Author: Sara Puotinen

july 26/BIKESWIM

bike: 8.5 miles
lake nokomis and back
75 degrees

Another bike ride. Windy! The only problem I had biking over to the lake was almost running into the cement wall at the start of the double bridge. I was moving over for an approaching biker and went too far. Was it a vision error, or just a freak occurrence? Luckily, I adjusted quickly and was fine, although I played back a version of crashing into the hip-high cement in my head for a few minutes. Yikes. The rest of the bike ride was fine until I got to the bike racks and was trying to dismount. My sandal got caught in my pedal and I scraped the back of my calf with the sharp edges of the pedal as I narrowly avoided falling — that would have hurt. This one was not a vision error. Realized that I had scraped some skin off and was bleeding a little. Ugh! Waited an extra 15 minutes to go into the water to make sure it was okay and had completely stopped bleeding– it was and it had.

The bike ride back did not involve any near misses. Just gravel, sun, and 3 bike surreys nearing the locks and dam no. 1. Would they get stuck on the double bridge?

image: looking off to the left as I biked, noticing the blue river through the trees — water! Thought about all the water I encounter on this bike ride: river, falls, creek, 2 lakes.

swim: 4 loops
lake nokomis open swim
73 degrees

Not too many people here for the swim. 10? 20? Rough water, rougher than last night. The swells/waves kept trying to push me to the left. I managed to stay on the course; the first green buoy struggled to do the same. It seemed to be drifting towards the second orange buoy. During the first loop, I contemplated doing only one loop. Then I decided I could do 2. By the end of 2, I decided on 3. After 3, resting in the shallow water I thought I could do a 4th. Nice work, brain and shoulders and legs!

10 Things

  1. hearing the life guard call out, attention open swimmers, the course is now open. have a great swim!
  2. seagulls circling in the sky — were they looking for fish? Did they find any?
  3. I could see my hand in front of me under the water — not clear enough to read my watch, just clear enough to see a hand
  4. the green buoy closest to the beach was also very close to the far white buoy — only a narrow space between buoys for swimming through. If it had been more crowded, that would have been a cf
  5. a few vines sliding past my arms
  6. swimming wide around another swimmer as we neared the green buoy — she stopped. As I breathed on that side I could see her face, but not that clearly. Was she scowling at me?
  7. someone — a kid? — banging a stick on a metal pole on the beach. It sounded like a flag hitting the flagpole — pretty sure there aren’t any flags near the beach
  8. Liz (she introduced herself to me) asking about open swim: excuse me, can you tell me about open swim? I’m training for an upcoming triathlon
  9. a leaking, squeaking nose plug. I wonder if the swimmer I was passing could hear it underwater?
  10. the final green buoy kept seeming farther away, like I would never reach it — like the hallway in Poltergeist that the mom is running down to the reach the room where Carol Ann is. Decided to count how many strokes it would take to get there, which broke the spell
I often think about this scene while I’m trying to reach the final green buoy.

july 25/RUNBIKESWIM

4.6 miles
veterans home
75 degrees

What a morning! Blue sky, sun, shade, legs and lungs that work. During my warm-up walk towards the river, I was surprised by the absence of birds. Where are they this morning? Maybe it’s because I got a late start: after 10. Continue to feel better about my runs. I’m finding ways to slow down and lower my heart rate. A new goal: be able to keep my bpm below 165 for more (most?) of the run. Right now, it’s around 168-170.

Heard, but didn’t see the falls, both at minnehaha and locks and dam no. 1. Ran past a stopped surrey. Thought about stopping at the park bathroom, but didn’t. Encountered some big branches blocking part of the trail under the ford bridge on the trail just below wabun. Passed by a group of workers in bright yellow vests painting the fence. Enjoyed the sound and feel of soft, sandy dirt under my feet as I ran beside the paved path.

to swim or not to swim?

Yesterday, I received an email from open swim club that unacceptable levels of blue-green algae were found at the main beach and that Minneapolis Parks has issued an advisory. They are not closing the beach, just encouraging people to use caution. For context, when the e-coli is too high, they close the beach. It’s a little unclear, but it looks like open swim club is still happening. An advisory didn’t stop open swim club in 2022. I just searched in my log and found mentions of it — and me not caring about it — on July 26 and 28, 2022. I guess 2022 Sara was much chiller than 2024 Sara. Sigh. That means I definitely have to go and swim at open swim tonight!

