3.3 miles
turkey hollow
30 degrees
drizzling rain/sleet/ice mix
As I left the house, I could tell it was starting to rain or sleet or something but because I was bundled up–a shirt + hooded jacket + vest–I couldn’t feel it, so I decided to go for a run anyway. A benefit of running in this weather: no one else is out there. I was able to run above the river on the trail all the way to the ford bridge. My first time in 3 or 4 months running on the narrow pedestrian bridge and the steep walking trail that dips below the road then quickly climbs up. It almost felt like normal. When I reached the ford bridge, I crossed the road and ran through the grass at turkey hollow. The ground was soft and a little squishy. No turkeys today.
I know I glanced down at the river but I don’t remember what it looked like. I remember seeing the oak savanna and the white information sign at the bottom. I remember seeing the bench perched on the gorge, providing a wide open view of the other side. I remember the part of the Winchell trail between 42nd and 44th, steeply winding down below me. But I do not remember what the river looked like. It was probably gray–or was it brown? We’re supposed to get up to 5 inches of snow today. Will the river be white tomorrow?
It was windy today. I recall hearing a chickadee chick-a-dee-dee-deeing but not much else other than the howling wind. Most of the cars had their headlights on. No bikers. Only one or two solitary walkers. Heard the kids at recess, laughing and yelling at the school playground. Also heard the shshsh as my feet struck some sandy grit. And the gentle tapping of icy pellets (graupels) on my black vest. I only rarely felt the sting of one on my face. For a small stretch, I pulled the brim of my hat as far down as I could to shield my face. The last time I ran in these conditions was in October or November. I didn’t have a brim to protect my face and the graupels felt like little knives stabbing my cheeks.
a moment of sound
Super windy today but I managed to shield the phone microphone with my hand for most of it. I recorded this at the end of my run as I walked home. I can hear my feet shuffling on the grit on the sidewalk and then some wind chimes. I decided to cross the street to get closer. I love wind chimes. These chimes are hanging close to a giant fir tree. I can hear them chiming as the wind rushes through the tree.
I heard a Fly buzz – when I died – (591)/ EMILY DICKINSON
I heard a Fly buzz – when I died –
The Stillness in the Room
Was like the Stillness in the Air –
Between the Heaves of Storm –
The Eyes around – had wrung them dry –
And Breaths were gathering firm
For that last Onset – when the King
Be witnessed – in the Room –
I willed my Keepsakes – Signed away
What portion of me be
Assignable – and then it was
There interposed a Fly –
With Blue – uncertain – stumbling Buzz –
Between the light – and me –
And then the Windows failed – and then
I could not see to see –
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 other 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. We know that shortly after death the cornea and lens become edematous (swollen with fluid) and begin to lose their transparency.
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.”
Vision disappears, as if one “I…see…see” is lost, then the other, and finally the last “I…see…see,” the very idea of sight is gone: “I could not see to see;” now the very understanding, the intellect of seeing on a cerebral level is gone; the cessation of blood flow to the brain has deprived it of oxygen. The brain can no longer function; it is dead, and the dying is over.
The Prowling Bee has nothing to say about ED’s vision loss or how her descriptions of dying accurately convey what happens to your vision as you die. I don’t what to reduce this poem to a discussion of vision and vision loss, but I find this idea that she is offering a medically accurate description of it to be very cool. I haven’t had much luck in finding many other articles about this, but I thought about it a lot. Last summer I memorized her “Before I got my eye put out” and spent some time reflecting on her vision as I ran.
Almost forgot to add this in: This morning I saw one of the more remarkable sunrises I’ve ever seen. The entire sky was lit up bright orange. It only lasted a minute or two. It made me wonder how many sunrises I’ve missed by getting up too late.