Category: Running Log

jan 24/BIKERUNGETOUTICE

Yesterday was a beautiful day in Minneapolis, filled with fierce love as thousands of Minnesotans (I heard 50,000, but I’m not sure if that’s accurate), marched downtown. Today was terrible; another Minneapolis resident was executed by ICE. I’m struggling to write any words right now, but I wanted to at least write that.

bike: 30 minutes
run: 1 mile
-5 degrees

I hoped that working out might help me feel a little less overwhelmed and it did but not much. Guess I’ll have to try more deep breathing.

jan 22/BIKERUNGETOUTICE

bike: 33 minutes
run: 1.5 miles
basement
outside: -4 / feels like -22

Brrrr! And that wind! I was outside this morning, shoveling, but otherwise I’ve been inside. Devoted much of the day to surrounding myself with other Minnesotans words of love and solidarity, then turning them into a cento.

At the start of my bike, I watched the first episode of “Pluribus.” So good! Then I got to the lab scene with the rat and I realized it was too much for me right now. I found an old, “from the vault” 2018 triathlon on youtube and watched that instead. By the end of the bike, my left knee was feeling stiff, like it sometimes does. Hopped on the treadmill and listened to “Mood: Energy” while I ran. The first song was, “Harder Faster Stronger” and somehow it made me feel more anxious instead of less. But, Ok Go’s “Here it goes Again” helped.

Get Out Ice

Here’s what I posted on my new page, Love, Minnesota-style:

After Consulting with our Team, We Are Choosing Love / Sara Lynne Puotinen

This is a call to everyone. This is a call to anyone. 

Here, now, in Minneapolis, our hearts are open.
Here, now, in St. Paul, our hearts beat strong.
Here, now, in Minnesota, we are choosing to take the day
and fill it with resistance, solidarity, reflection, love.

Let us be clear: we are not powerless. 

We are not hopeless. 

Of course we have hope!
And we will find each other.
We will gather,
we will keep moving.

We must raise our voices 
to acknowledge, 
now is not okay.
ICE’s ongoing occupation is fascism.
We are afraid, we are angry, we are exhausted.
And we will continue to show up
and to fill the streets with love.

This is not about choosing sides,
this is about choosing love.

On Friday, January 23, 2026, there is a call for a general strike against ICE: ICE OUT MN. No work, no class, no shopping. As of 22 jan 2026, more than 500 local businesses are participating. 

Many of them have declared their show of solidarity through social media posts. For the past few days, I’ve been gathering their words and turning them into new poems. 

In today’s (1/22) practice, I typed up 3 pages of the words, printed them out, then sat at my desk and read and reread them. I wrote down words and phrases that I noticed on another blank sheet of paper with a jumbo pencil. Then I shifted those around and turned them into new lines. I don’t think it is finished, but I’ll post it here anyway.

jan 21/RUNGETOUTICE

4.5 miles
minnehaha falls and back
22 degrees / light snow
100% snow-covered

Today I ran outside. I decided that even though it is true I can’t always effectively assess the situation because of my vision, it is also true that it is unlikely I will encounter any incidents beside the river. And it was true, and I was fine. That doesn’t mean ICE isn’t around. Just before I went out running, a black SUV drove down the cross street with 7 or 8 cars following and HONKING their horns.

I also went out because I’m finally, after a week of a low-grade cold, starting to feel better. Hooray! The river was so beautiful — open and covered in snow — and it felt so good to be moving outside. It’s much easier to be running outside by the river, than downstairs in a dark basement.

There were a few people on the trail, mostly walkers, a biker, at least one other runner.

10 Things Heard

  1. kids playing on the Dowling Elementary and Minnehaha Academy playgrounds — screaming, laughing, having fun
  2. the falls barely falling over the ledge because the creek was frozen
  3. sirens
  4. the train bells as the light rail train passed through the station
  5. hammering and pounding coming from the construction site at a house on Lena Smith Boulevard
  6. honking geese
  7. from my favorite viewing spot at the falls: voices below or across the gap
  8. more voices below, somewhere on the winchell trail — some adults and kids
  9. the soft sizzle of snow flakes hitting my jacket
  10. an electric singing as it slowly travelled past on the road

Not too long after I got back from my run, Scott and I went to Costco to stock up on stuff before Friday’s strike of no work / no shop / no school. It was surprisingly normal in the store. Later, on the freeway, driving home, we passed by the Whipple Building and thought about all the people suffering in there right now. From the outside, just a tall building with lots of windows, a place that I have never noticed before, only seeing it as another generic office building. And inside, it’s filled with terror and hate and injustice and a bunch of under-trained goons.

