Category: Running Log

march 27/RUN

5.5 miles
ford loop
35 degrees / feels like 18
wind: 18 mph / gusts: 29 mph

Brr. I was underdressed this morning in only one long-sleeved shirt, a vest, tights, shorts, stocking cap, gloves. It was the wind that made it feel cold. Running north and east it blew into me. It was especially bad on the ford bridge. Even with the wind, a great run. Sun! Shadows! The feeling of spring!

Some of the run was hard, some of it wasn’t. A little bit of unfinished business, legs that were sometimes sore and heavy. Does it have to do with the iron pill I’m taking? I am not anemic, but on the very low end of ferritin stores — and have been for 4 or more years now — so I’m getting serious with trying to increase my iron. A pill everyday, first thing in the morning with a grapefruit. No coffee or other food for at least an hour. Hopefully my ferritin will increase a lot so I don’t have to get an expensive iron infusion. And hopefully that increased ferritin will make it easier for me to run longer because Scott and I signed up for the marathon in October again!

10 Things

  1. a siren — off in the distance, then closer, closer, then almost right behind me, then stopped — the closer it got, the more distorted the siren became — I wonder who/what needed this emergency truck?
  2. a dirt trail behind a bench and railing at the bottom of the summit hill that led to a delightfully open view of the river and the west bank
  3. running over the lake street bridge, wind on water, a scaled surface, gray
  4. bright blue sky with a few puffy clouds
  5. an almost full parking lot at the monument, only 2 spots open
  6. several groups of walkers with dogs, some emerging from the trails below the bluff, some entering them
  7. the wind on the ford bridge! slow and steady, squaring my shoulders and leaning into it
  8. goose honks under the ford bridge
  9. empty benches
  10. an interesting image of vine on the neighbor’s fence
fence / 27 march

holes

Yesterday I watched the clip with the caterpillar from Disney’s Alice in Wonderland and I started thinking more about language and letters and our relationship with words and meaning through reading.

O u e i o A

The scene begins with Alice peering through the leaves at a caterpillar smoking a pipe and singing the vowels. The vowels — the building blocks of language — is this cellular level of the english language? Taken on their own, apart from words and sentences and paragraphs, the vowels aren’t non-sense, but they offer very little sense. I found an old stencil of the alphabet that I inherited from my mom in a drawer yesterday. Could I stencil in the vowels in a way that didn’t look cheesy or ridiculous? I’m not sure.

A thought while I was running: I’m in the process of editing my poems, which involves erasing holes that contain words that I’m no longer using. What if those erased words, those ghosts, remained as traces, haunting the page? Almost like an after image? I’ve noticed that after staring at these dark holes on the page, they start to move around and appear in places they aren’t. (writing that last sentence, I’m reminded of Alice’s nonsense speech to her cat: nothing would be what it is because everything would be what it isn’t

A deconstructed amsler grid: an Amsler grid has 38 lines, not including the frame. I decided to use pieces of dried spaghetti and scatter 38 of them on top of 4 panel poem. I’m not sure what I will use in the final version. Sticks? Lines at strange angles drawn on the paper, over the holes and text? Here’s a picture of it.

holes 5 / wip

I had no plan for where the lines would go, I just dropped the spaghetti wherever — should there be a plan, or is haphazard better? Maybe I scatter the dried spaghetti haphazardly first, then replicate that with thick black lines on the actual poem? The only rules: 38 lines, all the same length.

Ok, I scattered the spaghetti and drew in the lines. Here’s what it looks like:

holes 5 wip 2

I just realized I only added 32 lines. I need to add 6 more. Are the lines dark enough? Does it make sense that they are a deconstructed amsler, or do I need to add in a more explicit reference to that somewhere on the poem?

march 25/RUN

5 miles
highland bridge (old ford plant)
58 degrees

58 degrees?! 58 degrees. Spring is back. Today I wore shorts, a short-sleeved shirt and a pullover that I took off before the end of the second mile. Ran south on the river road, down towards the locks and dam no. 1, up the wabun hill, over the ford bridge, to the edge of highland bridge park and across to the river where it is above the old hydroelectric power plant. As I neared it, I could hear the water rushing over the concrete apron at the locks and dam. The river is low; the sandy island in the middle was exposed.