I think at least 3 factors have contributed to my worries around blue-green algae: 1. swimming through the green goo last week. It was so gross and unsettling!, 2. my unfortunate willingness to google things and read descriptions of what can happen to you in blue-green algae — I need to stop doing this!, and 3. reading this passage in a beautiful essay about swimming:

Sometimes, in the lakes and the tarns where I like to swim, there is another kind of blue. The blue-green of algal bloom. The Environment Agency and the Lake District National Park tell us that this algal bloom is a naturally occurring phenomenon. That is true, in the same way that cholera is a naturally occurring phenomenon. They tell us this because they do not want us to worry. Algal blooms are made up of cyanobacteria, a kind of naturally occurring photosynthetic organism. It ranges, apparently, from unicellular and filamentous to colony-forming species. (I like those words: unicellular, filamentous. Sometimes I imagine my thinking has become filamentous.)

Some types of blue-green algae produce toxins. You cannot tell whether it is toxic or not by looking at a Harmful Algal Bloom—toxic to me or to wildlife or to the dog over there that is now swimming through the water to fetch the stick I threw in before I’d even noticed the blue-green bloom.

One website tells me that “In humans,” algal blooms “have been known to cause rashes after skin contact and illnesses if swallowed.” I know this to be true because once, before any of us swimmers knew what an algal bloom was or what it might do, I swam through the blue-green scum. My skin began to burn, then it came up in large blotches of red, and some of them began to blister. I thought if I stayed in the cooling water, it would stop. It didn’t. I had seen the bluegreen water but had not known, and anyway, if I had known, apparently you can’t tell only by looking. I got out of the water and drove to the doctor’s surgery. He couldn’t tell. He poked the blotches and asked how long I’d had them and more of those kinds of questions because in those days even doctors didn’t know the right kind of questions to ask.

When the levels of the lakes fall because of the lack of rain, or when there has been another extended period of unusually hot weather, that’s when the algae come out to play. To make us not know which one is which. Sometimes the algae are the result of human sewage build-up in the lake. This one is not nice to play in. And sometimes the algae occur because of agricultural fertilizers running off from the surrounding fields and fells that have built up over time. So yes, it is natural. Of a kind.

According to scientists, cyanobacteria and the toxins they produce “represent one of the most hazardous waterborne biological substances that produce a range of adverse health effects from mild skin irritations to severe stomach upsets and even fatal consequences.” And it doesn’t end there. If the bloom lasts and continues to build, it blocks sunlight from the water, depriving fish and the plants that bloom in their own funny, unseen way on the bottom of the lakes and tarns, and aquatic insects too. If it all goes on too long, the plants can’t obtain oxygen and can’t assimilate the blue-green-grey filtered light of the sun.

Kinds of Blue: On the Human Need to Swim / Karen Lloyd

filamentous (def): thread-like; the backs of feathers are filamentous

Thinking that is filamentous? Thread-like — small, tenuous ideas combining. Is a net filamentous? I’m reminded of my month with dirt and this bit from 21 April 2022:

many fungi live in the soil, where their thread-like filaments, called hyphae, spread into fans and tangle into cords through the dirt. If you could make the soil liquid and transparent and walk into the ground, you would find yourself surrounded by nets of fungal hyphae (137).

Mushrooms at the End of the World

Thought about imagining the soil was liquid and transparent and then entering it, surrounded by nets of fungal hyphae. What if I could swim in the soil? Swim through these nets of fungal hyphae?

Some nets I’d like to swim through, some I don’t!

Also, I think the blue-green algae in lake nokomis is because of lawn fertilizer run-off.

24 pools

Here’s some more Olympic swimming facts to put next to my discussion of water quality in the Seine from last week. Olympic swimming events start tomorrow and, apparently, some swimmers are concerned about the depth of the pool: deeper = faster = less waves and the Paris pool is just barely over the minimum required depth: 2.15 meters/2 meter min req). While reading this article on swimswam, Paris Swimming Pool Depth Raises First Concerns, I discovered this delightful fact: there are 24 pools for the Paris Olympics, including competitions pools and warm-up pools. Wow!

bike: 8.5 miles
lake nokomis and back
82 degrees

My first solo bike ride to the lake this year. Hard to believe. Some of it was because Scott has been coming with me to run while I swim and some of it was because I thought my tires were leaking air. I think it might be that I’m not pumping them up properly. The bike ride was great. I wasn’t worried about seeing at all. No scary moments, wondering where the curve was or having to check again and again and again before passing someone. Also, no pain in my left leg during the bike. In past years, this has been an unexplained problem.

swim: 4 loops
lake nokomis open swim
82 degrees

I did it! It was a beautiful night for a swim. There were some open water swimmers, but not as many as on Tuesday. Lots of non-club members wading in the swimming area, even with the advisory. I watched out for blue-green algae as I swam, but didn’t notice any anywhere. A few times, I had an itchy-prickly sensation — a toe, my calf, a finger. Was I imaging it? I decided the reason I’m more nervous about the algae this year is because I swam through so much of it last week.

