4 loops (8 cedar loops)
95 minutes
cedar lake open swim
69 degrees
Would it rain? Would they cancel the swim? It seemed uncertain when I woke up to gloom, but the storm stayed south and the water was great. Smooth, mostly calm, not too crowded, easy to see. The first 3 and a half loops felt so easy and fast. I stopped at hidden beach for a quick break and a chance to see the lake from above the water for more than a brief flash every 5 strokes. The beach was quiet, empty. I could hear wind in the trees, then some bugs. I think I saw a few people getting ready to do open swim. They were up in the grass putting on wetsuits. Started swimming again and did another 3 loops before taking a minute or two break at hidden beach again. swam 1.5 more loops before deciding I was done — my legs decided for us. Nearing the first buoy, my legs felt like they were about to cramp, so I stopped kicking and dragged myself in for the last 50 feet or so.
strange vision
Several times, something strange happened with my color vision. Looking up quickly to sight, I noticed the lifeguard’s kayak. Instead of red in looked white and (almost) robin’s egg blue. Later, getting closer to more than one swimmer, their swim cap was white and the same blue instead of bright pink. Both with the kayak and the caps, when I got closer they returned to normal — red and pink.
10+ Things
- white sky — sometimes I could see the sun through the clouds, but it never emerged
- a swirl of vines, passing over my head, shoulders, torso, lingering near my ankles
- the swimming area at hidden beach was wide and long and almost empty — at least one other open swimmer was standing in the shallow water
- for the first 4 loops, the water was all smooth, during loop 5 it was much choppier heading to hidden beach
- a bird in the air — was it big or small? I couldn’t quite tell. I’m thinking small
- opaque water
- a scratchy vine, pricking my arm
- noticing the surface above the water from my vantage point: submerged, only my eyes out of the water, like an alligator
- stopping at the little beach: a dog barking, a collar clanging
- making note of the procession of swimmers on the other side of the course, heading to hidden beach when I was heading from it — a slow and steady line of swimmer
- after the swim, walking past a big puddle on the dirt/gravel road, its surface had scales on it from the wind
I never got completely lost in the swim, although I had moments where I wasn’t thinking about my stroke or breathing or sighting.
Thinking about time, last night I started reading Endi Bogue Hartigan’s on orchid o’clock. Here’s the opening poem, which I think will be a great inspiration for me in playing around with “one day in august.”
I’m talking about the rotation/ Endi Bogue Hartigan
—The predictable commencement of annual flooding of the Nile River is said to have formed the foundation of the ancient Egyptian calendar. Calculations were made using nilometers, vertical water-measurement devices, influencing taxation, crop planning, and more.
I’m talking about the black cows in the pasture along the highway between here and the office: some days the black cows’ snouts are pointed in the same direction in the morning and the opposite direction in the evening, all 200-300 or so, parallel dipping their snouts: some days they are helter-skelter; some days the shadows are crisp some days the shadows are swallowed but they have shadows on all days; and the wet eyes of the cows have an angle with which they lean into the wet grass, so they are a kind of dials to themselves and their light, visible to themselves or not. I might be comforted driving by saying cow shadow o’clock, saying east black cow o’clock, I might be comforted by talking about their rotation.
/it is child eyelash o’clock /it is having to look o’clock it is
Nile flood o’clock /it is percolate o’clock
/it is morning birds plus socket sound of car closing / 21st century pastoral
o’clock it is flashflood fear o’clock /it is TV van at the shooting site rim
/it is miscount of the dead o’clock
/it is remember to call remember to call find a corner to make a call o’clock
/it is the blue jay screech o’clock /it is having to look o’clock
/it is innocent eyelash o’clock /it is the clock continuing despite
o’clock /people emptying from their eyes
/it is yesterday’s rose-dew o’clock
/it is tearing the work blouse off its hanger o’clock/ it is
tearing and not /it is that blouse again that headline again it is
everything I forgot creeping up in tides
/it is people split and swelled
confiding overflow o’clock /it is the shadow of a gun / the shadow of
the cow o’clock /it is what is allowed in the shadow
/it is the president’s turned up o’clock it is America’s deadliness and dailiness
o’clock /it is glued to the headline o’clock
it is lunchhour-beeline o’clock /it is it’s only Tuesday o’clock another
curbside memorial o’clock another caterpillar miracle o’clock another
people emptying from their lives o’clock or into their
lives o’clock the Nile floods every hotspell in this week
/it is child-wake, it is flood of what’s at stake o’clock,
/it is the morning rupture the American rupture that
shadow-bleeds and swells /it is the felling of the shadow o’clock
/I’m talking about the black cows.
Wow!
I found this helpful essay by Hartigan about the book and the process of creating it: process note #2: on orchid o’clock
And here’s an earlier book of hers that might be interesting to check out: Pool (5 choruses)