4.6 miles
minnehaha falls and back
11 degrees
100% snow-covered
A wonderful way to start the new year: a run outside, in the snow, above the gorge! There were moments when it felt easy, but mostly it was hard because of the uneven, loose slow. I think my calves are going to be sore all day from the effort! Not injured, just tired from being used to push through and keep balance in the snow. Ever since we got the 5.8 inches of snow last weekend, it has been snowing a inch of two every night. It’s beautiful, but not fun to drive in — I’ve heard; I haven’t driven in at least 5 years because of my vision. It’s not always fun to run in (and on), either. But I’m not complaining, I loved being out there today.
I encountered runners, walkers, at least one fat tire. No cross country skiers or regulars. I heard some people sledding at the park, and the light rail leaving the station — oh, and a woman saying to someone she was walking with, I just need to get the shoes and I’ll be fine. What shoes? Fine for what?
10 Things
- a bright while, almost blinding — I’m glad I had some dark tree trunks to look at
- snow on the side of a tree making a pleasing pattern on the textured trunk
- the falls were falling and making noise — more trickle than gush
- the dark gray water of the creek was moving through shelves of ice and snow
- the sounds of my yak trax in the snow: crunching and clopping and clicking
- the smell of a chimney smoke hovering in the air
- a small dome of snow on top of a wooden fence post
- empty benches
- a crunching noise behind me: crusty ice in my braid hitting the collar of my jacket
- overheard: an adult to a kid playing in the backyard, are you having fun?
Running up and out of the park, I had a moment of freedom and happiness — ah, to be outside moving in this fresh air and all of this snow! I thought about my wonderful, low-key New Year’s Eve with Scott and our kids, both of whom are doing so much better at the end of the year than they were at the beginning, both excited and hopeful about the next year.
Today I’m submitting my book manuscript to another press, Yes Yes Books. Before I went out for my run, I drafted a pithy description of my collection, Echolocate | | Echolocated:
“Echolocate, echolocated: to locate using echoes instead of sight, to be located by the echoes you offer. In this collection, a girl and her ghosts visit a gorge daily to locate and be located by the rocks, a river, and the open air and all who are held by it.”
Here’s a beautiful poem I discovered the other day about (not) naming.
Against Specificity / Virginia Kane
Hanif says never put a bird in a poem
without saying what kind of bird.
I want to agree. I like my blues
cerulean, my clouds cumulonimbus.
I prefer my mountains baptized
and my rivers carved with names.
Your reader will find you
in the details, everyone says,
but when I write about memory
I am just writing about loss.
Here, I forget to tell
the flowers you brought me
they are irises. I decide
the dogwoods we laid under
are just those trees. The months
I knew you, crisp and labeled,
all become that year.
When you leave,
I christen nothing.
I call it what it wasn’t.