4 miles
the Monument and back
82 degrees
dew point: 74
Last night I decided I would get up early and do a 7 mile run. Then I checked the forecast. 80 at 6 am. What? No thanks. I went to bed thinking I might skip running today and tomorrow (the low is 80). Then I woke up at 6 and even though it felt oppressive outside, I decided to go for a run. Maybe a 5k. Somehow, without meaning to, I ran 4 miles. It was hard. I felt almost dizzy once as I walked up the lake street bridge steps. And I’m glad I did it. Even with a few extra walk breaks I consider this run a victory.
Yes, it was warm and uncomfortable, but it was worth it for the quiet and for the strange light: darker, a little ominous, the green so deep, not glowing but pulsing? not sure what word I would use.
10+ Things
- on the lake street bridge from east to west, to the right a pale blue sky, to the left darker blueish-purple
- on the lake street bridge, wind blowing hard from the south, a bird getting a boost and flying so fast
- from the monument, I could her Shadow Falls dripping
- small white caps on the river
- the gentle slope of a mowed stretch of grass between Shadow Falls and the Monument
- the shuffling of a runner’s feet across the road
- the clicking and clacking of ski poles through the trees and on the other side of the ravine
- at the Monument, the line of narrow paving stones near the water fountain — they looked old — when were they placed here and who did it?
- the swirling and waving of some wildflowers in the wind
- taking off my cap on the bridge because of the wind, feeling it hit my face and grab my hair
- encountered the runner who wears bright orange compression socks*
*I’ve encountered this runner enough that they’re officially a regular. I think I’ll call him Mr. Orange Socks
Listened to the wind and dripping water and the heavy air for 3 of the miles. Put in my “It’s Windy” playlist for the final mile. Windy has stormy eyes that flash at the sound of lies.
Encountered two Anne Carson poems this morning and it feels like a sign, or a nudge, to keep reading her The Anthropology of Water. One of this poems was from an 21 june entry in 2022 (Could I), and this one from today’s poem of the day:
Between Us And/ Anne Carson
BETWEEN US AND
animals is a namelessness.
We flail around
generically —
camelopardalis is what
the Romans came up with
or ”giraffe” ( it looked to
them like a camel crossed
with a leopard ) or get the
category wrong — a musk
Ox isn’t an ox at all but
more closely cognate with
the goat — and when
choosing to name
individual animals we
pretend they are objects
(Spot) or virtues (Beauty)
or just other selves (Bob).
The idea of knowing the names of things has come up before on this blog. There’s the act of naming something, which is addressed in this poem and evidenced in my naming of “regulars,” and there is also the act of learning the name that a living thing calls itself. Robin Wall Kimmerer (Gathering Moss in 22 march 2024 entry), JJJJJerome Ellis (“A Litany of Names” from Aster of Ceremonies), and Alice Oswald (“Violent” in 16 feb 2025 entry) all describe this in their writing.
an hour later: Taking up the nudge to read more Anne Carson, I returned to The Anthropology of Water. I focused on the final section, “Margins: An Essay on Swimming By My Brother.” Wow! So many great descriptions of what it feels like to swim in a lake! I need to make a list.
I may have posted this bit before, but here’s Carson’s answer to the question, How does swimming figure into your writing?
It keeps me from being morose and crabby. Sometimes I think in the pool. Usually it’s a bad idea. The ideas you have in the pool are like the ideas you have in a dream, where you get this sentence that answers all questions you’ve ever had about reality and you get up groggily and write it down, and in the morning, it looks like “let’s buy bananas” or something completely irrelevant. Plus, I like water. Some people just need to be near water.
Interview in Paris Review
I am one of those people who needs be near water.
Back to the “An Essay on Swimming.” I like how it’s structured: journal entries titled with day of the week and time and either swimming or not swimming. Here’s the second entry:
Friday 4:00 p.m. Swimming.
In late afternoon the lake is shaded. There is the sudden luxury of the places where the cold springs come flooding up around the swimmer’s body from below like an opening dark green geranium of ice. Marble hands drift enormously in front of his face. He watches them move past him down into the lower water where red stalks float in dust. A sudden thin shaft of fish smell. No sleep here, the swimmer thinks as he shoots along through the utterly silent razor-glass dimness. One drop of water entirely awake.
I like how there’s no date. It’s placed in time, but vaguely.
that sudden luxury! I welcome those cold patches in lake nokomis when I swim but I don’t think they’re from cold springs. What are they from? Now when I feel them I will think: I’m being flooded with a dark green geranium of ice!
marble hands — yes! that’s how I should describe the pale legs and hands of swimmers that I’ve seen recently.
where red stalks float in dust — for me: curled green feathers that do more than float, they seem to reach up to/for me.
that’s me: one drop of water entirely awake
Recap, and to put on a list of Carson’s water descriptions to use/think about as I swim:
- I’m being flooded with a dark green geranium of ice!
- marble hands and legs
- stalks that reach to/for me
- me as one drop of water entirely awake