3.1 miles
2 trails
73 degrees / dew point: 66
Another hot and humid morning. Another difficult run. Is it strange that I don’t mind that it’s hard? Some shade, lots of sun.
10 Things
- squish! stepping down in thick, gooey mud on the winchell trail
- thwack thwack thwack a runner approaching from behind
- pardon me that same runner letting me know he was passing
- running down to the south entrance of the winchell trail, looking at the river through the trees — not sparkling in the sun, but flat and brown — somehow this made it look even hotter and less refreshing
- rowers down below, heard not seen
- the sewer at 42nd, a steady stream of water falling
- the sewer at 44th, more of a dribble
- honking geese
- 4 stones stacked on the ancient boulder
- a squirrel ahead of me on the winchell trail — running then stopping then running, finally jumping through the fence and off the trail — was it waiting to dart out right in front of me? no
Alice Oswald and Lorine Niedecker and water’s depths
from Paean to Place/Lorine Niedecker
How much less am I
in the dark than they?
Effort lay in us
before religons
at pond bottom
all things move toward
the light
Except those
that freely work down
to ocean’s black depths
in us an impulse tests
the unknown
from Nobody/ Alice Oswald
The sea she said and who could ever drain it dry
has so much purple in its caves the wind at dusk
incriminates the waves
and certain fish conceal it in their shells
at ear-pressure depth
where the shimmer of headache dwells
and the brain goes
dark
purple
from “Interview with Water”/ Alice Oswald
To be purpled is to lose one’s way or name, to be nothing, to grieve without surfacing, to suffer the effects of sea light, to be either sleepless or weightless and cut off by dreams.
swim: 4 loops
lake nokomis open swim
82 degrees
4 loops! A beautiful summer night! The water was a bit choppy but it didn’t bother me. Saw some silver flashes below — fish? Also, beautiful shafts of light illuminating the particles swimming with me and a few ghostly vines reaching up from the bottom. In certain stretches it felt like the water wanted to pull me down to the lake floor — difficult to kick and keep high near the surface.
New breathing/sighting pattern I noticed last night at cedar: 1 2 3 breathe right 1 2 look up to sight (no breath) 3 4 5 breathe left
above the surface: A few times I paused in the middle of the lake to give attention to the surface. Once I saw a dragonfly. Another time, a plane. The water was blue but not as intense as on Sunday.
below the surface: bubbles, my hands, could feel the movement before I saw any swimmers, then bubbles and pale legs kicking. The water was green but with less blue and more yellow.