The birds! Sounding like spring. The river! Sparkling in the sun. The shadows! Both sharp (distinct) and soft (the bare branches almost feathery on the path).

overheard: one biker to another — he’s between jobs right now. No contracts and no money coming in.

Is it because it’s warm, or because I started just a little too fast, but the second half of the run was hard(er). Took some breaks to admire the view. On the St. Paul side, I noticed a sticker on the fence that looked like the head of the “Hanker for a Hunka Cheese” guy:

“Time for Timer”

holes

Worked on Holes 5 today, mostly mapping the words on the page. Here’s a draft of the text:

A hole perspective
life on the way to Disney’s wonder land

I fall through the center
of a book

everything on the page
at strange angles
separated from each other
in the firelit room*

a “what is this?” feeling starts
while watching
text bloom into nonsense

O the beauty of vision
gone mad.

*not sure about this line — I’m thinking of, like in a firelit room, but low light from a fire doesn’t separate words, it softens them, makes them dim so they almost become ghosts of the text they were

holes 5, work in progress

march 23/HIKERUN

hike: 60 minutes
minnehaha dog park
37 degrees

Went to the dog park with FWA and Delia this morning. Chilly but sunny and still down in the floodplain. Beautiful. No snow, hardly any mud, lots of felled trees. Halfway in we encountered an awesome dog carrying a stick that was 3 times as wide as his head. His owner said, the governor is about 200 feet ahead. Last summer, I recalled watching a video of Gov. Walz being interviewed at the dog park, so I knew he came here. About 5 minutes later, there he was! Alone and friendly. Hello! Hi! Of course, I couldn’t see well enough to recognize him, but FWA could. I wish I could have seen that it was him. I would have told him thank you.

5 Dog Park Things / 5 Winchell Trail Things

  1. a section of the river, sparkling in the sun
  2. the bark of the giant felled tree that FWA and I have walked around all this year had been stripped recently — a huge section of the trunk was barkless and gleaming white
  3. faint footprints through the small stretches of mud
  4. a motorboat rumbling by, making waves that rushed onto the shore near Delia
  5. a woodpecker knocking on some dead wood, another (or the same one?) laughing
  6. shadows everywhere — trees, the fence, lamp posts
  7. the winchell trail path was covered in dry leaves that made a delightful crunch as I ran over them
  8. a steady stream of cars (at 3:30 pm)
  9. empty benches
  10. no snow, no puddles

2.8 miles
river road / winchell / lena smith
46 degrees

A quick run — in time and distance and speed. I should have slowed it down; it would have been easier. It’s hard to slow down in my new shoes! I was tired and felt the beginnings of a side stitch a mile in — I ate a protein bar too soon.

Today has been an off day — not terrible, there were many good moments in the hike and the run. But I woke earlier than I should have and felt, for lack of better word, weird. Untethered, fuzzy, maybe a little woozy, tired.

holes

As I continue to work on my holes poems, it has emerged that a few things are present in all of five of them: a hole, that hole’s impact on how I read, my blind spot, and the Amsler grid.

Why the Amsler Grid?

  1. it connects these hole poems with my last round of visual vision poems, mood rings, which take the shape of an amsler grid
  2. it ties in with the larger theme of all of my visual vision poems: vision tests — first, the snellen charts, then the amsler grid
  3. it gives a context for my vision loss and grounds it in within a scientific/medical model of seeing/not seeing
  4. it offers another way to visualize my untethering from that model/logic of test/diagnosis

This 4th one is especially interesting to me. I’m imagining fun ways to play with the implosion or destruction or destabilizing of the sharp, stable, rigid lines of a grid. The lines coming loose, or the lines a ladder without rungs — no way out of the hole, the lines collapsing and being sucked into the black hole, the lines forming a new path, a break in the lines — a gap, a dash, a slash, a breaking out of the lines — an opening, an exit, a room a door unlocked. What could that look like as part of my erasure poem? I mean, what, with my very limited skills in visual art, could I make possible?

