Category: Running Log

oct 23/RUN

3.5 miles
locks and dam no. 1*
49 degrees

*ran south to the locks and dam no. 1, then halfway down the hill and over to another hill that climbs up beside the underbelly of the ford bridge and to the bluff and wabun park. Turned around and headed down to the bottom of the locks, then back up it again.

Ran in the late afternoon. The gorge has very different energy in the almost evening. Cars rushing to get home, kids walking home from school, the light longer, lower. Noticed some amazing golden-avocado-orange leaves on a tall tree and some small bright red leaves on a low bush. Twice I ran past a bush/mini-tree with green leaves that yelled out to me, BLUE! What? I stopped the second time to figure out how I was seeing/hearing blue, but couldn’t.

Geese! I haven’t seen as many geese this year. Today, half a dozen of them were floating in the water under the ford bridge. I don’t think I heard them, but I saw one of them spread their wings wide and then flap them furiously.

Turkeys! Running above the winchell trail between the 44th and 42nd street ravines, I saw them across the parkway. 4 or 5 big turkeys rooting through the grass. At least one car slowed way down to witness their awesomeness for a minute.

Anything else? Oh — I heard music coming from a bike speaker. Just the opening chords — I’m 90% sure it was “Just What I Needed” by The Cars. Excellent!

I felt strong and fast and bouncy. Wore the yellow shoes, which were mostly great, although they did hurt my feet a little.

For most of the day, I’ve been working on a poem that is less about form and more about the process of creating it — almost 9 full years of noticing and writing about what I noticed in this RUN! log AND sitting down today and recounting those things from memory. The poem is 2 pages wide. In the upper left corner, loosely representing a gorge wall, are the words, She goes to/the gorge/to notice, and in the bottom right corner, every/thing. The rest of the page is filled with what I have noticed, written across the page with the noticed things separated by slashes. It’s fun! I am about three quarters of the way finished with the first draft. I imagine I’ll want to tweak it a little. The last thing I added before leaving for my run: port-a-potty, clean / port-a-potty, dirty / port-a-potty, tipped / port-a-potty removed to discourage encampments below. Will I keep these? Not sure.

oct 22/RUN

3.1 miles
2 trails
44 degrees

Blustery, cool, full of color. Reds and oranges and yellows. Everything wet from yesterday’s rain. The winchell trail was covered in leaves, some wet, some dry, most of them rusty red. I greeted a guy I passed with a good morning, then realized it wasn’t morning, but afternoon. Oops. He said morning back. I wonder if he realized the mistake. Thanked several other walkers for moving over to let me pass. Heard some kids yelling at the playground and one guy yell out to someone else, that’s Ben. Ben is here. A woman stood at the top of the old stone steps, studying something below. Was she deciding whether or not to take them down? Wondering what was down there, or whether or not the steps were too slick?

Every so often, I thought about a line that I haven’t quite found a home for in GGG: Each loop adds substance, tightens the tether, but never enough to stop the looping.

Began chanting: looping and/looping and/looping again

After I finished running, as I walked back, I had 2 ideas for fun experiments with the lines.

first: switch up the order of the words — mimicking of swirling water falling from a limestone ledge? or, take part of it and create an anagram?

second: do a variation on the golden shovel form by taking the tether/never/looping sentence and ending each line of a new poem with the words from it, in order, so that it spells out the sentence. Or, to mimic the rock walls of the gorge, start each line of the new poem with the first half of the sentence, then end each line with the second half. Too contrived? Future Sara will let me know.

Found a wonderfully wandering poem this morning, “Reading Virginia Woolf in a Women in Literature Class at Bergen Community College.” It’s long, so I’ll just an excerpt:

excerpt from Reading Virginia Woolf in a Women in Literature Class at Bergen Community College/ Carlie Hoffman

when my sister asked if I’d ever
kissed anyone. I was just beginning
freshman year, working to get my time
down for swim team where I’d spent summer
ditching birthdays & the ice cream
truck’s persuasive tune to practice
the butterfly & freestyle & learning to dive
less crooked, which was going as well
as expected until Andrew
sat next to me on the bus
ride home from the pool during tryouts,
his chlorine-dried hand on my shoulder
a little too long without asking when he asked
my name & he has a crush on you
said my friend Becca while faking
a gagging sound in her throat. I said yes
even though I hadn’t kissed anyone & maybe
this was my first true poem, lying
to my sister in support of love, stealing imagery
from the books I’d read in the library
to avoid the cafeteria

I love her definition of a poem: lying to someone in support of love, stealing imagery from other poets

Richard Siken!!

