8 miles
almost to downtown and back
71 degrees
humidity: 90% / dew point: 69
8 miles! I ran first half without stopping, slow and steady. The heat and humidity didn’t bother me too much. I can tell I’m getting mentally stronger. Not too long after the turn around, at the Bohemian Flats parking lot, I stopped for water and the port-a-potty. Stopped at the next port-a-potty too. So glad they were there! I know most runners have at least one terrible poop story, but I didn’t want today to be the day I made mine! Other than gastro issues, the run wasn’t too bad. I was slow, but I kept going and stuck to the heart rate plan: when it hit 168, I walked until it dropped to 135, then I started running again until it hit 168 again.
10 Things
- 4 or 5 stones stacked on the boulder
- the blue graffiti under the lake street bridge is not letters, but shapes of some sort
- a park worker on a big, lawn mower/tractor, whipping around trees, cutting the grass
- hello friends! — greeting the Welcoming Oaks
- a mother yelling at her kid — Carly Jane (or something close to that), put your legs down NOW!
- river water moving fast — I could actually hear it flowing south
- another park vehicle with bright headlights, trimming trees next to the trail
- gushing seeps in the limestone below the U of M campus
- a radio blasting out of a car window — didn’t recognize the song
- there was a crocheted sweater — orange and lime green, I think — in the port-a-potty at the flats
Cole Swensen and rivering
opening line from Gave/ Cole Swensen
no river rivers
What is to river? I can imagine rivering as the act of being beside and with the river — walking or running — or in it — swimming, rowing — witnessing the river.
Here’s another use of river as verb from swims/ Elizabeth-Jane Burnett
The river is something that happens,
like exercise or illness, to the body
on any given day
I am rivering.
On 16 august 2022, I posted this line from Burnett’s poem, I am rivering, and wondered, could there be such a thing as lake-ing? And how does it differ from rivering?
Rivering and lake-ing and streaming and brooking and creeking made me think of a line from Anne Carson’s “1 = 1”:
Every water has its own rules and offering.
What are rules and offerings of the Mississippi River and Lake Nokomis?
Cole Swensen is particularly interested in walking, both generally and specifically beside the Gave River. Here’s an interview I’d like to read in which she talks about her walks and walking.
Other sources to remember:
- When Poetry “Rivers”: Reflections on Cole Swensen’s Gave and Alice Oswald’s Dart
- Water’s Edge: Writing on Water — a book to order from Moon Palace?
Cole Swensen and bridges
Swensen has a section in Gave where she lists different bridges, and “other ways of crossing.” I’d like to archive the information about Mississippi bridges that I’ve gathered — names, interesting histories, etc.
clear water
Skimming through Gave, trying to find the section on bridges, my eyes fell on the phrase, the water is brilliantly clear, and I suddenly remembered watching surfing competition in the Olympics. It’s taking place in Tahiti and the coverage was great. They even had a cameraman in the water. At one point, we got a view underwater of the surfers’ legs sitting on boards. So clear! Such visibility! When I swim in the lake, I can barely see my hand. What would it be like to swim in water that was that clear? Amazing and frightening and a bit overwhelming at the beginning, I think.