4 miles
almost to franklin and back
15 degrees / feels like 0
Okay winter! A good run even though my legs felt heavy and tired for the first mile. And I was cold — felt it in my lungs. Saw Dave, the Daily Walker, and when he asked, how are you doing?, I replied: I’m cold! To which he said, that’s Minnesota or something like that. The sun was out today and I think I remember admiring my shadow. Heard some strange, almost strangled, noises down in the gorge. Probably honking geese, or maybe a feral kid having fun? Encountered at least one fat tire, a few walkers, no roller skiers. The walking path was covered in slippery snow, but the bike path was almost completely clear. The sky was blue, the trees were empty, the river was? I know I looked at the river, but I don’t remember what color it was or if it had more ice on it.
layers I started in: 2 pairs of black running tights; a bright green tank top; a previously bright green base layer shirt with the sleeves over my thumbs; a purple jacket zipped up to my chin; a pink and orange buff covering my neck and ears; a black cap with fleece lining and ear flaps down; gray socks; raspberry red shoes; 2 pairs of gloves — inner ones were black, outer bright pink with white stripes.
layers I ended in: 2 pairs of black running tights; a bright green tank top; a previously bright green base layer shirt pushed up on my arms a little; a purple jacket unzipped a few inches; a pink and orange buff around my neck; a black cap with fleece lining and ear flaps up; gray socks; raspberry red shoes; 1 pair of black gloves — the bright pink ones were in my pocket.
Listened to my breathing, cars, geese as I ran north. Put in my new “Windows” playlist (see below) on the way back south.
Interruption: An Assay/ Jane Hirshfield
Sometimes you took the shape
of an unseen mosquito,
sometimes of illness.
Presumed most of the time to be passing,
yet importunate as a toddler
who demanded her own way,
as a phone that would not stop ringing long after it should.
Unignorable pavement slap of the gone-flat tire.
All afternoon the thunder was interrupted by sunshine.
All night the rain was interrupted by trees and roofs.
And still, as rusting steel is uninterrupted by dryness
and hunger uninterrupted by sleep,
interruption and non-interruption sat in the day’s container
as salt sits in milk, one whiteness disguised by another.
As a fish in a tank is interrupted by glass, and turns,
a person’s fate is to continuedespite,
until.
Death: an interruption not passing,
weighing
one hundred and fifty-eight pounds,
carried on cut plywood with yellow straps.
Birth: an interruption between
two windows,
trying to think of any joke, any tune, that is new.
Between them:
this navigation by echolocation and lidar,
the weathers of avalanche, earthquake, tsunami,
firestorm, drought;
a moment that sets down—gently, sleepily—its half-read novel
on a bedside table whose side turned toward the wall stays unpainted,
confident the story will be there again come morning.
definition of an assay
Assays began with a poem written after I’d reread Edgar Allan Poe’s stories while writing an essay on how hiddenness works in poems. Some of the qualities of essay exploration and prose step lingered in its music and mode of thinking. At the time, I was regularly seeing the journal Science. On the back would often be advertisements for half-million-dollar machines for performing assays. That word—close to essay and sharing its root in the idea of an attempt, a try—refers to discovering a thing’s nature by breaking it into its elemental parts. The poem became ‘Poe: An Assay.’ That approach to writing, of testing a subject for its discoverable parts, imaginative and factual, caught. I began writing others. ‘Judgment: An Assay.’ ‘Tears: An Assay.’ ‘And: An Assay.'”
Jane Hirshfield
assay (def): the testing of a metal or ore to determine its ingredients and quality
my own interruption
Sitting at my desk, in front of my window, half-listening to the latest Foo Fighter album, an interruption — lyrics: there is something between us/I see right through/waiting on the other side of the glass. A window interrupting me! It’s strange how interruptions work. I’ve written/taught/spoke about the learning to let the world interrupt you. Maybe it’s not about letting the world interrupt you — it will do that anyway — but being open to that interruption, letting it in — opening the window to it?
a few more random window references that recently interrupted me:
- Maria in The Sound of Music: “When the Lord closes the door, somewhere he opens a window.”
- She Came in Through the Bathroom Window/ The Beatles
- My Own Worst Enemy/ Lit — came in through the window last night (thanks Scott)
With all three of these examples, I’m thinking about the window and how it’s not a door. And in The Beatles and Lit examples there’s something not-quite-right, not normal, unacceptable about entering through the window. Using the window instead of the door is another way of saying something about your life is fucked up.
- unrelated to these other examples, the scene of the window in The Amityville Horror– 1979 (iykyk) — I still think about that window falling on the kid’s hand sometimes. I’m not sure I’ve seen the whole movie — maybe I watched this bit on HBO and was too freaked out to watch the rest?
Okay, now I want to make a window playlist to listen to as I think more about windows! (after the run): I did, and I listened to the first
Window/Fiona Apple
Window/Genesis
Window/Mountain Man
Smokin Out the Window/Silk Sonic
Keep Passing the Open Windows/Queen
Lookin’ Through the Windows/Jackson 5