Get Out Ice

This morning, hours before my run, I gathered together statements from local businesses, announcing their intent to be closed on Friday in solidarity with the no work / no shop / no class strike. I pulled out some words and phrases which are starting to take shape. Then I went running and talked with RJP and had to go shopping. so I haven’t returned to them yet.

While I continue to work on this poem, here’s a bit from one of the restaurants, Nicos Tacos:

On this day we are choosing to stand with our community, to stand for dignity and for humanity. No one should live in fear for simply seeking a better life. Strong communities are built when immigrants feel safe, seen, and supported. Let Nico’s be a home to all, and a reminder that we all belong here.

Nicos Taco Bar

And, here’s a running list of the businesses participating. As of 5:00 pm today, there are 382 businesses on it!

jan 20/BIKERUNGETOUTICE

bike: 33 minutes
run: 1.5 miles
basement
outside: 11 degrees

Cold outside, ice on the paths, ICE on the streets. Even if the conditions were better, is it safe for me to go out for a run on my own? Since I am white, probably, but my vision is bad. It’s good enough to navigate the trail — cracks, bumps, curves — but not to get a sense of when I’m in danger. I can’t read signs — words, gestures, signals — and I can’t see faces or identify people well. Out by the river, if someone stopped me, would I be able to tell if they were ICE? If they were threatening me. I don’t know.

Am I being too cautious? Unsure. For now, I’ll go to the Y or the basement. I miss winter running.

Watched Jennifer Lawrence on Good Hang with Amy Poehler while I biked. It’s sponsored by Spotify, which I wish wasn’t the case. I thought it was funny when Amy asked Jennifer what her favorite song was and Jennifer said, ever since the radio went away, I can’t find new music. Where do you find it? I was expected Amy to answer with the obvious: I listen to Spotify. But she didn’t; she said she finds stuff on tik tok then buys it.

I listened to Mood: Energy again while I ran. Pressure / Billy Joel | No Sleep ‘Til Brooklyn / Beastie Boys | Final Countdown / Europe | Iron Man / Black Sabbath. When I wasn’t thinking about ICE instead of iron, I heard a line about boots of lead and thought of Emily Dickinson and “I Felt a Funeral in my Brain” — And then I heard them lift a Box/ And creaked across my Soul/ With those same boots of Lead again / Then Space begin to Toll. Love that poem!

Get Out Ice

Earlier today, writing about my bike and run yesterday, I was feeling a bit extremely overwhelmed by the headlines I encountered on Facebook. I sat with those feelings for several hours. Then, I saw this video from the Minneapolis Art Sled Rally this past weekend, and I snapped out of the deepest fear:

Minneapolis Art Sled Rally / 17 January 2026

Such love, as joy, as whimsy, as defiance! I had an idea: I should post an expression and example of Minneapolis / Twin Cities / Minnesota love every day. These examples are not suggesting that things aren’t bad (they are), but are claiming space for a powerful counter-narrative to fear and defeat and Minneapolis-as-lawless-hellscape: Love! solidarity, care, joy. I’m going to try and post something on facebook every day, something I haven’t ever done. I used to be much more comfortable with social media, and tweeted all the time. Then my vision declined a lot and I lost interest. Then I became too intimidated by it, afraid that I’d do something wrong — this is not an unfounded fear; there are many buttons/directions posted that are very clear to others, but are invisible to me and my cone-starved eyes. But, I have decided to try again, to be brave and share these examples with others.

