30 minutes
basement
outside: 57
It’s beautiful out there today, but I think it’s too crowded on the trails for me to bike outside with my failing vision. Plus, I didn’t want to miss the live coverage of Ironman Texas, so I biked in the basement while I watched it. It felt good to move my legs, which were restless from less activity. No pain while I biked, only a slightly stiff left knee 20 minutes in.
Before I biked, some pain in my lower glutes/upper hamstrings — a dull ache? Not sharp, but constant, a little uncomfortable.
injury spells
Yesterday I found the scrabble tiles for P I R I F O R M I S S Y N D R O M E and put them on my table. This morning I worked on them some more, trying to find a way to use all the tiles to make a phrase. The idea is that once I do, I will have a spell to break open or through my latest injury. Here are some of attempts:
- Do I personify? [MMIRRS]
- Miss Fiery Moon Drip [R]
- Or is my form inspired? — all tiles used!
- O sir, my form inspired! — all tiles used!
- I inform my spired rods — all tiles used!
- Miss Merry Porfirio [DN] — porfirio = purple-clad person, surname in Spanish/Portuguese
- Is my sniper mood fir? [R]
- Sir, spin my fired room — all tiles used!
- Rim mood: spiny fires [R]
- I spy: red moon, fir rims — all tiles used!
- I spy: fir moon, red rims OR I spy: fir’s moon, red rim
- (dry form) I sin, I’m prose! — all tiles used!
I might like this last one the best.
On Thursday I FINALLY picked up CA Conrad’s Ecodeviance, which I requested on march 4 and was planning to use that month. In the book, Conrad is interested in making it impossible to not be present in place by performing rituals that access the “extreme present.” A quick, perhaps half-baked, thought about Conrad’s soma(tic) rituals: from the ones I’ve read so far, a key element seems to be making other people uncomfortable.
Example: (Conrad riding an elevator repeatedly) “At the top and bottom of each ride I would show photographs of myself to strangers and ask, “EXCUSE ME, have you seen this person?”
I laughed out loud when I read this, but I also wondered about other ways of accessing the extreme present were possible that didn’t involve confronting strangers.
Conrad performs these rituals for days/weeks and take notes. From the notes, they write poems. A line from one reminded me of a delightful image from Mary Oliver that I read yesterday:
Six/ CA Conrad
a golden needle
stitches my head to
my knee leaving me
aching along the river
from The Book of Time/ Mary Oliver
those silver sheets, with the occasional golden staple,
I love MO’s description of a storm!