3.5 miles
locks and dam no 1
72 degrees
humidity: 84% / dew point: 69
Overcast today. Everything dark, everything gray and deep green. A few sprinkles at the start. On my warm-up walk, I heard The Clash’s “Should I Stay or Should I Go” coming from the corner where some workers were making the sidewalk more accessible. Later at the river, I heard some more music blasting out of a bike speaker that I recognized but can’t remember the name of now.
The first almost 2 miles of the run was okay, then it got hard, then I locked in and zoned out and it was no longer hard or easy, it just was.
10 Things
- passing an entrance to the Oak Savanna: a deep, dark, green hole
- a yellowish-orangish tree
- slashes of red on the side of the path, waist-high
- more orange leaves scattered in the trees
- dozens of small red leaves on the side of the trail
- thwack thwack acorns falling
- someone took down the sign alerting people to a conservation area and asking them to stay on the paved trail
- one car parked at the bottom of the locks and dam no 1 hill, window slightly open, low music playing, the smell of cigarette smoke
- bright headlights cutting through the gray sky
- the ford bridge reflected in the water looking like a window or a portal
Vuelta update: Yesterday, the final stage of the Vuelta was shut down when it entered Madrid. Protesters had occupied the course and pulled down all the signs/flags, toppled the barricades. There was no violence, just chanting and holding up signs that said, in Spanish, Down with the State of Israel. There was a large police presence that was attempting to manage the crowd, but they weren’t using force or rubber bullets or tear gas. Very different from what happened here in Minneapolis in 2020.
Today’s thoughts about my Girl Ghost Gorge project:
1 rituals. What rituals do I do during my run?
- greet the Welcoming Oaks
- greet the Regulars
- listen for roller skiers and rowers and water dropping out of the sewer pipe
- track the changing of the leaves, especially in the floodplain forest
- make note of whether or not the benches are empty
- notice the river
- stop at the sliding bench or at the bench above the edge of the world
- stop in the flats or at the bottom of the locks and dam no 1 to study the river surface
- count the stones stacked on the ancient boulder
2 You Are Here: Trestle: In this poem, I’d like to include something about how it’s rarely used for trains. Now it holds electric blue yarn bombs and ghost bikes and flowers for June