walk 1: 40 minutes with Delia the dog
neighborhood / grassy boulevard
72 degrees
Thought about running this morning, but it’s warm and I wanted to watch the Chicago Marathon and my IT band still smarts (what a strange expression) and Delia the dog needed (and desperately desired) a walk, so I walked instead. So warm, but beautiful with the reds and yellows and oranges! Quiet and mostly empty on the sidewalks. Sauntering through the grassy boulevard I noticed a steady stream of walkers and runners and bikers on the river road trail which validated my decision not to run — too crowded! As we moved, I recited some of my re-memorized poems, starting at the end of the list with “Crumbling is not an Instant’s Act” and Crumbling is not an Instant’s Act/A fundamental Pause and ending with “Still Life with Window and Fish” and If I should die/ before you do,/ you can find me anywhere/ in this floral, featureless,/ indelible/ surf. We are too restless/ to inherit/ this earth.
10 Things
- a woman, walking in the street, stopped to ask, does it feel humid? I thought so, and said yes, but when I checked, it was only 55% which is not humid for Minneapolis
- the barking heads of two dogs peering over the top of a fence — one of this barks is whiny, the other deep
- a biker passing me, muttering to himself, I almost went the wrong way — jeez!
- walking through a patch of bright sun — achoo! achoo!
- a yellow and black smart car parked in a driveway — so tiny!
- a neighbor’s boulevard, thick with fallen leaves
- the halloween decorations at a house close to 7 Oaks: the girl from the Ring, a demonic moose, a ghost shrouded in black leaning over the sidewalk on the top of the fence, a cauldron with a boiling baby, spiders — some black, some grayish white — the pale ones seemed creepier than the dark ones
- two women walking on the river road trail, their voices carrying across the road, not loud enough to hear what they were saying
- someone talking with a New Zealand accent
- the dragons in a neighbor on the next block that were not inflated the other day, were inflated today: 3 of them — the soft flap of mechanical wings mixed with the high-pitched drone of the motor making them move
kona
Yesterday, I watched (sometimes actively, sometimes with it on in the background) most of the 8 hour ironman race. I recognize that many people wouldn’t enjoy watching such a long race, but I do. Why? — that’s for another entry. I am a big fan of Lucy Charles Barclay (who was in the lead for all of the swim and some of the bike), and I am an even bigger fan of Taylor Knibb. Last year, both of them DNF’d (did not finish) because they experienced heat stroke. Well, that’s an understatement. They started walking and weaving and wobbling, then became a bit delirious. LCB dropped out first. Five miles later Knibb sat down on the road and couldn’t get back up. This year, it happened to Lucy Charles Barclay again, but not Taylor Knibb. With a 10k to go she was passed by the woman in 3rd place (Solveig Lovseth) who was full of run (as the commentators like to say), until she wasn’t. For a few minutes, her arms were swinging wildly, then she was weaving and wobbling, then she sat down. She got up a few times, but kept sitting down on the pavement. It was very dramatic. Taylor Knibb passed her and won. I’d like to write more about my thoughts on this finish, but not today.
ED and that interposing fly
Yesterday, I wrote a little about ED’s interposing fly in the IT/fun with medical terms experiment. I’ll return to it now. Back when I was studying Emily Dickinson for a month, I wrote this on the 15th of March (2021):
A few years ago, I found some articles discussing ED’s temporary vision loss in her 30s. I’m fascinated by how she references her temporary blindness in her poetry. In Emily Dickinson’s mystifying in-sight, the authors reflect on “I heard a fly buzz” and suggest that her words here, and in several of her poems referencing the Eye and the dying Eye, provide remarkable insight into the physiological process of vision loss as one is dying.
Throughout her poetry chronicling the ophthalmic deterioration that occurs in death, Dickinson notes the changes that occur in the dying cornea and lens: glaze, dimness, fog, mists, film, cloudier. Her observations reflect what medical science currently understands as the alterations that occur within the eye during the process of death.
…
As death approaches, gradually less oxygen-carrying blood is pumped by the failing heart, causing functional loss of the bodily organs. Seeing while dying should be possible until the retina and/or the occipital cortex of the brain, the final mediator of vision, becomes deprived of oxygen and loses its capability. The most metabolically active of all our tissues, the retina, for its operation, surpasses every other organ in relative blood flow and oxygen requirement. The loss of vision while dying should be sequential, greying occurring first as cones (the retinal mediators of color and probably more metabolically active than rods, the agents of black, white, and grey) lose function. Greys, therefore, persist through the retinal rods after loss of color perception occurs. Finally the rods, too, fail, and we are blind.
and
In the last cycle, eyesight fades to a blue, the retinal cones still working, but predominated by the buzz, uncertain, stumbling, as hearing also begins to fade. But, still, the hum is loud enough to go beyond and between her light as vision fades away faster than hearing. And then, as the retinal rods fail, sight exhausts itself and so “light” must fail to appear; we are left instead with “the Windows failed – ” as the bright sunlight at the window is eclipsed, and finally, all of seeing ends, concluding with an absolute and total black, rendered powerfully in the last line by the three “eyes”: “I…see…see.”
I’m particularly interested in the reference to interpose: “In the last cycle, eyesight fades to a blue, the retinal cones still working, but predominated by the buzz, uncertain, stumbling, as hearing also begins to fade. But, still, the hum is loud enough to go beyond and between her light as vision fades away faster than hearing.” On my second walk, I kept thinking about this description and how good ED is at describing vision loss. It resonates so much for me!
walk 2: 70 minutes
east lake library and back
73 degrees
When I got an alert that I had two books available, I decided to walk to the library to pick them up. It was so warm that I wore a tank top and shorts. I’m ready for this warm weather to be gone!
10 Things
- the bakery around the corner was busy — I could hear the steady din of voices as I walked past it, on the other side of the street
- an arts collective has popped up across from the bakery — today was their monthly open house + arts market
- a cactus garden in a neighbor’s front yard
- a group of people sitting outside of a some business that I couldn’t identify — is it another cafe?
- a row of fake tombstones along the side of a house, one reading, “Seymore Butts”
- a bright blue house with a clashing faded purple fence and a BRIGHT green door
- an older man walking with a walker, nearing some steps
- an adult and a kid exiting the library, the adult saying, good for you! you locked up your bike!
- a church service ending at a lutheran church, a few people walking to their cars
- a kid laughing in a way that could have been genuine delight or forced mirth — I couldn’t decide which