So, the algae wasn’t a problem. Instead, I had to contend with swan boats pedaling and boarder paddling across the swimming area. When I first sighted them, I often mis-identified them as lifeguard boats. Also a problem — well, maybe not a problem, but a challenge — was the sun. Not only bright, but doing something to the air so everything looked hazy. Difficult to see anything, especially on the way back to the big beach. The stretch between the first and second orange buoys was strange. The sun was hitting my goggles in such a way that caused a weird red streak underwater in my left eye. Not bright red, just red.

Other than streaks of red, the water was a pale, almost yellow, green. Low visibility. No sparkle friends or bubbles, barely a view of my hands. The water was full of swells. No waves crashing into me or going over my head, but a lot of rocking. Occasionally I had to breathe just on one side to avoid inhaling water.

july 24/SWIM

2.5 loops
lake nokomis main beach
66 degrees

We drove over to the lake this morning — I swam, Scott ran. Perfect conditions! Calm, empty water. No other swimmers or boaters. Amazing! Definitely a time for Mary Oliver’s “deepening and quieting of the spirit.” I wish I could do this every morning!

I think they’ve shortened the swimming area by taking out one of the buoys, so my 11 beach loops wasn’t as long as I thought it would be. Oh well. I swam for 45 minutes with my head only popping up out of the water every 5 strokes. Nothing but light green water to see below me, bubbles, and the occasional ghost vine. No seagulls on the buoys or big swans crossing too close. No other swimmers. I stopped two or three times at the far buoy: silence. When I breathed all I could see were Trees Sky Shore. When I lifted my eyes out of the water — alligator style — to sight, all I could see was the blue surface, dotted with something — water bugs?

july 23/RUN

7 miles
flats and back
67 degrees / humidity: 84%
ending in drizzle

7 miles! And I didn’t feel like I was about to die at the end! Big progress. Ran the first 3 miles without stopping, then tried out what Scott did yesterday in his run: zones/heart rate training. Run until my heart rate reaches 170, then walk until it reaches 135. My heart rate is usually between 170 and 175 for all of my runs, so 170 is actually on the low end. I rev high. This worked remarkably well. I felt relaxed and managed to stay around 167 for most of it. And focusing on my heart rate distracted me.

10 Things

  1. started by running north through the neighborhood: the guy who usually sits on his stoop and smokes wasn’t there this morning
  2. smelled breakfast — sausage, toast — as I ran by longfellow grill
  3. between lake street and franklin it was difficult to see the river — too many leaves, only the occasional flash of blue-gray
  4. nearing the trestle, voices — rowers below! heard, but not seen
  5. at least twice I’ve mentioned the orange cat spray-painted on the sidewalk. It’s not a cat, but a turkey. Today I noticed all the feathers
  6. honking geese (I think) under the franklin bridge
  7. the river was brown and half clear, half streaked with foam
  8. a spring below the U of M was gushing — a little waterfall spilling out over the road. Water heard 2 ways: 1. seeping out of the rocks and 2. spraying up from under car wheels
  9. near the bottom of the franklin hill, under the 1-94 bridge, leaves stick out from a leaning branch, looking like a leg to me. Several times I’ve thought there was a person there before I realized it was a tree
  10. cool rain drops on my hot face at the end of the run

Listened to my feet, the rowers, cars, seeping water for the first half. Put in my color playlist for the second half.

swim: 4 loops
lake nokomis open swim
77 degrees

Finally, I get to do another open swim! A beautiful evening with no swells and warm water. The first 2 loops were a little intense with a group of triathletes training for an upcoming race swimming in a line. But the third and fourth loops were much more peaceful, quiet. I didn’t stop at the shore between loops, and mostly swam freestyle without stopping, but once or twice I switched to breaststroke and took in the solitude and the smooth-as-glass water and the silence. Wow! Swimming freestyle without stopping, your head barely out of the water, is a much different experience than swimming breaststroke, with your head almost always out of the water. I like it; I feel less like a human and more like a fish, underwater for an hour.

Today’s swim was wonderful but didn’t involve much giving attention to anything other than sighting buoys, looking out for other swimmers, and counting strokes. Did I notice 10 things?