I love Richard Siken’s new book that I picked up from Moon Palace Books Monday night. Read this poem while Scott was rehearsing with the community jazz band:

The List/ Richard Siken

I tried to say something nice to the nurse. I introduced myself. She said we had already met. I thought she was moody until I realized she was several nurses, each working their own shift. To them I was Hamlet in a long line of Hamlets. My problems were unimpressive and not unique. I had a grief counselor, like everyone, and a suicide counselor, because I had said the wrong thing. I wrote in my notebook. I made a list, a working glossary. My handwriting was big and crooked. Meat. Blood. Floor. Thunder. I tried to understand what these things were and how I was related to them. Doorknob. Cardboard. Thermostat. Agriculture. I understood North but I struggled with left. Describing the world was easier than finding a place in it. The suicide counselor said the people who hadn’t shown up weren’t going to show up, that the ones that had stopped coming would not be coming back. She had seen it before, she saw it every day. The person they knew was gone. To them, I had broken the contract: I had left first and they were already grieving. I started a second notebook, for venom and hard feelings—things that would leak into the list if I let them. It was harsh and ugly. It was true and harsh and ugly and it made me feel sick. What do I know? What do I know for sure? I built up meaning with a double set of books. —A doorknob is a rock for the hand. It opens a hole in the wall. —A doorknob is your stupid head. You will not survive this.

I remember reading the line, Describing the world was easier than finding a place in it, as part of “About this Poem” explanation of “Real Estate.” I loved the line so much I turned it into a form fitter — my name for the lines that I shaped into my breathing rhythm of 3/2 syllables. I always thought it belonged in a poem, and here it is. Wow!

Describing 
worlds is

easier 
than find

ing your place 
in them

OR

Describing
worlds is

easy. Find
ing your

place in them
is hard.

oct 21/RUN

3.1 miles
trestle turn around
44 degrees / rain

Brrr. Rainy and chilly today. Time to find my gloves — my hands were going a little numb by the end. Ran north to the trestle. A few other walkers and runners joined me — we didn’t move together, just in the same place (above the gorge), at the same time (early afternoon). Tried to run relaxed and not too fast. The relaxed part happened, but not the not too fast part. The path was wet and leaf-covered and slightly slippery. The sprawling oak by the ancient boulder and at the entrance to the tunnel of trees was a metallic — frosted gold and silver. Wow! The floodplain forest below the tunnel of trees was glowing pear and butter. Double wow! I never looked at the river or heard a bird, but I did smell hot chocolate, burnt coffee, and pipe smoke.

Thought about revisions to my latest poem and the refrain I put at the end of it, created to chant while running. I played around with different rhythms. First, the words:

no after / only here / Remember / Remember / reMember /

Actually, the original, un-tested-out-by-the-gorge-version was: there is no after/there is only here / remember / remember / remember. But as soon as I tried to chant it, I could tell it wouldn’t work — too many words for my running rhythms.

no After
no After
no After
only here

only here
only here
here here here
here here here

Remember
Remember
reMember

Remember
here
reMember
here
here here here

Re Mem Ber
here here here

The lines inspiring these chants are: There is no after. There is only here and a moving away from and returning to it.

Also thinking about my What time is it? (2020) poem that involves a list of o’clocks. I’m thinking maybe I should be brave (a word RJP and I are using a lot these days), and include something about George Floyd. It’s an important part of what I wrote about in May/June of 2020 in this log. What do I mean by brave here? I’m going to think about that some more.

oct 20/RUN

4.3 miles
minnehaha falls and back
49 degrees
wind: 30 mph gusts

Figured out how to switch the pace of my watch from rolling miles to current pace. It was a pain to do and I’m not sure it was worth it, although I did learn that I have difficulty keeping a consistent pace. Windy. I made sure my cap was on tight. I ran to the falls then took the steps down to the creek. Forgot to look at the creek because I was too focused on avoiding rocks and walkers. Walked back up the steps near “The Song of Hiawatha.”

Running back I admired the reddish-orange or orangish-red leaves and thought about how someone fell off of the bluff somewhere around 42nd. Yesterday, Scott heard the sirens and saw the fire trucks and Rosie read that someone fell. Are they okay? I hope so. I tried looking it up, but couldn’t find anything.

As I ran, I recited “A Rhyme for Halloween.” Our clock is blind, our clock is dumb/ Its hands are broken, its fingers numb/ No time for the martyr of our fair town/Who wasn‘t a witch because she could drown. The blind clock with broken hands and numb fingers. Maybe I could use this in the time section of Girl Ghost Gorge?