I have also decided to archive all these examples on a page in my “How to Be” project on UN || DISCIPLINED: Love, Minnesota-style

jan 19/BIKERUNGETOUTICE

bike: 10 minutes
run: 10 minutes
basement
4 degrees / feels like -5

note: I’m writing this first section the next morning because I exercised too late to write it then. I’m writing it after reading several headlines/accounts, watching a tiktok that describes how ICE agents are driving around looking for people who look black, brown, or asian to take. Without any cause, they pull these people out of their cars and take them away, leaving the car abandoned, sometimes still running, in the street. Or they break down their doors, pull them out of their houses, half-dressed (in below zero weather), and take them. I read a headline, posted by Senator Amy Klochubar,”St Paul mayor Kaohly Her “livid” after ICE wrongly targets family friend, escorts him undressed into cold and one from the city of St. Paul putting a temporary ban on towing abandoned vehicles. Unreal. Oh, and this was also after reading the message Trump sent to Norway explaining why he wanted Greenland (he didn’t get the Nobel Peace Prize) and Heather Cox Richardson’s discussion of the significance of this — could this be the final straw? the one that removes him from office?

A quick bike and run in the early evening. Too late and too cold to be outside, and probably too dangerous. Being sick has also made me not want to go outside. Because I’m inside, I haven’t witnessed a lot of ICE activity. Although, even if I was outside, there’s a good chance I wouldn’t see it with my bad vision. I know it’s out there. They target schools, taking parents/kids who look black or brown or Asian, and we live less than 2 blocks from two of them. Just yesterday they were spotted driving through the alley near the end of school.

I watched a running youtuber’s latest video while I biked, listened to a Mood: Energy playlist while I ran. Didn’t think about much. I don’t remembering noticing much either. One thing: after getting off the bike, before putting in my headphones and firing up the treadmill, I could hear the music Scott was playing upstairs while he made popovers. I asked him later what it was, something by Debussy. That’s his comfort music, I think.

Get Out Ice

note: I wrote this on 19 jan, in the morning

Yesterday, I had a great idea: gather together statements by local businesses on social media about what’s happening here, then turn it into a cento poem. And that’s what I did this morning! So wonderful to spend time with words of solidarity and love (and not hate).

What is happening in Minneapolis is terrifying; what is happening in Minneapolis is full of hope. Earlier today, or was it yesterday?, someone posted on facebook about how NBC needs to work on its sloppy reporting, then gave an example: a reporter suggesting Minnesotans are reeling from the protests. Reeling? Not from the protests. The non-violent and fierce ways so many people in Minneapolis and St. Paul are bearing witness and standing together against ICE is inspiring and beautiful and powerful embodiments of love. Here’s my poem:

Love

Love is not
business as
usual.
Love is not
a business.
Love is
a warm place
to land.
Generous
open
big enough
to hold
all who sit
who stand
who show up
for each other
even in fear
and in grief.

Love is a
space where
our hearts our
mouths our feet
our hands
our eyes
activate
love making
love living
love resisting.

In this heavy
moment, we
want to be
clear: we
no longer
accept hate.

And with
these words, we
affirm
what we know
always
to be true:
We love, we love, we love.

The statements I used come from the following businesses: Lynette, Hai Hai, Dogwood Coffee, Fireroast Coffee, Arbeiter Brewing, Venn Brewing, Mother Earth Gardens, Bull’s Horn, Black Coffee and Waffle Bar, Wrecktangle Pizza, Carbone’s, Longfellow Grill, Merlins Rest.

I’d like to do more of these. I’d also like to use this practice as a way to: develop a rich, messy understanding of love, to counter the narratives that suggest Minneapolis is violent and dangerous and needs/deserves to be occupied and punished.

jan 18/BIKERUNGETOUTICE

bike: 30 minutes
run: 1.5 miles
basement
outside: 100% snow-covered / 12 degrees

I’m inside partly because I’m congested, partly because it’s cold, and partly because I’m a little more nervous to be out there alone these days. I miss the gorge. If I’m feeling better tomorrow, maybe I’ll go out for a short run. At the start of the bike, I struggled to stick with something to watch. I started with The Terminator — too dystopian — then switched to the first season of “The Traitors,” which I’ve been meaning to check out (for some reason I can’t quite remember). It was too much about manipulation and tricking people and not trusting anyone. Finally I landed on the first season of Schmigadoon. Will I return to on my next bike? I’m not sure. I love the show, I watched it when it came out, but I’m not sure I want to watch it again.