  1. only one or two globs of algae
  2. the water was olive green, or was it lentil green?
  3. the sun was lower in the west and muted because of the clouds
  4. no vine or twig encounters!
  5. no sailboats, either — was that because there wasn’t any wind?
  6. a wet-suited woman swimming a fast freestyle, then stopping to sight, then fast, then power breaststroking
  7. feeling something up ahead disturbing the water, then seeing it, finally: a breaststroker’s powerful kick
  8. at the beach, people with picket signs, park workers on strike and/or park worker supporters — I support the park workers!
  9. leaving the beach overhearing 2 women who just finished swimming: women 1: I think I did more than the race distance women 2: you did double the distance! You can do this! women 1: Yes, I can do this!! I’m assuming they were both training for an upcoming triathlon
  10. no planes or birds or shafts of light or glittering water or sparkle friends

a description of swimming

I cannot imagine a cessation to swimming, to my arms making their endless arcs, my hands gone to paddles, my body propelled forward a pull at a time, my feet feeling more like seal flippers, my shoulders rolling and rolling, and the slow whip of the turn, my head down and the push through the bubbles and blue andthe great intake of air, a breath that keeps a human able to move through water as if we were not gone from our breathable blue past (I will Always Inhabit the Water/ Lidia Yuknavitch).

july 22/RUNSWIMBIKE

run: 4 miles
to lake nokomis
73 degrees

Did a one-way run to the lake to meet RJP for a swim. Now that she’s 18, she’s old enough to swim across the lake, but she needs to get used to the scary, unsettling feeling of lake swimming, when you can’t see anything and scratchy vines reach up to grab your leg and there’s no bottom to touch. Her first attempt overwhelmed her — staring into a void of yellow, nothing to see in front, nothing solid to feel below. I told her about the first time I swam out to the buoys and across the lake. It was hard and I was scared. I kept thinking about Jaws. I could only swim 1 loop. It’s taken me 10 years to build up physically and mentally to swim as much as I do, I said. Later, when we were home, she said she wants to try again; she liked how it felt after she swam and maybe it wouldn’t be so scary once she got used to it. I hope it works out. I love swimming with her and feel so much joy watching her strong arms cut through the water.

One more thing about the swim: After RJP got out of the water, I swam a loop. If you ignored the algae scum, it was perfect water: still, not cold, empty. As I neared each white buoy, I displaced a seagull from their perch. Seagulls! I haven’t seen them much this summer, maybe that’s because I haven’t been swimming alone, in the morning?

Before meeting RJP, I ran. Hot! Some shade, lots of sun. I felt pretty relaxed for the first 2 miles, then I started negotiating with my legs: Can you make it to the turn-off past the mustache bridge before we walk? How about until we get over the duck bridge? Okay, we’ll take a quick walk break under the echo bridge. And we did, 2.6 miles into the run, but only for 10 or 15 seconds. When I started running again, I thought about how hard it is to notice anything when you’re distracted by the heat and the effort and your legs pestering you to walk. Can I name 10 things I noticed?

10 Things Noticed While Distracted by Heat and Fatigue

  1. park workers out near the trail, moving and weed-whacking
  2. since the last time I ran on the dirt trail between edmund and the river road someone has trimmed the tree branch that leaned over the trail — thank you, park worker!
  3. a little mud, some soft, sandy dirt, scattered tree limbs
  4. water rushing out of the sewer pipe — steady, soft
  5. someone biking on the walking path
  6. the creek was high and tumbling over rocks, impersonating a babbling brook
  7. through the trees, a kayak gliding down the creek — would they stay in until just below the mustache bridge? Does anyone turn around and paddle against the current?
  8. thwack thwack people playing on the pickleball court, hitting the balls hard
  9. a haunting call — was it a mourning dove or a kid? difficult to tell
  10. heading to the water fountain, wondering if that was where the person approaching was heading too, realizing finally that it was RJP — always unsettling when I don’t recognize the kids or Scott

Found this poem that I had archived in a document named, “Reading Links List” a few years ago: My First Black Nature Poem/ LaTasha N. Nevada Diggs. So many great lines. Here’s what I wanted to remember today:

the green clearness. so mud olive I cannot see the bottom.

Mud olive — that’s the color I’ve been trying to name. That’s the mix of yellow and green with a hint of blue that I’ve been seeing as I swim across the lake!

But not this morning. This morning the lake was pale yellow; near the surface it almost looked white. Not nearly as pleasing as olive colored!

