is singing.

oct 18/RUN

3.1 miles
2 trails
54 degrees / drizzle

Wow, so much yellow. Full fall color, I think. I was sore this morning from my run yesterday, but glad I went out to be with all of this beautiful color!

I listened to a playlist, then took out my headphones while I was on the Winchell Trail, then put the playlist back in for the last mile. Ended the run with the theme to Rocky — not on purpose; it happened to come up on shuffle.

Smelled the sewer, heard the limestone dripping, called out right behind you several times. Thought (again) about stopping at the overlook to take a picture of the wonderful view of the river, but didn’t. Instead, I stopped at the entrance to the Winchell Trail and took this shot:

At the top of some limestone steps, about to enter the Winchell Trail from the south end. In the lower right, a limestone wall. In the center, a black railing. More than half of the image is yellow leaves, mostly on trees, some on the dirt trail which used to be asphalt. On the right side, a stand of straight brown trunks.
entering the Winchell Trail from the south

10 Things

  1. 4 or 5 stones still stacked on the ancient boulder
  2. the floodplain forest is almost all yellow
  3. the sewer gas from below smelled sour and unpleasant
  4. a Minneapolis Park truck was parked in the grass above the gravel trail that descends through the ravine — are they planning to clear out more dead limbs below?
  5. encounter 1: 2 people with 2 big black dogs on the Winchell trail — right behind you / sorry / no worries. It’s a beautiful morning!
  6. encounter 2: a man with his dog — right behind you / no words, but he moved over slightly / thanks!
  7. the “edge of the world” was mostly bare, with only a few streaks of yellow left
  8. avoiding roots on the dirt trail next to edmund, imagining that I was doing agility drills
  9. taking off my pink jacket at the bottom of the 38th street steps
  10. encounter 3: 2 different people with dogs, or a dog?, bypassing the steps and continuing on the dirt trail to the oak savanna

oct 17/RUN

6.2 miles
ford loop
49 degrees

Overdressed. Didn’t need the tights under the shorts or the long-sleeved shirt under the sweat shirt. Made the run a little more difficult. Still, a good run on a beautiful fall morning. Lots of yellow today. Very fall-y.

10 Things

  1. St. Thomas bells chiming
  2. I could see my breath at the beginning of the run
  3. the light making the yellow leaves glow
  4. at least 4, maybe 5, stones stacked on the ancient boulder
  5. a biker calling out to me as I ran on the St. Paul side, good job! —Thanks!
  6. looking down at the river from up on the lake street bridge: a sandbar! I’ve read about the sandbars, and thought I saw one just below the surface, but today, there it was, fully exposed
  7. an inviting bench, perched above the gorge with an open view
  8. almost perfect moment: looking down at the water falling over the limestone ledge, sparkling in the sun, murmuring softly, framed by yellow leaves
  9. a west bound lane on the ford bridge closed off for construction, orange cones everywhere
  10. running up to the “edge of the world,” and stopping to admire the open view

I stopped on the bridge to take a picture of the sandbar:

A view from above the river, which is a blue-ish gray, with a white sandbar, strangely shaped, and a shiny circle of sun reflecting on the water. More on the strange shape of the sandbar: in its middle, where it is at its narrowest, the sandbar is covered over with water, making it look like 2 sandbars. Both above and below this spot the sandbar expands.
a sandbar in the Mississippi River below the lake street bridge

oct 13/RUN

3 miles
treadmill, basement
outside: rain, all day

My first treadmill run since last February. Wow. I listened to “Nobody Asked Us,” the podcast with Des Linden and Kara Goucher, and it helped make the time go by faster. Running inside is fine, but rarely inspiring. Sometimes a podcast or audiobook helps.