10 Things

  1. someone in bright yellow standing near the roundabout — ma’am the road is blocked up ahead, you need to turn around
  2. foamy white water at the falls
  3. the dirt and rock-studded trail covered in fallen red leaves
  4. a little girl greeting me, hi!
  5. another runner greeting me, good morning!
  6. a high-pitched whistle then STOP! someone calling to a dog down on the winchell trail?
  7. running on the paved path, above the winchell trail, hearing the voices of walkers, seeing the flash of moving forms
  8. occupied benches: above the edge of the world and Rachel Dow Memorial bench
  9. chainsaws in the oak savanna — buzzzzzz buzzzzzz
  10. the rush of wind through the trees

GGG update

1

Not sure how it will work, or if it will stick as part of GGG, but I think I need to write a ghost story poem. Maybe something inspired by UA Fanthorpe and her poem, Seven Types of Shadow. I should look back at what I’ve written about this poem in the past.

2

I’m experimenting with a poem inspired by Endi Bogue Hartigan and her o’clocks. Here’s what I have so far:

it’s covid
o’clock
twelve minnesota
deaths o’clock

three hundred nineteen

minnesota deaths
o’clock
four thousand minne
sota deaths o’clock
a quarter of a
million half of a
million one million
u.s. deaths o’clock
keep your six feet of
distance o’clock
spit in a cup o’clock

memorize poems
by Mary and

Emily o’clock
read Georgina o’clock
find your blind spot o’clock

oct 19/RUN

3.75 miles
bottom of locks and dam no. 1
47 degrees

Another wonderful run. Windier, but it didn’t bother me. Not too crowded on the trail. Didn’t encounter anyone at the bottom of the hill at the locks and dam #1. I ran until I reached the door that leads to the steps that take you over the iron grate bridge to the concrete curtain where the water falls. Saw my reflection in the glass window next to the door. Hello friend! I felt strong and was running fast/er — maybe too fast? I could run the pace for 2 miles, but then wanted a walk break. I’d like to figure out how to change my watch to show current pace instead of rolling pace.

10 Colors

  1. yellow — not golden, but marigold or the color of butter? — lit from behind by the sun
  2. a full head of orange-ish yellow leaves on the tree by the double bridge
  3. streaks of red in low-lying bushes — vermillion?
  4. BRIGHT yellow running shoes — canary yellow?
  5. cerulean sky
  6. blue-gray water with small scales
  7. the gun-metal gray sound of a roller skier hitting their poles on the rough asphalt with strong strikes
  8. shimmery silver sound of a dog collar
  9. grayish-tan of the ford bridge arch
  10. bright pink flowers — garden cosmos — in many neighbors’ yards

Richard Siken!

First, I love Richard Siken and his second collection, The War of the Foxes. Second, I was aware of his new book that just came out, his first in a decade, but I didn’t feel any urgency to get it. Then I read this interview, An Encyclopedia of the Self: An Interview with Richard Siken and I want to read his book, now!

Check out this response:

Mandana Chaffa

One of the things I enjoyed most about this collection—other than the delight of more of your work in the world—was considering prose poems and how they serve the writer and reader. Each page is a stanza—in the Italian sense of the word—with doors, windows and sometimes, secret hidey holes to similar themes in other pieces, in different sections. When did you start contemplating this collection, and how soon in the process did you set the architecture? Were the vignettes always poems? Or always in this form?

Richard Siken

I had a stroke. I was paralyzed on my right side, lost my short-term memory, and couldn’t make sentences. This was the experience of it. This is all I could do. There are some memorable lines in these poems but mostly they hinge and swerve in the gaps between the sentences. It’s associative. It’s broken logic. The goal was to say a complete thought. That’s what I was going to measure my recovery against: a solid, complete paragraph. The sequencing of one word after another was excruciating. In conversation, I would trail off and get lost.

A fundamental power of poetry is the friction between the unit of the line and the unit of the sentence. When you break a sentence into lines, you create simultaneous units of meaning. Meaning becomes a chord, not a single note. But I couldn’t break the line anymore. Everything was so broken, I didn’t want to break an additional thing. So, I had a form—the paragraph—and everything would have to be poured into identical molds. I set the margins to try to contain the thoughts. I made boxes, rooms, and sat in them and moved the furniture around.

I’m excited to see how the form of his poems is shaped by his limitations. I’ve been thinking about that a lot with my own poetry and how my inability to read a lot of words, or for long, influences my forms.

