60 minutes
4 inches
22 degrees
Not sure why 4 inches took almost an hour to do, but it did. The snow was light and dry and easy to push around but I had a lot of area to cover: a front sidewalk, back sidewalk, side sidewalk, small driveway and a deck. All with a shitty shovel. Now, I’m tired. But I don’t care. While I shoveled, I listened to a musical I’ve never heard before — or only heard one of its songs: 3 Bedroom House — Bat Boy. I liked it, well, most of it. One thing that stood out to me: the songs actually told the story. Usually, if I’m listening to a musical and I don’t know the whole story, the songs don’t help, or they give me some of the story but leave crucial bits out. Camelot, I’m talking to you.
A few minutes later, talking to Scott about the musical, I realized how fitting it is to be listening to it — bats! The title of my manuscript is Echo | | location!
10 Things
- a group of young kids — in elementary school, I think — walking to school, laughing, calling out, stopping to throw snowballs at each other
- 2 women (moms?) pulling occupied sleds towards a school (1.5 blocks away), then empty sleds back again a few minutes later
- a burnt coffee smell
- a car with an engine that needs a tune-up pulling up to the daycare next door — sputtering
- a little girl getting out the car, trudging through deep snow
- robins bursting out of our crab apple tree in the backyard
- a thick slab of snow on each of our three garbage cans (organics, trash, recycling) looking like vanilla frosting
- a neighbor down the alley starting a snow blower
- the sharp, scratchy scrap of the metal tip of our bright green shovel on bare sidewalk
- the creak/groan of our wrought-iron gate
more manuscript
Thanks to past Sara who left the tab open . . .
the kids next door just came out to play in the front yard — SNOW!, one kid yelled. They’re completely covered in snowsuits, with their hoods up — I used to be annoyed by these kids, but I’ve grown to really like them. They’re always so kind to RJP and FWA when they see them. HAPPY SNOW DAY — a woman called out to them. HAPPY SNOW DAY!!! — one girl replied.
. . . who left the tab open on the computer to an entry in which I talk about daylighting, I remembered that I wanted to write a poem about it, that is, the effort/desire to bring buried creeks aboveground again. Yes! And I’ll put it in the river section, which needs at least one more poem. Before shoveling, I had the idea to take lines from different descriptions of these creeks/springs/ghost rivers and turn them into a cento.
As I shoveled and listened to a line in Bat Boy: the Musical about being let into the light, I had a flash of a thought and a line:
Being outside —
less the light
more the air
I was thinking about how I want to move away from reinforcing the idea that light = good, and dark = bad. Sometimes, with my vision I want/need more light, and sometimes it’s too bright, too much. I don’t mind the dark. I was also thinking about how much I crave/need fresh air. But — maybe for the underground streams it is not a need of air, but space, the room to flow naturally over the topography instead of being buried in a concrete coffin.
okay — these kids are too cute. They just said hi to FWA (as he walked by with Delia) — HI! Have a good day! And now they’re greeting everyone as they walk by, and everyone is returning their greeting with enthusiasm. Hi! / Hi! Are you having fun in the snow? / Yes! . . . FWA came back from the walk and I asked him about the kids. He told me that they said they liked his dog and then the littlest one said something he couldn’t understand — blah blah blah named Soda. He said, What?, and she repeated, blah blah blah named Soda. FWA replied, oh, you have a dog named Soda? That’s cute!
exhumation of streams from underground and reintroduction of them to the surface
exhuming
of bodies —
buried streams
coffined creeks
returned to
the surface
not only
to light, but
open space
and their place
of origin
(or open space/and their source)
Today, I’ll start with these sources for inspiration:
Reaching the Light of Day
“The Urban Mile: The Subterraeam Streams of St. Paul in Subterraean Twin Cities
Daylighting Phalen Creek
Bridal Veil Falls
(hours later) I read the above sources, and fit some phrases into my triple (berry) chant form. I think I can some of these and shape them into a poem!
urban
waterways
the same path
but below,
under our
feet, under
the ground
natural
waterways —
flow through top-
ography
of a landscape
collective
memory
water, un
ruly, will
not be man-
aged
refuses
to obey
cities, planned
neighborhoods
rooted, creeks
rerouted
caverns, sink
holes, passage
ways deep in
archive of
memory
reflection
on all that
has been lost
she wonders
what a day-
lighted world
could look like
a pipe — the
container
for a
muted stream
not lost, but
forgotten
hidden from
view, walled-in
yet
flowing still
down here it’s
difficult
to trace the
pedigree
of a pipe
to unearth
its stories
to trace its
influence,
on a place
its people
a creek, its
meadows and
woodlands re-
placed with new
neighbors: streets,
tunnels, pipes,
ditches, wells,
basements for
new houses.
once mighty
waterway
turned from creek
to brook to
rill to no
thing that could
be seen.
industry
buried the
creek that fed
the falls
from a
300
acre wet
land that fed
a creek that
followed
a bank that
spilled over
a ledge and
into a
river, lots
platted, a
street grid
laid,
a railroad
arrives, ponds
filled, a
freeway built,
neighborhoods
developed
Some things I’d like to remember from what I read: some of the falls/springs/creeks by the river have dried up, no longer exist, others are not lost, only buried, housed in sewer pipes, flowing through massive underground tunnels. In Subterranean Twin Cities, the author — Greg Brick — mentioned how difficult and costly it would be to even attempt to get rid of these waterways altogether. Burying these creeks privileges a particular set of values over other values, comes at the expense of certain communities, cuts people off from their histories, their connection to a place, their waterways.
echoes of the past, of the still-present waterways: seeps, springs, sewer pipes — the dripping or trickling or flushing gushing rushing of water in ravines — it’s all around, and always there when she runs.
bike: 25 minutes
basement
After sitting for much of the day and feeling a twinge in my right glute (maybe) because of it*, I decided to do a short bike ride in the basement. I watched a short feature on a triathlete I like, Taylor Spivey. It felt good to move and get my heart rate up a little — avg. of 120 — from my resting rate of 54. My range = 49-142. All the running and swimming has given me a very fit heart, I think.
*either reasons why I have a glute twinge: overdid the 1/2 pigeon pose in my yoga session yesterday or a delayed reaction to the uneven snow-covered paths.
Last week, Scott tried the treadmill and it wouldn’t work at all. I decided to see if, magically, it had fixed itself. Yes! It was working. I only walked today, but it’s nice to know that if I’m snowed in, I could run in the basement again.