Before the run and swim, I drank coffee and looked for inspiration from the few people still on twitter. Jackpot! Found some wonderful poems from Moist (which I’ll save for another entry) and the Ten Muses of Poetry — from the writer, Andrei Codescru, in his book, The Poetry Lesson. I’ve never heard of Codescru — he’s great. I found the chapter his Ten Muses are in and read it. Funny and strange and great. I wonder, would I enjoy taking a class from him? Probably.

The Ten Muses of Poetry

  1. Mishearing
  2. Misunderstanding
  3. Mistranslating
  4. Mismanaging
  5. Mislaying
  6. Misreading
  7. Misappropriating cliches
  8. Misplacing objects belonging to roommates or lovers
  9. Misguided thoughts at inappropriate times, funerals, etc.
  10. Mississippi (the river)

Ending with the Mississippi? Yes!

read / heard / watched

read: Just finished reading this book excerpt on lithub: Kinds of Blue: On the Human Need to Swim. It’s an excerpt from Abundance/ Karen Lloyd. After reading the wonderful essay, I requested to book from the library!

heard: Listening to a 6 part series called Tested, written and recorded by Rose Eveleth for NPR and CBC.

Who gets to compete? Since the beginning of women’s sports, there has been a struggle over who qualifies for the women’s category. Tested follows the unfolding story of elite female runners who have been told they can no longer race as women, because of their biology. As the Olympics approach, they face hard choices: take drugs to lower their natural testosterone levels, give up their sport entirely, or fight. To understand how we got here, we trace the surprising, 100-year history of sex testing.

watched: This short video about Katie Ledecky came up on YouTube for me the other day. As a long distance swimmer, I think Katie Ledecky is amazing. I wanted to archive it for 2 reasons. First, starting at 2 minutes when she discusses how she knew that she loved swimming when she broke her arm and still wanted to get into the water. She even put a plastic bag over her arm so she could. I was thinking about this idea, but not remembering where it came from, when I was talking to RJP about trying to swim again in the lake. When you love something, you’re willing to try almost anything to keep doing it.

The second reason I wanted to archive this video was because of the story about her kid-self and how she never loses sight of the fact that swimming is something she “started just for fun, on a summer league swim team” (video start: 4:08). That idea, combined with the old footage of her as a very young kid, makes me think of Sara, age 8, and how much of what I’m trying to do now, is to reclaim her spirit and try to translate it for Sara, age 50, without losing the fun and the passion and the exuberance I had back then.

bike: 3 miles
arbeiter and moon palace books
84 degrees

I was planning to do open swim at cedar lake at 5:30, but I checked the weather and learned that an intense storm would be moving through at 6 — high winds, thunder, hail. Not good for the car, or for someone swimming in the lake. What a bummer! I had a book to pick up at the book store, Gave / Cole Swensen, so we decided to bike to Moon Palace and then wait out the storm at Arbeiter Tap Room. What a storm! Wind, rain, thunder, but no hail. We thought we were leaving after the storm, but as we unlocked our bikes, more rain.

Another year when I can see well enough to bike!

july 21/RUN

3.1 miles
locks and dam no. 1 and back
80 degrees

All ready to swim this morning: suit on, goggles de-fogged, bag packed. It started to drizzle, then rain, then thunder. All morning. No open swim today. Bummer. Instead, I watched the final stage of the Tour de France live. Pogacar! 6 stage wins. Wow. Then, I went out for a run. Today’s progress: I didn’t stop to walk at the turn around spot — a good mental victory. Also, I’m back on track with my weekly mile total by running over 20 miles this week.

10 Things

  1. puddles in the usual spots: one block over, stretching across the sidewalk. No dry spot. A choice: leap over it or step gingerly on the muddy grass. I lept
  2. the big tree that fell last week and blocked the road has finally been removed
  3. a squirrel that looked like it might dart out in front of me — it didn’t
  4. slick, slippery asphalt on the part of the trail that dips below the road just after the double bridge
  5. a runner ahed of me pushing a stroller
  6. a walker walking with two medium-sized dogs on either side of them
  7. dripping ponytail
  8. water gushing out of the sewer at 42nd
  9. dirt and mud covering the sidewalk a few houses down after the rain
  10. at the end, walking back: chirping birds

Earlier this morning, I was reminded of a book I had checked out of the library a few years ago, but returned before I finished: Fen, Bog, and Swamp/ Annie Proloux. I think I checked out the e-book before; today I decided to try the audiobook — partly because I was reminded of it while reading an article about the top audiobooks of 2022.