I think I need to watch Alice in Wonderland again — should I read it, too? The hole in my vision as Alice’s rabbit hole. A passing through to wonderland. One difference: for Alice, Wonderland is the opposite of sense or nonsense.

everything would be what it wasn’t

I’d like to take this idea of non-sense out of the binary, Sense/Nonsense, to imagine non-sense as being more than just not sense. What if non-sense was its own kind of sense, just like Nothing is not nothing but something outside of our logic or language or ability to name it. Or, like I say in Holes 4, “a nothing that is something not sharing its secrets.

a flash: as I was working on the above list, I suddenly thought about the debate over whether or not listening to an audio book was reading. Does reading only happen with eyes? I like to distinguish it this way: reading with my eyes and reading with my ears. After this thought, a further thought: what if I created a holes poem that wasn’t visual, but aural? I could pick one of the New Yorker stories/articles that you can listen to, and figure out a poem from that. How might that work?

I had intended to work on all of this today, but I was busy all day: a birthday week coffee run with RJP, the dog park with FWA, weekly shopping with Scott, a run + cooking and laundry and a nap.

sleep

I decided to use my Apple watch this week to monitor my sleep. I’m averaging 6 1/2 hours a night, which I think is good for me, but only “okay” for my sleep score. Maybe that’s because I’m waking up every 2 hours. I have to get out of bed and stretch or go to the bathroom or walk around for 10 or 20 or more minutes before falling back asleep again. A thought occurred to me: could my low vision be contributing to my sleep problems? I googled it and yes, it might:

Visual impairment can lead to disturbances in the circadian rhythm20 and exacerbate neuropsychiatric conditions such as anxiety and depression, ultimately impairing central nervous system functionality and contributing to the development of insomnia21. Existing research underscores the negative impact of visual impairment on sleep patterns. Studies conducted in Russia found that individuals with visual impairment had more than twice the odds of reporting insomnia symptoms compared to those without, with this association remaining significant even after adjusting for factors such as age and gender21. This finding further confirms the link between visual dysfunction and sleep disturbances. Community research in the U.S. suggested that older adults with visual impairment are more likely to experience various sleep issues, such as difficulty falling asleep, trouble staying asleep, early morning awakenings, and daytime sleepiness22. Additionally, such individuals often report increased disrupted sleep patterns and a higher prevalence of sleep/wake disturbances23.

low vision and insomnia study

But, this study studied different visual impairments than I have. What about cone dystrophy or macular degeneration, which has similar effects? I looked it up and found some articles that link it, but it’s mostly about anxiety over vision loss that cause the sleep disturbances. I know I have some anxiety about the final break, when none of my cone cells work and all of my central vision is gone, but I think the connection between sleeping and not seeing or seeing differently is more complicated for me. I’ll have to ask the ophthalmologist at my appointment next month.

march 22/RUN

3.9 miles
wabun hill
36 degrees

Yesterday it was 76 degrees, today 36. I didn’t mind; everything was dry and clear and I was able to run on all the walking trails in my new blue shoes! Today it’s overcast and both bright — a white sky — and gloomy — everything dull and bare. Did I see any shadows? I don’t think so.

I felt strong, not quite like I could run for several hours without stopping, but at least believing that it is possible. I also felt untethered from the world, everything fuzzy and me, floating above it or outside of it.