Can I possibly create a list of 10 things I noticed? I’ll try:

10 Things

  1. My treadmill faces a window that is covered over and under our deck, so no view, only dark emptiness — and the reflection of a lit bulb, looking like a full moon in a starless sky
  2. my feet hurt for the first mile; I think it might be my shoes
  3. I didn’t wear a hat or a headband and fine bits of my hair kept slipping out of my ponytail
  4. at one point these fine strands were standing straight up — static from running on the treadmill?
  5. later, these same strands were wet, dripping with sweat, and plastered against my neck
  6. hard to get into a rhythm at the start; my feet felt heavy
  7. 10 minutes into the run, everything lightened up and I felt like I was floating above the treadmill
  8. several times, my hand hit the front bar — I like to run close to the front
  9. my cheap treadmill works just enough, but not well. It won’t start until the speed is at almost 2, then it goes faster than the speed on the screen. If you adjust the speed too many times, the numbers on the screen get all scrambled. This happened today, and for over half of the run I was staring at strange, squiggly lines instead of numbers
  10. I didn’t hear or see it, but I thought about the mouse (or mice) that are probably sharing space with me down in the basement. I imagined one of them running across my feet

Did it! These things were not really about a place, but about my body. Maybe this winter, when it’s too dangerous to be outside, I should try some experiments with noticing and focusing on my body moving?

Discovered this poem the other day:

It Must Be Leaves/ Jane Hirshfield

Too slow for rain,
too large for tears,
and grief
cannot be seen.
It must be leaves.
but broken
ones, and brown,
not green.

Speaking of the phrase, it must be, I came up with a title for my poem about the color yellow, which ends with the idea that some things will always be yellow, even when I can’t see them. The title? If it’s a banana, it must be yellow. This title was inspired by a science article with the same name: If it’s a banana, it must be yellow: the role of memory colors in color constancy

oct 12/RUN

3.6 miles
locks and dam no. 1 hill
51 degrees
wind: 13 mph

My knees were sore last night and this morning and I wondered if I should go out for a run, but it’s supposed to rain later today and all of tomorrow, and I read an article that said sometimes running on sore legs is better than not running, so I ran. And I’m glad I did. My legs/knees feel better after than they did before.

Felt windier than 13 mph. It almost knocked my cap off.

I listened to beeping trucks and chainsaws and rushing wind as I ran south. When I got to the top of the hill at the locks and dam no 1 I stopped and put in a Bruno Mars playlist.

10 Things

  1. the dirt on the boulevard was sometimes dark brown, sometimes light brown
  2. more trees without leaves — have we passed peak leaf season?
  3. a parks’ truck blocking the entrance to the overlook and the winchell trail — no winchell trail for me today
  4. running up the hill, the sun came out briefly from behind the clouds, just enough for me to see the faint outline of my shadow. Hello friend!
  5. more crunching leaves in the grass — brittle, brown, formed into little mounds by the wind
  6. a rough trunk with lichen growing on it — on the north side — a faint, yellowish green
  7. several different versions of green on the tree trunk and the grass
  8. walking past a giant rectangular hole in the street — the spot where they busted open the street to work on the water pipes. Minutes before, workers had filled it with warm, bitter smelling tar (or asphalt?) Heat was coming off the filled hole, warming my legs
  9. a falling red leaf hit me on the shoulder
  10. color of the day: bright yellowish green. Not only was I wearing a shirt in that color, but I saw at least 3 other yellowish green shirts on a runner, a walker, and a biker

After staring at the yellowish greenish lichen, I took a picture of it:

A close-up image of tree bark that is rough and brownish gray (or grayish brown). There are streaks of greenish-yellow lichen on the bark. While taking this picture, with my face close to the trunk, I could see the lichen. And, if I put my face close to the screen while studying the picture, I can still see it. I can also see the lichen in the picture if I turn my head slightly and look at it through my peripheral vision. But at a normal (1 foot) distance, I can't see the lichen. It blends in, not looking yellow or green but light brown.
a close-up of a tree with lichen on its north side

oct 11/RUN

3 miles
2 trails
58 degrees

Ran in the afternoon. Much warmer. Too warm. Overdressed in my long-sleeved bright yellowish green 10 mile racing shirt. Listened to Olivia Rodrigo for the first mile, then took out my headphones for the rest. I heard trickling water, laughing and screaming kids making the kind of noise that’s on the edge between angry and joyful, wind rustling the leaves.

