run: 1.5 miles
river road trail, north/south
76 degrees
humidity: 80%/ dew point: 70
Before it started raining again, STA and I went out for a quick run. Today is our 25th wedding anniversary. Amazing. Everything felt hot and wet and thick, but I enjoyed it, especially running through the tunnel of trees.
swim: 2 miles/ 2 loops
lake nokomis open swim
70 degrees
overcast, then light rain
I love open swims when it’s overcast and rainy. No one else at the beach. The buoys easy to sight. The rain drops fascinating to watch from underwater. Tonight’s swim was wonderful. I might have done more if my watch hadn’t died and I didn’t have STA and Delia the dog waiting for me in the parking lot. Just like last night at Cedar, I was able to look through the water a few feet in front of me. Tonight I watched my hand as I stretched it out, noticing the bubbles it generated. I felt strong, especially my shoulders, as I plunged my hands into the water. I mostly breathed every 5, but in the first loop I did some every 3, then every 4. And, in the last loop, I did some every 5, then 6. At one point in the middle of the lake I had a scary thought: what if my kneecap displaced mid-lake? How would I push it back in place? Quickly, I realized this was unlikely and returned to happier thoughts about powering through the water and being able to see the buoys and the Indian takeout STA and I were planning to eat after the lake.
Water in Love/ Ed Bok Lee
How to love like water loves
when it’s impossible to even taste
all the ghostly sediments
each time you take a sip
Impossible to savor
the salt in your blood
the light and island shorelines
in each living cell
When even the plainest mouthful
tastes more of you than you of it
Sweetest of absences
that frees in wave after wave
debris of thought like the dead,
the drowned, the vanished, and yet
sails your lips
on a voyage toward another’s, plying
all luck and regret
Worship, splash, guzzle, or forget
It clears any difference
Stone washer and mountain dissolver
that will
outlive us, even the memory of
all any eyes touched
Wasp and cactus in a desert
Comet through outer space
Sleep among all the cloud-shepherds’ children
A love so perpetually current
it doesn’t care that you love
without even knowing you love
what you couldn’t survive
three days without
How to love like that: wild
dream-sparkler and meticulous architect
of every snowflake
Wise, ebullient, and generous
as the rain
Deepest of miracles
for a time
borrowing and replenishing
a self
overflowing with fate