Finishing this last sentence, RJP just called down the stairs, Mom, Biden dropped out. So many complicated feelings about this news and the election and the future.

Listening to the opening minutes of the book, I heard these lines about the need for a slower form of attention:

To observe gradual change takes years of repetitive passage through specific regions week after week, year after year, season after season. Noticing sprout, bloom, and decay. Observing the local fauna. Absorbing the rise and fall of waters. Looking carefully (Fen, Bog, and Swamp/ Annie Proloux).

Yes! I’ve been running at least 3 times a week, almost always above the gorge, noticing leaves and trees and water and stones (and more) then writing about them for over 7 1/2 years now. I haven’t collecting the detailed data that Proloux describes Thoreau doing, but I have been noticing subtle changes in the seasons.

july 20/RUN

5.8 miles
bottom of franklin hill and back
69 degrees / humidity: 84%

More progress! Running a little longer before stopping to walk, then running a little longer before stopping again. Increased my distance and time on my feet too. Step by small step I’ll get there.

Almost 9 am on Saturday morning. As I warmed up with a walk, it was quiet, calm. No cars or kids or other adults around. Just birds and my footsteps on the sidewalk. Ah, I love summer mornings!

During the run: hot, humid, lots of sweat. Greeted the Welcoming Oaks. Passed a group of runners in the tunnel of trees — good morning! Noticed an orange water station set up at the top of lake street, above the rowing club. Chanted triple berries — strawberry/raspberry/blueberry. Someone running up the hill turn around in front of me and descended again — hill repeats? Some bikers bombed down the franklin hill, others crawled up it. No rowers. The surface of the river seemed to have an oily skin on it. No foam or waves. Two runners passed me, one of them talking about his sister’s upcoming wedding. Waved at a regular runner, the white-bearded Mr. Santa Claus. At the bottom of the hill, two men fished in the river. Did they catch anything?

image: an older man running in BRIGHT blue shorts and matching long socks. As blue as a cloudless sky.

For the first half of the run, I listened to the quiet. Walking up the hill, I put in some music: Beyoncé’s “Cowboy Carter” and then the movie soundtrack to “The Wiz.”

july 19/SWIM

5 loops
lake nokomis open swim
75 degrees

5 loops again! I swam 4 without stopping, then got out of the water to check in with Scott before returning and swimming one more loop. Felt strong and relaxed and happy. I remember thinking, this is it — it = the best, a moment I want to live in and return to when I need it. Steady strokes. Breathing every 5. Not seeing the buoys but swimming straight towards them. Not effortless or easy but satisfying.

The water was choppy, full of swells. From the big beach to the first orange buoy, it was difficult to stroke; I felt like I was flailing. Not being hit with big waves, but feeling like the water just under me didn’t want to cooperate. From the far orange buoy to the far green buoy, it was difficult to see anything, everything kept hiding behind a wave. Mostly I breathed on my right side. The last stretch of the loop, parallel to the big beach, was the best. Pushed from behind by the waves, I felt like I was on a people mover. My strokes were stronger and faster and easier.

The water was yellowish-green, with the occasional glob of algae, one or two prickly vines. My sparkle friends (the sediment/particles) were back! No fish sightings or near misses with other swimmers. No menacing swans. Probably because of the choppy water, the lifeguards kept drifting too close to the buoys, which made for tighter angles around the course.

During the last stretch of the fourth loop, as I looked through the water and saw nothing but bubbles and my hands, I thought about how this opaque water doesn’t represent the void or nothingness or the absence of something but a different way of being, one that is not only possible, but is already being lived. I don’t think this quite makes sense yet. Suddenly I thought about Judith Butler and her idea of making room for other ways of being. The aim is less to create an endless number of new ways of being, and more to acknowledging and support ways that already exist but have been ignored, silenced, reviled, feared. I’m getting somewhere with this, I think, but I’m not quite there yet. Something about how poetry, for me, is about this making room, giving a language to ways of being that already exist but only on the edge, the periphery — not only, but especially my way of being.

Two days ago, I was watching a video about the World Champion triathlete Beth Potter and her pre-Olympics training. Her swim coach was giving instructions to her training group at the lake: Before the buoy, you need to sight it and then do 20 strokes in with your eyes closed. See if you can hit the buoy. Potter’s response: Eyes closed? Coach: Yeah, yeah, a bit of blind swimming. I remember hearing someone during open swim a few years ago say that if your stroke is good/straight, you should be able to swim to the buoys with your eyes closed. I’m guessing that’s what Potter’s group is working on — making sure they have proper form.

