5 miles
bottom franklin hill and back
18 degrees / feels like 10
A beautiful, sunny morning. Cold enough to make my eyes water but not my feet numb. Birds, sharp shadows, a clear path. Only a few small chunks of hard snow on the walking path. From the distance, the river looked completely open and ice-free. When I stopped at the bottom of the hill to check, I noticed a few lumps scattered around the surface. If I hadn’t stopped, I never would have seen them — there were so few of them, and they were so small!
I remembered to look at the river. I forgot the sudden and unexpected surge of anxiety I experienced before the run, while I was sitting at my desk — not panic, but a rush of something then shaking hands, chattering teeth — then remembered it, and then forgot it again. This happened throughout the run. I remembered to breathe and to stay relaxed. I forgot to check my watch. I remembered to zip up my jacket pocket so one of my black gloves wouldn’t fall out. I forgot to check and see if June’s ghost bike was still hanging on the trestle. I remembered the time I ran up the franklin hill and recorded myself describing it. I forgot to look for fat tires.
Halfway up the franklin hill, I stopped to walk and put in my “Slappin’ Shadows” playlist, since the shadows were wonderful today. The fourth song to come on was Cream’s “White Room.” I thought about the second verse and these lyrics:
You said no strings could secure you at the station
Platform ticket, restless diesels, goodbye windows
First, I was struck by the strings. I thought about invisible threads or tugs, then Taylor Swift’s invisible strings. Then, I was struck by nouns in the second line, especially the restless diesels and goodbye windows. I’m not sure if I thought about it while I was running, but now I’m thinking about one of RJP’s favorite books as a kid, The Hello Goodbye Window.
Before the run, and before my surge of anxiety, I edited and added to some lines about descending into the gorge that I had started last week. I was partly inspired by a discussion with FWA yesterday about his walk down the old stone steps to the beach. The lines aren’t quite finished, but here’s what I have. I’m hoping to have FWA read them to see if they capture any of his experience:
From the bottom, she
looks up to behold
a steep set of stone
steps wedged in loam by
grandfathers. At the top,
the edge, and beyond,
the trail, then the road,
wind-bent trees, worn grass,
a neighborhood. Down
here feels different — wild,
untouched, real, above
only distant dream.
The girl follows a
break in the trees to
a white sand beach and
the river. She shuts
her eyes and listens
for the bells that chime
four times an hour.
Once or twice, instead,
she’s heard a bagpipe’s
mournful skirl float
down from the cenotaph
on the other bluff.
A moment, a breath —
she opens her eyes
returns through the trees
ascends the steps and
breaks the spell.
And, speaking of remembering and forgetting, here’s another fragment I’m working on:
One day the girl sees
the river and re-
members what she saw.
One day she sees the
river and does not.
And one day she for-
gets to look. How strange
it is to not notice
what is right there,
looming so large it
has shaped this whole world.