For the run, I put in a Mood: Energy playlist. It started with Black Sabbath’s “War Pigs,” then “Hip to be Square,” then a song I can’t remember, then ended with “Bust a Move.” A strange mix. The run wasn’t too hard, but it wasn’t easy, and I sweat a lot.

Even though I was in the dark, windowless basement, and it was boring on the bike and the treadmill, it felt good to move. The crud in my throat cleared up some, and I felt less tired. Ah, I love moving!

Get Out Ice (written earlier)

Still a little sick — crud in my throat, creaky voice, sinus headache — but feeling much better. I’m so proud of my city and my neighbors and the mayors of Minneapolis (Jacob Frey) and St. Paul (Kaohey Her — the first Hmong American mayor!) and my governor and senators and the attorney general and the congressional representative for my district (Ihlan Omar) and so many of the businesses nearby. All standing up with a fierce love for the people of Minnesota. Such beautiful and powerful expressions of resistance and love!

Keeping the Receipts

Speaking of neighborhood businesses, I’ve been struck by how powerful expressions of love and solidarity are in this moment, and how damning silence is. At the very least, I think a restaurant/business should express a concern for their own workers and acknowledge a need for the safety. This is not a political statement; it is a statement of concern and care for their workers and the community. Scott, FWA, and I were talking about it, and Scott mentioned examples around the city that he has encountered/read about, like, “No ICE” or “We love our immigrant neighbors.” I wrote about Lynette’s instagram statement two days ago and here are some other statements by nearby businesses:

1

At Merlins, hospitality isn’t just what’s on the table. It’s how we show up for the people around us. We stand with our immigrant community. We stand with those feeling shaken, overwhelmed, or unsure. And we stand for the innocent people who deserve to feel safe, seen, and welcome.

If you need a warm place to land, a moment of normalcy, or just to sit among neighbors who care—our doors are open. Always.

Community first. People first. Humanity first.

Merlins Rest Facebook post / 15 jan

2

Closing Early Wednesday January 7th

Out of an abundance of caution we will be closing early today to help protect our neighbors, guests, and staff as we stand with our community.

We truly appreciate your understanding and look forward to serving you again soon.

Hi-Lo Diner / Facebook post, 7th January

3

Everything going on in our city is horrific, that is true. It is also true that we are resilient and adaptable and fueled by our love and care for one another. We will continue to show up, stay alert, and support the growing needs of our community.

Mother Earth Gardens / 14 january

4

You know where we stand. We are stronger together! We know how familiar this feels. We know how to activate our hearts and stand with our community. 

We will always create space to support our neighbors who have been participating in the “good trouble, necessary trouble”, to gather and be together. 

Join us on Saturday, bring your ICE Whistle in solidarity for one free beer with the community. Thank you Southside for taking care of each other and showing up!

Arbeiter Brewing / Instagram Post / 10 January

5

Our posture & sentiment as we stand alongside & amidst our hometown:

May our collective hearts be moved by loss & injustice,
our eyes see past the vain theatre of division.

May our hands open widely in generosity towards all others,
our feet move us in the direction of restorative peace.

May our minds construct new pathways for welcome & belonging,
our mouths speak with empathy & devotion.

May we not forget,
We are all bound to each other – siblings across this earth.

Dogwood Coffee / Instagram post / 10 January

The nearby pub that we’ve been haunting for the past few years — literally haunting; we go there at least once a week — has made no statement, is only using social media to advertise their specials. Scott has reached out to them several times asking why they haven’t said anything about what’s going on. So far, no response. It’s (long past) time to only haunt places that are here for our community.

And, here’s another example of love and support for the community. Hai Hai is not in my neighborhood, but it’s a restaurant I’ve been wanting to go to for almost a year. Now is the time — just not next Friday, when it’s closed for the protest!

Hola Arepa & Hai Hai will be closed on Friday, January 23 in support of the general strike to remove ICE from our cities and get justice for Renee Good. It is important to us to stand with our community in fighting against these injustices and to allow our teams the opportunity to protest or to take a day off for much needed rest and reflection. 

Choosing to close on a Friday night in January is not an easy decision for a small business during a notoriously slow time of the year, but we feel it’s important to take a stand and acknowledge that as long as ICE is occupying our city, it’s not business as usual.

