bike: 8.6 miles
lake nokomis and back
68 degrees / 73 degrees
Ahhh! What a morning! A relaxed ride. Again, no worries about what I could and couldn’t see. On the way there, I thought about metaphors (inspired by the lines below). An idea, which is not new, but is good to remind myself of: in poetry, it’s not all about meaning with words, but the movement and shifting they create. Thoughts, experiences, ideas flow freely until they bump into words. Words direct the movement (from encounter to revelation or understanding).
The most memorable thing on the bike back. Climbing the hill near the rec center and where bikes cross the parkway, I heard — HEY ASSHOLE WATCH OUT! — a car and a biker stopped in the road, the biker yelling at the driver for not stopping, the driver apologizing. Then — you’re a Minnesota driver, that’s what YOU are! I didn’t really see what happened, but I know it’s hard to see all the bikers when you’re driving. I also know that drivers don’t always look. The driver’s apology seemed sincere; the biker’s yelling was very loud and aggressive. And what’s up with insulting Minnesotans?
earlier today
Heard from an open window, a woman talking to someone, presumably a young kid: it‘s actually a t — saTurday
Returning to some lines from a poem I posted a few days ago, Difference/ Mark Doty:
nothing but something
forming itself into figures
then refiguring,
sheer ectoplasm
recognizable only as the stuff
of metaphor.
swim: 2 loops (8 mini loops)
50 minutes
lake nokomis main beach
73 degrees
Wow wow wow! What a swim. This might be one of the top swims of the summer, and the one that fits best with Mary Oliver’s words in Swimming, One Day in August:
it is time now, I said,
for the deepening and quieting of the spirit
among the flux of happenings.
…
I went down in the afternoon
to the sea
which held me, until I grew easy.
I think I swam 8 loops. I stopped a lot to tread water and listen to the silence. So quiet! I was all alone, but not. So relaxing. I felt completely at ease, which is not a feeling I have that often. No wind, no waves, the surface flat and still except for the bubbles I was creating that popped on the surface. A few seagulls perched on the white buoys — hello friends! A few clouds in the blue sky. My fingers frequently got caught on milfoil reaching up from the bottom, but it was almost like we were high-fiving or greeting each other — nothing menacing about the vines today. There were 2 metal detector dudes chatting and detecting. I couldn’t hear what they were saying, so no idea about what they found. Neither of them yelled out excitedly, I got it!
10 Things
- seagulls — in the sky, on the buoy
- water like velvet
- a thin skin of something on the surface in the swimming area
- the contrast between the sloshing as I swam freestyle and the silence as I tread water and bobbed
- the only thing I could see under water were bubbles
- the surface: almost a mirror, flat, blue
- the roar of one plane overhead
- workers fixing the picnic tables — they pulled off the tops and the seats earlier in the week — having fun and listening to country music
- standing in the swimming area, facing the sun, closing my eyes and still seeing the reflection of the light on the surface
- thinking it was almost too silent — why was there no noise? — then hearing the pounding of a hammer from the workers near Painted Turtle
NOOOOOOOOO!! Got an email this afternoon that both beaches at Lake Nokois are closed immediately due to blue-green algae. They test the water every Monday and, as I just learned, the results for e-coli come in on Tuesday, but blue-green algae comes in on Wednesday. It might clear up before next week, but they won’t test again until Monday, and won’t have the results until Wednesday. So the earliest they can open up the lake is next Wednesday. I’ll miss 4 open swims. Then Thursday will be the last open swim of the season. Such a bummer, but at least I got my magical morning, and I didn’t encounter any algae. I saw it on Monday, but I think it’s already cleared up.
swim: 3 loops (6 mini loops)
65 minutes
cedar lake open swim
79 degrees
Other than the abundance of scratchy, clingy vines, the water was perfect. Calm, smooth, not too cold (or too warm). So relaxing! The water was a little greener than usual, but no algae blooms. Hopefully it will stay that way. There were a few pockets of very cold water near the far buoy. The sun was making the water sparkle. I stopped a few times to enjoy the silence out in the middle of the lake. Encountered a kayak and a paddle boarder who seemed extra tall standing straight up and above me. A strange sight — a giant walking on water.
Only 2 more cedar lake swims this season and no swimming at all until next Monday. Boo.