One reason open swim club has been so meaningful for me for the last decade is how it has helped me to learn how to be — how to navigate, function — when I can’t see. To trust straight strokes, to get comfortable with other senses.

Random things to remember for future Sara: After possibly breaking a rib in his bat encounter, Scott is healing — he’s running and sleeping in the bed and not waking up each morning in agony. He and FWA are playing 4 instruments each in the pit for Spongebob Square Pants. I saw it last night: great. RJP moves into her dorm for her first year of college in a little over a month. Tadej Pogacar is achieving super-human watts as he bikes his way up the Alps and towards a resounding victory in the Tour de France. The lexapro seems to be working; I have so much less anxiety. The election continues to be shit show that I’m trying to ignore.

july 17/RUN

4.5 miles
longfellow gardens / minnehaha falls
65 degrees

What a morning! Cooler and less humid. Ran to Longfellow Gardens to check out the flowers. In full bloom, mostly red and purple. People sitting on the benches — I couldn’t see them that well, but I imagine some of them were painting or taking photographs.

image: A portable red lawn chair in the shade under a tree. A person sit in it, facing the field with the statue of Longfellow, their back to the flowers.

Returning to the falls, I noticed a few trucks and heard voices chanting. Was it some religious thing? Or military training? A protest? RJP might know; one of her best friends works at the restaurant at the falls.

Took the steps down to the bottom of the falls, which were roaring. So was the creek. Walked then ran beside the water as it rushed by. Eventually it reaches the mississippi, but I crossed the bridge well before that happens. Admired the water that collects in a pool — sparkle and shimmer. In the afternoon, kids congregate here, wading and splashing, but not this morning. Just me, and a few diggers in the distance. What are they digging up?

Took the steps — more than 100 of them — back up to the park. Wow, what a leg burn! Glad I didn’t try running them!

Found this green poem this morning.

Mount Grace Priory/ G.C. Waldrep

It was not a question of not having the language for it—
having two, in fact. The walking towards it,
and then the walking away. How that felt, all the green
gathering itself to the idea of green, lingering
right at the edge of the dark, what we call the dark.
And the languages, both of them, noticing that, envying
it. From their places at the beginning & at the end.

all the green/gathering itself to the idea of green

I want to think about this green and the two languages and the dark, or what we call the dark, some more.

july 16/RUNSWIM

4 miles
river road, north/south
73 degrees
humidity: 86% / dew point: 60

A wonderful sunny morning. Not too hot yet, although the humidity took its toll. By the end of the run, I was dripping sweat. Another improved run. Went farther before I stopped for a quick break, then convinced myself to keep going on the way back. Believing again that I can do the marathon in October.

Decided to listen today. Thinking about how delightful it is to move through the neighborhood, passing from sound to sound.

Sounds

  1. a chorus of BIRD — chattering, chirping, cheeping
  2. a little toddler voice trying to repeat binoculars after his mom said it in a neighbor’s backyard
  3. the shshshsh of my feet striking grit on the sidewalk
  4. overheard from one biker to another — and it was so quiet you could hear the water lapping against the shore
  5. a male coxswain below instructing rowers
  6. my house key softly jingling in my pack
  7. a walker’s keys jangling loudly in his pocket
  8. whoosh after whoosh after whoosh of car wheels passing on the road
  9. the buzz on a riding lawn mower — a park working mowing the grass beside the trail
  10. 2 sets of tap tap tap tapping from roofers — about a dozen taps each, at slightly different speeds, then a short break, then more taps
  11. the quiet hops of a bunny moving across a neighbor’s grass
  12. a lawn mower hitting a twig or a root — thwack!
  13. the clicking of a roller skier’s poles

I think my favorite sound was the soft footsteps of the bunny hurrying across the lawn. A silvery whisper only possible to hear on a calm summer morning like today. I love the sound of animal feet moving — running or hopping through the grass, thundering over hard dirt, scampering in the soft snow.

I posted this poem on here 2 years ago:

The Locust/ Leonara Speyer

Its hot voice sizzles from some cool tree
Near-by:
It seems to burn its way through the air
Like a small, pointed flame of sound
Sharpened on the ecstatic edge of sunbeams.

Speyer is describing a locust but as I wrote on the 16 july 2022, her description makes me think of a brood of cicadas. This sound is LOUD and interrupts you, demanding you notice it. The bunny’s soft footsteps were quiet and easily unnoticed. It feels like an accomplishment to have been quiet and aware enough to hear them.