Hai Hai / Fadebook post / 27 January

This is not business as usual. Yes! They continue with some useful ways for supporting them:

If you want to support us and your other favorite restaurants, please choose a different night this week as your Friday. Taco Wednesday date night? Sunday family brunch hang? Or buy a gift card for a future visit. It’s a difficult time for Mpls & St Paul small businesses everywhere, so every bit counts and your support means the world to all of us and our teams.

an idea! Tomorrow, gather a range of statements from local businesses and turn them into a cento poem about love.

Silence Will Not Protect You

As I think about the importance of publicly acknowledging what is happening, I keep thinking about Audre Lorde and her powerful essay, “The Transformation of Silence Into Language” from Sister Outsider. I studied this essay/book 25 years ago in grad school and taught in 15 or so years ago.

My silences had not protected me. Your silence will not protect you. But for every real word spoken, for every attempt I had ever made to speak those truths for which I am still seeking, I had made contact with other women while we examined the words to fit a world in which we all believed, bridging our differences.

What are the words you do not yet have? What do you need to say? What are the tyrannies you swallow day by day and attempt to make your own, until you will sicken and die of them, still in silence?

We have been socialized to respect fear more than our own needs for language and definition, and while we wait in silence for that final luxury of fearlessness, the weight of that silence will choke us.

Beast Mode Mary

I continue to be shocked/delightfully surprised by the relevance of Little House on the Prairie to life in the US these days. Last night, Scott and I watched “The Bully Boys” (season 3, episode 9). Three brothers — 2 adults, 1 teenager — move into Walnut Grove and begin conning, intimidating, assaulting Walnut Grove. They buy stuff from the Olesons on credit, but never pay; they “buy” lumber from Mr. Hanson, then sell it to another of his customers; they “assault” Ma (in the scene they harass her, make her drop her eggs, restrain her, but there seems to be a suggestion of even worse things happening); they beat the shit out of Pa when he confronts them, breaking 3! of his ribs; and the youngest brother punches Mary and gives her a black eye. Reverend Alden counsels his congregation to turn the other cheek and to welcome the men. Mary tries to cover up what happened and to avoid Bubba — that’s the kid-bully’s name. But near the end, during recess, he steals her school tablet, and that, along with learning what has happened to Ma and Pa at the hands of the older brothers, is a bridge too far for Mary. She goes Beast Mode on Bubba — tackling and punching him. When he fends her off, another girl tackles him, then another. Finally, all the girls — maybe a dozen — jump on him and whoop his ass. Silent, weakened by fear and separation, they suffered alone at the hands of the bully. Together, they were strong and defiant and powerful. Inspired by the girls, Reverend Alden calls out the men at church as doing the devil’s work, pins one of them against the wall (Beast Mode Reverend!), and rallies the men of Walnut Grove to run the bullies out of town — Take only what you brought with you! As they march out in disgrace, the women sing, Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory. No, I don’t agree with everything in this episode, but wow, was it wonderful to watch it and recognize what Minneapolis is doing right now (just one example for yesterday)

One more thing: I love this woman.

jan 16/RUNGETOUTICE

3.1 miles
ywca track

Ran at the y today. In the locker room, after the run, as I was pulling out my flip-flops which my sister gave me almost 10 years ago, someone else in my row of lockers called out: I love your flip-flops. They’re fucking awesome or their metal or something like that. I responded, thank you! I feel like a badass when I’m wearing them! I needed this exchange today, to connect with a stranger in this way.

my flipflops

an image remembered: running at a corner, I saw my shadow to the side, then felt another one behind me but no one there: a double shadow! Me and my shadows. It was funny because I was listening to my shadow playlist as I saw this, including the song, “Me and My Shadow.”

Get Out ICE

A march organized by a right-wing influencer is planned for Saturday, Jan. 17 in Minneapolis, according to the Minnesota Star Tribune. The event “is organized by conservative influencer Jake Lang, who has been advertising the march on X. In a post, he called for ‘crusaders’ to ‘take back’ Minnesota from Democrats. … Minneapolis Police Inspector Bill Peterson reassured residents at Tuesday’s meeting in Minneapolis that they have prepared for the event. He also noted the city is ‘hyper aware’ that the Cedar Riverside neighborhood could be a target.”