10 Things

  1. early on, another running passing me, their feet slap slap slaping the ground
  2. several geese honking below the ford bridge
  3. empty benches
  4. two women stopped on the edge of the trail near the 42nd street parking lot, talking — I couldn’t hear what they were saying
  5. heading up the wabun hill — no one else around, just me and the dirt and the dead leaves
  6. running through wabun: several people playing frisbee golf, two little kids running around the course, giggling
  7. lots of traffic on ford and the river road — cars moving fast, no sunday drivers today!
  8. a man in a bright orange jacket, sitting on the edge, above a ravine, looking out at the river
  9. the bright headlights of a car, giving off a purple glow
  10. a sound across the river road and the grassy boulevard — a gobbling turkey or a yelling kid? Undetermined

holes

I’m working on another holes poem — Holes 5. I’m using an essay about Rian Johnson, “Mystery Man” in the November 17, 2025 issue. My only requirement for an essay is that it contains the word hole, either as the word itself, or as part of/within another word. When I searched in “Mystery Man” for hole I found 4 instances of it including, “my wHOLE perspective,” “wHOLE time,” and “the wHOLE process.” I’m thinking these will be frame of my poem, especially Hole Time and Hole Perspective. What is my perspective (how do I see) with and from within my vision hole?

another part of my method: In addition to requiring a chosen essay has at least instance of “hole,” I read the essay from back to front. I started with the last paragraph, jotting down any words that stood out to me, then I read the second to last paragraph, then the third to last, and so on. It was a strange experience. I kept finding myself wondering, when I read a name I didn’t recognize, if I had missed the introduction/description of the name, then I remembered that I was reading back to front, from an assumption of familiarity to a not-knowingness (or not knowing yet-ness).

Here is a selection of words and phrases I jotted down:

  1. bookshelf
  2. stone
  3. let me
  4. still
  5. strings
  6. filters
  7. window
  8. flash
  9. beauty
  10. gathered
  11. convivial
  12. ends
  13. spectrum
  14. unexplainable
  15. gesture
  16. earthiness
  17. underside
  18. gnarled roots of a tree
  19. feel
  20. loop er
  21. limitations / limit s
  22. making diagrams with straws
  23. an older version
  24. flock
  25. singular
  1. (un) locked room
  2. mind / mind’s eye / eye
  3. tidy solution
  4. make sense of it all
  5. some measure of control over an uncontrollable world
  6. the world has gone mad
  7. center
  8. puzzle
  9. watch ed
  10. the satisfaction of seeing
  11. firelit
  12. delight
  13. smug
  14. cringe
  15. between
  16. it seemed dusty
  17. hypothetical
  18. enters
  19. throuhout
  20. leap
  21. a ghost
  22. nobody
  23. flock
  24. vision
  1. get in the way
  2. framework
  3. scam
  4. everything
  5. (r) ambling
  6. story
  7. distance
  8. slanted
  9. attention
  10. made
  11. backward
  12. moving around
  13. wonder
  14. read
  15. what is this?
  16. slip away
  17. lept
  18. feeling trapped
  19. peculiar
  20. sunshine
  21. looming
  22. house
  23. couldn’t see
  24. covered in string
  25. over

This essay is five pages long, so I’ll have to figure that out — all 5 pages, or 4 to make it fit more evenly? Or even less?

march 21/WALKGETOUTICE

walk: 120 minutes
with Scott and Delia
deep in the gorge + the winchell trail
76 degrees

I’m writing this the next morning because I took a break (mostly) from my computer and writing. So warm! I wore shorts and a short-sleeved shirt on our walk/hike! We walked through the neighborhood to the river and when we crossed the road to throw away Delia’s poop bag, we decided to take the old stone steps down to the river. The floodplain forest was filled with fallen trees and dead leaves: winter’s aftermath. The river was open and flowing. People everywhere — it wasn’t crowded, just a person walking a dog here, two people talking on a blanket there. Everyone enjoying the sun and the warm wind and the lack of ice.