After I finished, walking on the grassy boulevard, dotted with dry leaves, I pulled out my phone and recording the sound:

crunching leaves / 11 oct

I started by walking through the leaves, kicking into them with my feet. Then I stepped on them. To my ears, the sound went from a crash to a crunch.

I ran the version of 2 trails in which I don’t take the 38th street steps but stay on the dirt trail through the oak savana then around the ravine. I thought about stopping to take a picture here — and many other places too, including the overlook near the southern entrance of the winchell trail — but I wanted to keep running. So I took a picture of the ravine from above and across the river road:

A road with tree shadows on it. Behind it, a split rail fence and some golden trees. Beyond it, but not pictured, is a ravine with a black wrought-iron fence and a metal slat walkway that I carefully ran over a few minutes before taking the picture. In the upper right corner, there is a yellow sign indicating a sharp curve. There are also 2 cars in the distance. When I was taking this picture, I only saw general forms: shadows trunks leaves road sky.
The split rail fence above the ravine from across the river road

oct 10/RUN

5.1 miles
franklin loop
44 degrees

Ah, this fall weather! What a morning to be outside by the gorge. A little windier than I’d like, but wonderful. My legs felt a little stiff and sore, but I kept going and they got better. In the third mile, I started chanting triple berries. Just the same three again and again: strawberry blueberry raspberry strawberry blueberry raspberry. They helped me stay in a good rhythm.

10 Things

  1. rowers on the river! 6 or 8 in one shell
  2. the river was blue heading east, brown on the return trip west
  3. either wind or water through the trees, making a shimmering sound
  4. still so much green everywhere
  5. 2 different bikes blasting music that I couldn’t quite identify
  6. click clack click clack — a roller skier passing me as we neared the lake street bridge
  7. a minute later, a rollerblader approaching from the north, heading south
  8. flowers in the pipe sticking out of the trestle railing that’s been turned into a vase — a memorial for someone
  9. a man using a DIY walker/runner — bike wheels, yellow frame (I think I’m remembering that right?)
  10. the glitter effect: wind + sun + water = wow
My view facing south from the overlook on the Lake Street bridge. The Mississippi River with trees in the background and an apartment building in the upper right corner. This photo is in color -- blue water, green trees with hints of yellow and orange --but to me it looks black and white, or gray and brown.
My view facing south on the Lake Street bridge

No geese or fat tires or Daddy Long Legs. Also, no headphones. Listened to the wind, radios, conversations, my feet thudding on the ground.

I stopped at my favorite part of the tunnel of trees. Walking up the small hill, I noticed leaves gently falling from the trees, birds chirping, the light coming through the canopy. I decided to stop and take a short video:

at the end of my run, above the floodplain forest

Here’s how I see/hear this video: The view of a canopy of trees. Occasionally, a leaf stirs in the wind. All around this view, leaves were drifting down one at a time. If I put my face right up to the screen — nose touching — I can see that these trees are GREEN!, but with my face a foot away, the scene looks grayish brownish, with only the whisper of green. When recording this video, I mostly heard the birds and not the cars above me on the road. But watching the video I hear mostly the loud rushing of cars and some wind. The birds are very quiet.

The birds, both remembered from when I stood at the spot recording this video and heard in this clip, made me think of a wonderful bird poem I discovered yesterday:

For the Birds/ Zilka Joseph

Sudden dash of light in the corner
of my eye, a soundless flash in hazy swathe
of trees leaps stealthily from the small maple
to the crabapple that has taken this year’s
drought hard. My eyes bore into foliage. Is it
a mynah? Dad, you taught me well how to look
and listen. This is Michigan, and it’s probably
a grackle, but I think of the crow pheasant
(the coucal) I often watched in India, a wily
master of camouflage. I remember the first

time I ever saw one close up. I was seven
or maybe eight, sickly and bookish. While
sitting in the shade of a sprawling gulmohar
that dropped scarlet whorls of flowers
on me, it darted from under the hibiscus. So
graceful its arched tail, so fiery its beady eyes.
I was reading some Enid Blyton novel about
young girls in a boarding school in rainy
England who ate scones and crumpets, and had