All around, confusion and mis-information. Many people are imploring others to not take the bait, and to avoid this march, which seems to designed to incite violence and lead to justification for further intervention by the Trump Administration. Others encouraging direct action in order to protect the Cedar Riverside neighborhood. It seems like a no-win situation.

jan 15/SICKICEGETOUT

I feel really knocked out today. My resting heart rate, which is usually around 55 bpm is 90 today. We’re renewing our passports online and have to take pictures of each other for the application. Yikes. Between feeling wiped out from the flu (or a cold, I’m not sure), and wiped out from the ICE occupation here in Minneapolis, I’m sure our pictures look awful. My hopeful take: a few years from now, when we’ve made it through this terrible time, we can look back and joke about how awful we looked and felt in these pictures.

ICE GET OUT

Erica Chenoweth

Scrolling through Facebook earlier today, then instagram, seeing who is posting something about ICE, who is not. Thinking about what silence means in this moment, and what a difference (at least to me) it makes to see posts acknowledging that what is happening is not okay. Also thinking about supporting businesses that are not only speaking out but actively helping, like Lynette:

We’ve gone back and forth about how transparent to be on this app. But you’re our people and we’d like you to know that one of our beloved staff members was taken this weekend. This person has legal US status, she’s a mother to a young child, works hard, came here to live the American dream and again has done everything right.

We have many ways to support. The number one being to show up for us. At Lynette we employ 40 incredible individuals, and every time you show up to services, you’re supporting them directly.

We need you now more than ever to keep us going. Please be patient with us, as we are navigating a lot of change and stress of a kind we’ve never dealt with as a community.

We’ve added some additional direct support. You can bring in bagged donations, show up to make signs, show up for conversations, bring your neighbor out for pizza and a smile.

As always, your support means the world to us and we will continue to do our best to support community as well as our family here at Lynette.

instagram post

jan 14/SICKICEGETOUT

note: I’m writing this the next day, when I feel even crappier than yesterday, both from sickness and the news that Trump might invoke the insurrection act and bring in troops to Minneapolis.

Woke up with a cold or the flu or something that made me too tired or run-down to exercise. I must really be sick; I rarely don’t run just because I have a cold.

The following was written yesterday morning, before the sickness really hit and before an ICE agent shot a person in the leg in North Minneapolis and things got even more tense.

a bridge / some steps

bridge 1

The idea of a bridge has been appearing a lot lately. First, in some favorite lines from a poem gathered this past year:

It’s not accurate to say we know
what we see. Truth is, few understand

the physics of color.

Vision

tends to end up being an imposition
more than a recognition of how the fog

consumes much of the bridge, as if nothing
is able to fully connect one side

of the Thames to the other.
(A Lexicon of Light/ George Looney)

I re-wrote these lines and turned them into a poem that offered a bridge between inner and outer color. It’s unpublished, so I’ll only post part of it:

And Vision 
can’t help us describe 
how a bridge can be 
consumed by gray fog 
yet still link two shores — 
the inner and
the outer.

It’s delightful to go back to this poem and re-read the entire thing. My version is based only the favorite lines I gathered; I didn’t remember that it was about a painting by Monet and an actual bridge over the Thames River!

Here is how Looney describes the bridge at the end of the poem:

The bridge
is more than a construction passed over

by trains and imbued with shifting colors
with the time of day. It becomes, for the artist,

a lexicon of light and all that light does
to this world.

A lexicon of light — a dictionary, a set of meanings in a language

And for me, the bridge is the link between my inner and outer world of color, where the outer world is mostly gone, replaced with the rich language (created through gathering poetic lines about color) of the inner.

bridge 2

I’d return to three thoughts:
you; the “world
we wanted to go out into,
to come to ourselves into”;
& the right form
to bridge two subjects apart
(Tall Flatsedge Notebook/ Brian Teare)

Am I reading this bit right? Does he want the bridge to separate the two thoughts/things, the you and the world we wanted to go out into? Yes, I think so. Just before these lines, he writes:

At its smallest
: matter has no ideals” : taking off my socks, I find
several flatsedge seeds hooked : no split of self
from self

So, a bridge as delivering us somewhere else, creating space and a distinction

Bridge 3

Far from something to fear, I’d say that poetry is an art form that allows us to redefine our relationship to fear by stepping in close to the facets of the world that we don’t like, or don’t understand. Often enough, these are the same things. Often enough, it is the illusion of extraordinary distance, blurring out details and shrouding motives in shadow, that makes us fearsome to one another. Not always, of course, but often enough. It’s not always possible to test out such a theory in life, but poems are built to bridge distances of all kinds: between people and events separated from one another by time, geography, temperament, and belief. A poem can even bridge the distance between the living and the dead.

Fear less / Tracy K. Smith

I read this bit about the bridge — bridge as linking, lessening distance — last night. It’s in the first chapter, “Fear Less A poem is a Tool for Careful Listening,”

steps

As I think about the bridge — literally and figuratively — I also think about how it gives us a good vantage point from above where we can see farther, but it also keeps us at a distance from what’s below us. Running on the lake street or the franklin or the ford bridge, crossing from one side to the other, I feel removed from the gorge. It becomes less of a place that I feel/hear/smell/touch and more of a landscape, only seen and admired and assessed like a work of art. To get deep in the gorge, I need steps. My favorite are the old stone steps, 112 of them, that lead down to a floodplain forest and then Longfellow Flats. Steps are less horizontal and more vertical — they lead us down — within, beside, among — into the muck (what Lasky might call, the muck of making). Of course, steps can also lead us out, but I’m more interested in how they bring us in.

jan 13/RUNICEGETOUT

4.2 miles
lena smith – river road, north / river road – lena smith, south
42 degrees / wind: 15 mph
75% puddles, sloppy ice

Yuck! Not as fun running today, dodging puddles and slick strips of snow/ice on the trail. Warmer, but windier too. Parts of the run were great — I felt strong and efficient and sturdy. Other parts of it were not as great — a few times the path was covered either in a deep puddle or uneven, slippery ice. I am glad I went, and grateful to get to see the river — which was completely open, not frozen at all — but all of it was covered in a thin fog of fear. I heard sirens a few times and wondered if someone was being taken. Just before I went out for my run, Scott told me that someone had been taken just around the corner from us sometime in the last week.

10 Things

  1. city workers trimming trees, blocking the street
  2. a thick sheet of dirty ice covering almost half of a street — from curb, to the middle
  3. black chickadees singing, cheese burger cheese burger
  4. one biker, mostly biking in the road but on the path for a brief stretch
  5. the sound of sirens across the road, lasting less than a minute
  6. the wind, howling in my ears
  7. a dog barking off in the distance
  8. the sound of water splashing up as cars drove through puddles
  9. a gray sky with no sun, then blue with sun, then gray again
  10. city workers gone, a big pile of freshly trimmed branches — narrow ones — near the curb, 3 slender orange cones near the sidewalk

Ice Get Out

There are too many terrible headlines today about what’s happening with ICE in Minnesota, and it’s one of those days when I feel too tired to talk about them. I’m tired because of the headlines, because of the gray, sloppy weather, and because I tried (unsuccessfully, for now) to use a big ice breaker to break up the slippery ice on our small driveway. I chipped away at it for 30 or 40 minutes and had some success with a small patch, but I didn’t want to injure myself (because: 51 year-old bones and joints), so I stopped. I’m sure there’s a better (as in, more effective, less hard on my body) way to deal with this ice. — there’s a metaphor in there, I think. Anyway, I can’t force myself to post details from Trump and his cronies’ terribleness today, so instead, here are two videos that I’d like to watch repeatedly of the mississippi where the ice has mostly broken up and is floating, along with foam, downstream: here, the ice is getting out.

foam and ice, getting out / 5 jan 2024
ice on the mississippi / 5 jan 2024

Fear less / Tracy K. Smith

Thank goodness for the poets! Last week, I checked out the e-book version of Tracy K. Smith’s memoir and reflection on the value of poetry, Fear less, and just now I read some of the first chapter. Hopefully tomorrow I will post some quotations and respond to her powerful words, but for now, I’ll just mention that I’m reading it.