I loudly misidentified a person as a wild turkey. Oh look, a wild TURKEY! Why is it that only when I am mis-seing something do I bother to say it out loud, and with such volume? It’s funny, and Scott and I laughed about it, but it is also frustrating. I sound like an idiot or mad. I said to Scott it’s funny as comedy and irony (the irony because I only declare these things when I’m very wrong).

holes

A return: the hole in Holes 1, which was the start of all of these holes — Another name for barely not blind is a hole in your vision that makes for an easy fellowship with the word. Now I’m thinking that I should tighten these poems up and make them only about reading. So, the hole in Holes 2 would be: a hole through the bottom of / the / wor / d / here / it is / unprofitable / to / have / faith / in / the / visible. And Holes 4 would be only: you look at sky, || you look at || words || you || don’t || see || the || gaping hole / and || its / graveyard / for / failed / cone / cell / s / you see / snow flake marble dust / seltzer / fizz|| a / nothing / that / is / something / not / shar/ ing / its / secrets

Get Out ICE

ICE agents are still here, but not at the levels they were a month ago. Two of the leaders that caused the most damage — Noem and Bovino — have been removed (Bovino announced his retirement the other day). Even so, the effects — psychological, physical, economic — still linger for many Minnesotas. Food is still being delivered to families afraid to leave their homes, organizations are still raising money to help people pay their rent. The stop signs around my house still declare, “STOP ICE.” The latest threat: Trump threatens to send ICE agents to airports to take over TSA jobs abandoned by workers not paid because of the partial government shutdown.

Since just after an ICE agent murdered Renee Good on 7 jan, I’ve been adding “Get Out ICE” to my log entries, both in the title and as a tag. I think it’s time to stop. A better thing to add now might be: What about the Epstein files? or Stop the war!

Mary Oliver Doc on PBS this summer!

I’m looking forward to this documentary!

“I was save by poetry. I was saved by the beauty of the world.”

I want to put MO’s idea of being saved by the beauty of the world beside the banner that Hanif Abdurraqib has above and between two door frames in this Instagram picture: “LIFE’S NOT OUT TO GET YOU” Yes! Always a good reminder.

march 20/RUNGETOUTICE

5.5 miles
the flats and back
55 degrees

Happy first day of Spring! Many years it still feels like winter, but today it was SPRING! If I didn’t have to jump over a lumps of snow I wouldn’t have remembered it snowed almost a foot less than a week ago. Wonderful weather for a run — sun and not too much wind. I wore shorts, a short sleeved shirt and a lightweight pullover which I took off right before I turned around. For half the run, bare arms and bare legs!

a regular: Daddy Long Legs! As I ran back south, he greeted me, Hello again! Does he remember me from past years, or did he think he’d already seen me once today? (he’s done that before.) I’m choosing the believe he remembers me. I wonder if he has a name for me, like I do for him?

The ice on the surface of the river has melted. Down in the flats I was able to get close — only feet away — from the surface: some foam floating on the water moving slowly south.

holes

As I told RJP, I’ve hit the point in the process of these poems where I’m beginning to doubt myself and what I’m doing. Part of it, I explained to her, is because I dwell in the almost and struggle to find how to execute the final bit and/or give it the “polish” it needs. I’m not giving up. Instead, I’m trying a different approach: cut-outs. Would ths work better if the words were cut-out — a way to isolate them — instead of encased in holes? Can I do both? What if I had some of the words encased in the holes and some cut-out? Would that make it a little less complicated and less messy + easier to execute?

The question to return to again and again: what will serve the message/meaning/intentions of the poem?

Searching for visual poetry, I found some good stuff, including this interview with Monica Ong, these great visual poems from Sarah J. Sloat, some answers to the question, what is visual poetry? and this anti-poem from  SHRIRAM SIVARAMAKRISHNAN:

bee plus see times bee

march 19/RUNGETOUTICE

4.3 miles
minnehaha falls and back
44 degrees
10% puddles

Spring! Sun! Sharp shadows! Clear paths with far less puddles! I felt strong and satisifed and at ease in my body. Well, mostly at ease. Because it’s messy out by the gorge, I wore an old pair of shoes — the ones that don’t quite work. Sometimes my gait felt awkward, my feet not hitting the ground in the right spot or in the right way.