So, I’m thinking about sound today. Another inspiration: Ears don’t lie.

Hearing is our fastest sense. (Who knew?!) Horowitz says that it takes our brain at least one-quarter of a second to process visual recognition. But sound? You can recognize a sound in 0.05 seconds. And our brain is so adept at hearing the differences between sounds, we can sense changes of sound that occur in “less than a millionth of a second,” according to Horowitz’s book [The Universal Sense: How Hearing Shapes the Mind].

Ears don’t lie

This source led me to a Radiolab story that includes Horowitz: Never Quite Now. This story is not just about sound, but our nerves and neurons and how long it takes for us to process the world. Here’s a helpful description of how our body sees and then wants a pen:

JAD: Okay, so the eye takes the light that’s reflected off the pen, turns it into a little electrical signal, and then sends that deep into the middle of the brain.

CARL ZIMMER: Takes a couple hundredths of a second.

JAD: Bounces around for a bit, and then within …

CARL ZIMMER: A few more hundredths of a second …

JAD: The signal has made it …

CARL ZIMMER: All the way back to the rear end of the brain, where you start processing vision.

JAD: But this is just the beginning.

CARL ZIMMER: Right. Now you’ve gotta like figure out what you’re seeing.

JAD: So our jolt is off again, this time toward the middle of the brain and then down toward the bottom.

CARL ZIMMER: To these other regions ..

JAD: That start to decode the signal.

CARL ZIMMER: The first visual region is called V1.

JAD: Next up …

CARL ZIMMER: V2, V4, and so on. And they’re gonna sharpen the image, make out contrasts, edges.

JAD: And then electricity goes back towards the front of the brain.

CARL ZIMMER: After, let’s see, another tenth of a second or so …

JAD: We finally get to a place where we think …

CARL ZIMMER: “Oh, that’s a pen.”

ROBERT: We haven’t gotten yet to “I want it”.

CARL ZIMMER: Exactly.

JAD: For that to happen, the electricity has to jump from one part of the front of the brain to another and another before you can finally say …

CARL ZIMMER: “That’s a nice pen. I could use a pen.”

JAD: [laughs]

ROBERT: [laughs]

CARL ZIMMER: And we are still not done, you know. Then—then—then …

JAD: Little jolt heads northCARL ZIMMER: To sort of the top of your brain. So we—we’ve gone from your eyes to the back of your brain, around up to the front of your brain again. And now we’re up to the top of your head where you set up motor commands, and then you can grab the pen.

ROBERT: Christ!

JAD: So I mean, you add all this up and what are we talking about here

CARL ZIMMER: About a quarter of a second.

Never Quite Now

Later in the story, Seth Horowitz describes how hearing is the fastest sense and mentions the startle circuit:

SETH HOROWITZ: A sudden loud noise activates a very specialized circuit from your ear to your spinal neurons.

JAD: You mean it bypasses the brain?

SETH HOROWITZ: Yeah, it’s the startle circuit. If you suddenly hear a loud noise, within 50 milliseconds, that’s 50 thousandths of a second, so you’re talking 20 times faster than cognition, your body jumps, will begin the release of adrenaline. No consciousness involved. It’s five neurons, and it takes 50 milliseconds.

Never Quite Now

I’ve written about the word startle before — I especially like Emily Dickinson’s startled grass. There’s a poem in here somewhere, involving bodily recognition (or reaction?) versus brain cognition.

swim: 5 loops
lake nokomis open swim
79 degrees

5 loops! What a great night for swimming in the lake! Calm, goo-free water, strong shoulders, a willing back, enough time to swim an extra loop. Amazing. Writing this a few hours later, I’m wiped out, but I felt good the whole time I was swimming. I swam for 80 minutes without stopping.

I wanted to give attention to sound as I swam, and I did. Mostly, I heard the sloshing of the water as I moved through it. Once I heard a plane roaring above me and another time I heard a lifeguard calling out. Not much else. In past years, I’ve heard squeaks or strange clanging noises, but not tonight. Just slosh slosh slosh.

The water was a pale green with the idea of pale yellow — I didn’t see yellow as much as feel that it was there. Visibility was limited, but I could see my hand in front of me, bubbles, and the underside of the water’s surface, which was very cool.

There were a few menacing swans and some kayaks.

From the shore I could see that the orange buoys were in a straight line. In the water, swimming past them, it didn’t seem as straight. At least once for each loop, I could see the orange dots of the three buoys. The green buoys were more difficult. I didn’t care; I knew where they should be and swam that way.