fabulous adventures. It was a hot afternoon
as this avian beauty that normally threaded light
woodland and field slipped into my grandaunt
Lily’s garden. She was a famous doctor
at Tata Hospital when few women
stayed single and had careers. She drove
a grey Standard Herald, and her frantic beeping
of the horn sent her gardener’s sons rushing
to throw open the low iron gates when
she came home. Once, she gave me a nest
a weaver bird had abandoned. It adorned
my bedroom for years. She would tell me

about the trips she had taken when she was
young. All over Europe, and yes, to the Isle
of Capri—her favorite. All eyes, I would listen.
Then she would sing “‘Twas on the Isle of Capri …”
or play a Vera Lynn record. Did she have many
lovers? I wanted to wear expensive Dhaka
saris, high heels, smoke cigarettes (as I had seen
her do at dinner parties sometimes), travel—
be like her. Would I ever go anywhere? I who
failed in math and science, hated bullies, hated
school. My head sailed in the clouds. My brain,
they told me, was for the birds. My handwriting
a bird’s nest. My weak fingers would never grasp
a pen properly, my legs never walk normally again.
When would my flesh grow light, my bones
breathe only air so I could fly? When the bird

appeared from nothing, shapes shifted, my book
levitated. The bird floated, not walked. Did it
even have feet? I felt my weight lift. Floating
was as good as flying. It seemed not to see
me, as if it were a peaceful spirit passing
through. Strange girl, they said. A dreamer.
Did I imagine it then? Hearing a creak of leaf
and branch near my deck, the blur I saw earlier
turns to flesh and blood—a gawky crow
who arrows to the roof from the forsythia
and caws shrilly. Curious juvenile, her
glance is full of questions. Friend or
foe? Food or death? I throw my head
back, look up at her. She peers at me
over the edge. I slip indoors for bread, then
leave ripped bits on the railings. Where
is she? She’s hiding somewhere, watching me

watch her. They emerge and melt, these wily beings—
show a wingtip, glitter of eye, flick of tail. Leave me
a feather to dream on, a map to follow. My mother
and I fed them scraps everyday.They jostled each
other on the ledge, fought for crumbs, always
hung around our windows. Then disappeared
into neem, peepul, or the banyan tree as big
as a city. Did they wonder where we’d gone?
Had they heard us weep? Had they pecked at the
shuttered windows and silence? Wild fig seedlings
now grow from cracked brick. A sudden woosh

of wing beats. Listen! The air throbs. Three
trumpeters pass over me to land on the pond.
I wave. This is where I live. And there and
here and there. Crow, sparrow, finch, blue
jay, nuthatch, chickadee, cardinal, mallard,
cormorant, heron, geese, swan. They visit,
feed and fade. Return. They know their own.
I’m for the birds. I’m never alone.

I love how place — both India and Michigan — are so present in this poem. And I love the story she tells, about seeing a bird in India, being a misfit only for the birds, looking up to her grandaunt, and how she tells it. Also, I want to think some more about this line: All eyes, I would listen.

oct 9/RUN

3.1 miles
2 trails
44 degrees

44 degrees is a wonderful temperature for running. Today I wore my black shorts, a dark blue short-sleeved shirt, an orange sweatshirt, and it was great. Not too cold, not too hot.

I heard the clicks and clacks of a roller skier poles.
I smelled chemicals from a treated lawn.
I felt the hard, bumpy dirt and the sharp shallow asphalt cracks under my feet.
Did I taste anything?
I saw the shimmering surface of the river.

I greeted Dave, the Daily Walker and several other walkers. A few mornings but mostly with a smile or a wave of my hand. So many kind, friendly people out there today!

I thought about the the ancient Greeks and how they use glitter as another way to understand, describe, organize color.

Glitter effect and material — scattering and textural effects resulting from the type of surface being observed.

How to make sense of ancient Greek colours

Today (and yesterday in my backyard), I saw a lot of the glitter effect. Glittery leaves, fluttering in the wind — both on the trees and falling to the ground. Glittering water from sun and wind. Glittering shadows on the pavement: light through leaves moved by wind.