Marveled at the river’s surface as I ran above it. So beautiful with its frozen surface. In the past, I’ve described the surface as vast or barren or eerie, surreal or otherworldly, but today other words came to mind: still, frozen, fixed, unmoving, deadened, paused, suspended. Yes! I think these words better describe its strange beauty for me. Looking at it is like looking at a film still. Looking at it feels like everything is paused, suspended in time.

10 Things

  1. gushing falls — I could hear their loud descent and see their white foam
  2. looking down at the oak savanna, tall, slender, bare branches mixed with their shadows to make a mess of lines on the snow — how much of it was actual trees, how much shadow? I couldn’t tell
  3. water dripping fast and strong over the limestone edges in the ravine at 42nd street
  4. empty benches
  5. a guy walking with a small dog and looking at his phone
  6. someone biking near the falls playing some mellow music out of speakers
  7. taking off my sweatshirt, running with bare arms, seeing a walker with bare arms too
  8. sirens in the distance, a loud, sustained whistle
  9. the walking trails are still covered in snow
  10. the gutter that was gushing water yesterday now only has trickles

Off and on throughout the run, I recited Alice Oswald’s “The Story of Falling,” sometimes reciting it in my head, sometimes out loud.

Holes

I’ve mapped some more of Holes 4 and . . . it’s a lot. Will this just look like an ugly, jumbled mess? Yesterday, talking through this with Scott, he said something like, do what serves the poem and the meaning you are trying to convey (or the effect you are trying to achieve). In terms of meaning, the words of the first section of the poem are about what I see instead of a gaping hole: shimmering, fizzy, ephemeral or elusive (hard to see, fleeting) things: snow flake marble dust, seltzer fizz, a nothing that is something not sharing its secrets. Perhaps these ephemeral things have come loose from what bound them to “normal” sight and its monitoring through tests like the amsler grid; it’s where you dwell when normal sight is not longer possible. So maybe the unraveling occurs prior to this hole? Yes, the unraveling (and vision of amsler grid as broken strings happens in 2 and 3, Does that mean that Holes 4 is all disconnected free-floating words/phrases? If so, how to make it possible for others to read it? I could place the poem near the center, around the gaping hole. I could also number the pages/sections and mark each word with a page number? Yes, I like this!

And hours later, I’m thinking more of using a distorted Amsler Grid at the center of Holes 4, and the black hole that the grid is collapsing into is the shape of blind spot.

Another mini project: can I learn how to draw decent-enough eyeballs — pupil and iris only?

amsler idea
very rough eye
poem text

Get Out ICE

This flyer about the next No Kings march came up on Facebook from Minnesota’s Lt. Gov Peggy Flanagan (and hopefully our next governor?!):

“In Minnesota, we’ve seen the federal government at its worst — and showed the world how to fight back.

Now, I’m honored that the flagship No Kings protest will be held here in the Twin Cities. Together, we’ll show Donald Trump that we don’t do kings.”

NO KINGS TWIN CITIES VOL. 3. Joan Baex Jane Fonda Maggie Rogers. March 28, 12 pm. March then rally at the State Capital.
NO KINGS TWIN CITIES VOL. 3. Joan Baex Jane Fonda Maggie Rogers. March 28, 12 pm. March then rally at the State Capital.

march 18/RUNGETOUTICE

4.3 miles
minnehaha park and back
43 degrees
25% puddles

Yesterday it was very cold. Today it is warmer, the sun is out, and everything is melting! Drip drip drips everywhere, very LOUD whooshing car wheels, puddles. At the start of the run, I wondered how long it would take before at least one of my socks would get soaked. Not long! I only made it a quarter of a mile before stepping in a big puddle. Oh well, it dried out pretty fast.

overheard: one runner to another as they encountered each other on puddly double bridge — take it easy my brother

Kids laughing and yelling on the playground; a pack of runners; the falls, gushing, a few sirens; the river with a thin sheet of gray ice looking wide and barren. Can you see it through the trees?

