2.5 miles
2 trails
73 degrees
dew point: 70
Another hot and hazy morning. I remembered to notice the river and it looked . . . thirsty? Trying to think of the best word that conveys the opposite of refreshing and cool. Uninviting? Thick? Stuck? Inert? By the Cleveland Overlook it was green and dull and thick. Below the Winchell Trail near the south entrance it was a pale blue with a soft haze hovering above it. Farther north on the trail it was bright blue with a few spots of sparkle through the trees.
Because of the intense thunder storm last night, there was water everywhere — puddles, gushing sewers, squishy mud. The puddles were small but filled with the reflections of trees and flat, still. The mud was slick and slippery. Two distinctive sewer sounds/movements: 1. below 44th street, the water was pulsing, coming in waves — a moment of steady flow, then nothing, then water flowing again. I stopped to lean over the railing and watch it. 2. below 42nd street, the water was rushing out of the pipe, making a small waterfall on the rocks below — a continuous dropping of water.
With all the wind and rain last night, I expected there to be more trees or branches down than there were. Was there any new debris? I don’t think so.
The weather is strange this week: very hot and humid and sunny during the day — we’ve had several heat advisories, then violent storms move in quickly at night. Last night, it started with the wind. I opened the front door and watched the trees bending, twisting, waving. Very unsettling to watch. Then the sky unzipped and rain came down in sheets. Will it happen again tonight? I hope not.
For future Sara: Scott and I discovered a new sport to watch during the Aquatic World Championships — men’s 27 meter (that’s 9 stories!) and women’s 20 meter diving. Why can’t the men and women dive from the same height? Anyway, I’d never heard of this before. An extremely HIGH platform is created outside with a small circular pool at the bottom — don’t worry, the water is deep. Divers jump — they enter feet first — from high up, doing flips and twists and somersaults as they plummet. It’s so dangerous that they have 4 first-responders in the pool waiting to rescue them if they need it. And the first thing they do after surfacing is alert the responders with a thumbs up. What? Wow. Like other diving competitions, a lot of the score is determined by how much splash they make entering the water. I can’t see the splash, because of my bad vision, but I still enjoy watching it. After the dive, they show several slow-motion replays, including one from below. You watch as the diver nears the water; Scott says it reminds him of seeing someone falling to their death.
Discovered this beautiful poem yesterday:
Someone Is the Water/ Austin Araujo
I am alone but for this vein
splitting the earth open
and we are silent, the stream and I
far away from our mouths. The stream
folds over itself, my hand
speculating under the surface.
The stippled faces of orioles
sail by slowly, their dark wings working
hard as tired men pulling oars
in a landscape painting, their lantern
chests dotting a modest pattern
across the sky, over this brook
a mile from your house—from you
who are alone but for your sons
and your sons’ refusal to recognize
you cloaked under a sadness,
the color of whose cloth is muted
as these late-afternoon birds.
The stream sluices crawdads
and stones, carefully takes its bend
like a tongue spackled with canker sores.
I still expect it to speak. I’ve come
to listen to this slow
unfurling, hoping I’ll fall
asleep as it turns like a lullaby
a child promises he will strain
to hear, to memorize. I make sense
of smudged pastoral visions.
Gone, the birds long gone.
Palms, I cup water with bent palms.
run: 3 miles
trestle turn around
86 degrees
I was supposed to go to open swim, but the beach has been closed for a week because of e-coli. Not sure why, but I’m guessing it’s because of the storm. What a bummer! I’m supposed to start my “swimming one day in august” project on 1 august. It will be more difficult to do it now that I’m missing august 1 and 3. Thankfully Cedar Lake is open so at least I can swim there tomorrow.
Since I couldn’t swim, I decided to do another run. It was hot, but the humidity was lower so it seemed less terrible than this morning’s run.
10 Things
- I think I heard the rowers; I know I saw a few of them heading down the hill to the dock
- traffic was backed up — so many cars trying to turn onto lake street
- a mini peloton — a dozen bikers — whirred by me on the river road
- someone in a strange t-shirt with lots of words or logos or symbols that I couldn’t make sense of was sitting on the ledge under the trestle listening to heavy metal on their phone
- a walker, dressed in brown shorts and a brown shirt, passing me twice, their head titled to the side
- the sliding bench was a cool, dark green
- the spray paint on the ancient boulder looked extra orange today — did someone touch it up recently?
- a lime scooter parked in the middle of the walking path under the bridge
- the big crack north of the trestle looks about the same as it did last week — not bigger — but the path is blocked off with caution tape, orange cones, and a warning spray-painted on the asphalt
- as I neared them, someone was emerging from the old stone steps