My favorite glitter moment was when I stopped to take my sweatshirt off at the bottom of the 38th street steps. Fairly high above the water, looking down through the leaves, I could see glittering, sparkling movement. Flash Flash Flash Flash — almost silver, but not quite. Bright. Maybe to someone with normal vision the river was blue, but to me it was glitter or shimmer or sparkle. I took a short video, and I think I can see the sparkling water, but it is much less bling-y than when I experienced it in person.

A view from the 38th street steps

oct 7/RUN

5.5 miles
ford loop
43 degrees

Ran the ford loop with Scott. Finally, it’s cooler. Much easier to run. We talked about a problematic NYTimes article that Scott had read earlier that was so sloppily edited that they spelled Gov Walz’s name wrong (as Waltz, I think). We also talked about the rowers on the river and the Brooks’ mile on the marathon course.

Mostly the run was easy. My IT band was acting up by the end and I rolled my ankle on something in the grass in the last mile.

Running over the lake street bridge I noticed a single shell on the water. Then more shells, some with only one rower, one with eight. Then buoys. A race! A few minutes later a woman overheard us wondering about it and told us it was a tournament. It was so quiet on the bridge that we were able to hear the oars slapping the water. They made such a delightfully awkward sound. Without sound, the rowers float effortlessly over the water. But when you can hear the oars you can feel the effort of their rowing. I like being able to hear them; they feel more real that way, more body, less machine.

10 Things

  1. dark blue water. near the edges it looked almost black
  2. the lamps lining the path on the st. paul side were on, the ones on the minneapolis side were not — the minneapolis have been stripped of wires and never repaired/replaced
  3. rowers’ voices drifting up from the river near Shadow Falls
  4. it started overcast, almost gray. by the time we were done, the sky was bright blue
  5. a chipmunk darted in front of me, narrowly missing my foot
  6. plenty of color on both sides of the river — yellow, red, orange
  7. the ford bridge stretched in front of us, looking longer than it usually does
  8. on both the lake street and ford bridges, a tiring wind blowing into us
  9. a motor boat near the shore. I wondered if its wake would cause problems for the rowers
  10. turkeys! 3 of them in someone’s yard on the st. paul side

Typed “oars” in the search box on Poetry Foundation and found this poem. I like the form and want to read the larger work — Emptied of all Ships — that it comes from:

…shift at oars/ Stacy Szymaszek

water
relives
reservoir

boat
bottom
draft
displaced

°

lineal
thought
backward
body

no one
knows
the brains
I am now

tree
an oar
origin

joints ruptured
soak in
deep ink

Very cool. I might have to buy Emptied of All Ships.


oct 5/RUN

3.1
trestle turn around
60 degrees

Hooray for (slightly) cooler weather! And hooray for legs that let me go out to the gorge this morning! I love fall running, almost as much as winter running, but not quite. Today I was able to greet Dave, the Daily Walker and run a 5k without wanting to stop. It was windy. Not a helpful wind that pushes me along, but a frustrating wind that is always in my face.

No playlist today. Instead, I listened to the wind and a buzzing sound coming from somewhere below the lake street bridge.

10 Things

  1. the slap of a runner’s feet as she ran past me
  2. a bright circle of white light through the trees — the river
  3. overheard: some of those hills are ____? Didn’t get to hear the ending
  4. running north, it is still mostly green
  5. encountered: a few runners, some bikers, walkers with and without dogs, a big stroller
  6. one runner’s gait: smooth, strong, steady feet up and down up and down
  7. another runner’s gait: jerky with flailing arms
  8. and one more runner’s gait: fast with quick thuds as their feet pounded the pavement
  9. a buzz below — was it a weed whacker? leaf blower? a much bigger machine?
  10. the ravine between the 34th and 35th street parking lots is thick with green. Still no view of the black iron fence or the limestone ledge below it
Above the ravine, at a split rail fence, only seeing a few dark trunks, some green and yellow leaves. No way to see what's below.
the view above the ravine, between the 34th and 35th street parking lots

I don’t remember hearing any birds or dripping water or roller skier’s poles. No fat tires or radios or rowers. Only a quick view of the river. A few yellow leaves, some red. No orange.