river view from the 38th street steps / 18 march

On my walk back home, I stopped to take some video of water dripping out of gutter. Unfortunately because of the bright light I accidentally hit slow mo so you can’t hear the wonderful dripping sound. Here’s a brief clip of it anyway:

water dripping in accidental slow mo

HOLES

Yesterday afternoon, after finishing mapping all of my word (drawing boxes around them, encasing them in circles or the shape of my blind spot) and feeling like something was missing, I had an idea: I should place the Amsler grid somewhere on the pages. I didn’t want to simply cut out a printed version of the grid and completely cover the words. What about drawing the grid on top of the words? Too difficult with my terrible vision! Then, a new idea: cut out a hole the size/form of Amsler grid’s shape (4 x 4 in) and use string as the lines for the grid. After some playing around with it, another idea: not string, but thread or wire, and make the grid broken, distorted, emerging from the hole, looking somewhat like broken guitar strings. Three of the strings will extend out across the pages, offering the path of the three sentences of the poem. A variation: create three grids, with each one corresponding to a different sentence. This idea, which I hope I can execute because I really like it, led me to think about adding an Amsler grid to all of the holes. On Holes 1 it would be the “normal” grid with my blind spot on it. I have to think more about how it would look in Holes 2 and 3. By Holes 4, it’s broken.

If you google “distorted Amsler grid” you can find some great images of warped lines and black holes caving in upon themselves. Due to risk of copyright infringement, I won’t post any, but here’s a link to one that I particularly like:

Amsler grid distorted image: the image is at the bottom of the page. It is of the grid with the outer lines appearing normal. Near the center the lines are wavy, collapsing into a big black spot in the very middle.

Some things to think about today (I’m writing this paragraph just before 10 am):

  1. how do I map the words in Holes 1, 2, and 3?
  2. where do I place the Amsler grids in Holes 2 and 3, and what will that look like?
  3. will there only be 4 Holes, or should there be more? If more, should I place them before or after Holes 4 in terms of the progression of the grid’s distortion?

Another thing that happened yesterday: I remembered that I had a large amount of oil pastels, leftovers from RJP’s obsession with them more than 10 years ago. Could I use them to color/fill in my holes? How do you use oil pastels?1

It is now 5:20 pm and I’ve spent part of the day trying something new with Holes 4. I’m using uncooked spaghetti to connect/map the words of the poem. It’s a complicated challenge, but the spaghetti is helping to visualize it more effectively.

more thoughts/questions:

  • should I split this poem into 4 instead of 3 segments?
  • should there be separate amsler grids for each section, or one grid from which different colored threads emerge and travel to the three or four different sections? if there is only one grid, should it be in the very center of the piece?
  • should the grid be just an open hole, with no evidence of a grid, just black netting and threads or wires or yarn emerging from the hole (I like wire, but is it too difficult to work with?) OR should part of the grid still remain — some white, some “normal” lines, then a hole?
  • a further thought with that last question: what if the holes (1, 2,3, and 4) documented the unraveling of the amsler grid, with it intact in Holes 1, then less intact in Holes 2 and 3, until it is gone and with broken wires in Holes 4? I love this idea; can I figure out a way to execute it?
  • returning to the thread/wire — will it work to have it stitched into the paper, where sometimes it is on the front, sometimes emerging from the back side through another hole? is this too messy and complicated? do I need to cut back on the poem, to reduce its number of words?2

A lot to think about!

holes 4 section
  1. I think I’ll start with this post: Oil Pastels for Beginners on the Faber Castell site. ↩︎
  2. I don’t want to cut any words, but it would make this easier — do I want it to be easier? Not really! ↩︎

Get Out ICE: It’s never too late to do the right thing. . . .

is something people were chanting and singing at hotels where ICE agents were staying this winter. I think it also fits as a way to describe this:

A reporter for NBC interviewed people at a gas station in a previously very pro-Trump county in Pennsylvania. Three people still support Trump, one does not. Responding to the reporter’s question, “If you could say something to President Trump and he could hear you right now, what would it be?”

“3 times! That was my bad, apparently I’m an idiot”

march 16/RUNGETOUTICE

2.3
river road, south / lena smith boulevard, north
15 degrees / feels like 0
50% snow-covered

Many of the sidewalks were completely bare and dry, almost all of the trail was covered in slick snow. In some stretches, the trail was covered with chunks of snow from the snow plows that had just passed by. Running south, with the sun and the wind at my back, and on the short strips of bare pavement, it felt good. Then I ran through a puddle. I didn’t notice that my foot was soaked for several minutes, but when I did I decided I should head home; it was cold enough that I was (mildly) concerned for my wet toes. Good call, past Sara! When I got home, one of my toes was burning.

10 Things

  1. bright BLUE sky
  2. the sounds of shoveling and scraping and snow-blowing all around
  3. at the end of each block, I encountered an almost knee-high wall of snow where the plow had come through
  4. the surface of the river looked eerie and strange, pale and spotted with chunks of ice
  5. no kids’ voices from the school playground: for preK – 5th graders, school was closed, for 6th – 12th graders e-learning — that would suck! give the big kids a snow day too, I say!
  6. the rumble of two plows approaching, first a small one, then BIG one — I moved to the far side to avoid the spray of snow
  7. I encountered a few other runners but no skiers or bikers
  8. head north, I ran into a wall of wind — ugh! howling and biting
  9. I bet it was pretty and looked very winter wonderland-y — I couldn’t tell you because I was too busy trying not to slip!
  10. if it hadn’t been for the terrible wind, my wet toes, and the slick and uneven path, it would have been a great run — even with the bad conditions, I had some wonderful moments outside

mind-body connection

On last week’s episode of the podcast Nobody Asked Us, Kara Goucher talked about how she started taking a low dose of some (unnamed) anti-anxiety medication and it’s helping with her dystonia (“a movement disorder that causes the muscles to contract. This can cause twisting motions or other movements that happen repeatedly and that aren’t under the person’s control” — Mayo Clinic). She has discussed many times on the podcast how dystonia has made it very difficult for her to run, especially on pavement.

mind body connection — watch until 15:58

This mind-body connection is fascinating to me. Does her anti-anxiety med just make her more relaxed, or does it do something more to the brain — and maybe the neural mapping of her movements?

HOLES 4

Today I’m mapping my words on a copy of the “Still Life” article. I”m trying something different. In Holes 1, 2, and 3, I taped the paper together first and then found the words and drew the holes over and around the words. Today, with such a long article, I’m finding the words and drawing holes around them first, before I tape the pieces together. Will that make a difference? Not sure, but I might switch around the order of the pages to shape how the holes look together.

I drew and colored in holes on 3 out of the 8 pages, and tried adding some color to a few. I’m wondering if some of the holes should messier, with less defined borders or jagged, rough. I have limited ability in drawing; can I push myself some more? Here’s an image of one of the pages:

a page of holes 4 / “Still Life”

march 15/SHOVELGETOUTICE

45 minutes
a foot of snow (roughly)

Bring Me the News is saying we got 8.5 inches, but that reading was from 10:30 this morning, and it has continued to snow all day, so I’m not sure how much is on the ground. I’m guessing a foot. It felt like a foot as I tried to shovel it. So heavy! I joked with a neighbor that it’s heart attack snow, which is funny until it’s not.

I wonder if it the paths will be clear enough to run above the river tomorrow? Future Sara, let us know!

holes 4

This one, which takes words from “Still Life” is my biggest one yet: 6 pages! Here’s a draft of the poem (the || represent when the words are taken from different places in the article)

you look at sky, || you look at || words || and || don’t || see || the || gaping hole || and || its || graveyard || for || failed || cone || cell || s || you see || snow flake marble dust || seltzer || fizz|| a || nothing|| that || is || something || not || shar|| ing|| its || secrets

you || can’t || exhume || the || bodies|| but || you can || make || room || for || life || in this place || where || the dead || are || interred

crack || open a grave|| with || a || new || way || of || seeing

Too much text? We’ll see!