And this:

Mandana Chaffa

I appreciate how you wield language, as meaning to be sure, but also as a gesture. How in “Pain Scale,” there’s the friction between the linguistic structures we’re often forced to operate under, in this case, the almost ludicrous expectation that pain can be numerical rather than adjectival, and equally, how often people hear, but still don’t listen. What use is language, if those we speak to can’t understand?

Richard Siken

I fell down. I was taken to a hospital. I said, “I’m having a stroke.” They said, “No, you’re having a panic attack” and they sent me home. I kept thinking, “Something is terribly wrong. I do know some things.” That’s where the title for the collection came from. I went to a second hospital the next day and they admitted me. I was hard to understand and not many people tried. My premises didn’t add up, so my conclusions didn’t make sense. There were fish moving under the ice; I was running fast at a plate-glass door. They didn’t get it. I didn’t know how else to say it. Speaking in figurative language with the doctors didn’t work. They didn’t try to understand. They ignored some very important things I was saying. I just wasn’t able to say everything literally. But when you write, there’s an understanding that there will be a reader. The audience inside the poem might be impatient or dismissive but the reader is leaning in, listening very closely, trying to understand.

oct 18/RUNHIKW

3.25 miles
marshall loop
52 degrees

It’s leaf peeping time. Up at the North Shore it was mostly gold, but down here, more reds and oranges. Bright sun this morning and quiet. After hearing Scott talk about how the Marshall hill was helping him get into shape, I decided to try it. I did it! I ran up the entire hill without stopping to walk — a mental victory. The thing I remember most about the run was rowers on the river. Running east, I could see a single shell out of the corner of my eye. Only a dark form moving in the water. Running back west, I stopped at the overlook for a longer view. Another single shell. The person was rowing with one paddle, the other moving on its own.

45 minute hike
minnehaha off-leash dog park
58 degrees

The weekly dog park hike with Delia and FWA. What a morning for a hike by the river! Cool, sunny, some leaves the color of pears, others apples and oranges. Inspired by my mention of the pear, FWA started recounting Annoying Orange stories and the grumpy pear.

10 Things

  1. a hovering helicopter, the loud choppy buzz of its propellers
  2. what were they doing? searching for someone who fell in the river? Nope. Fixing power lines! one dude was hanging off the end of a rope with a ladder
  3. the incessant bark of a far off dog
  4. the flash of white and black — the fur of a fast dog
  5. wore hiking sandals — fine, soft sand right by the river seeped through the gaps in my sandals and gathered under my big toe
  6. a woman picking up a toddler and smelling them, then saying, nope, you must have stepped in dog poop
  7. the river, burning a bright white
  8. Delia stomping through the water, lifting each paw all the way out
  9. a woman in bright red pants, and a bright red jacket
  10. an almost medium-sized dog in a cute/stylish sweater, their owner wearing burgundy tennis shoes and an orange jacket

oct 16/RUN

2.5 miles
canal park, duluth
53 degrees

Took a quick trip to Duluth with FWA and Scott. Ran with Scott beside Lake Superior this morning. Wow! Mild weather. Some wind, a few sprinkles, but a nice run. I was born beside this beautiful lake, I love returning to it.

I’m writing this entry on the 18th, after we returned home. Here’s what I wrote in my plague notebook about it:

windy, wet, pewter water
seagulls — quiet, still, stuck in the sky
sky — void — white
running fast than 2 bikers — a kid and an adult
empty water: no ships, no horns
lighthouse — green light
no lift bridge lifting
puddled path

We had a great trip. What a difference a year makes! The last time we were up here, FWA and RJP were both struggling so much. Now, they are both starting — slowly, gradually — to do/be/feel better.

me and FWA, Lake Superior in Duluth

I love this picture. I love this lake. I love this human.

oct 15/RUN

2.35 miles
2 trails
49 degrees / humidity: 94%
occasional drizzle

A quick run this morning before FWA and I drive to Duluth to meet up with Scott after his gig in Bemidji. His band is being interviewed and playing a concert for the public tv station up there. Very cool.

Felt strong and faster (not fast, just faster than I have been for the last year). Wore shorts and my bright orange sweatshirt. I wasn’t cold. In fact, I was sweating by the end.

Everything was wet. Heard the water falling out of the 44th street pipe and gushing out of the 42nd street pipe. Entering the Winchell trail, I mistook a wet and dark tree stump for a critter twice.

The best part of the run were the colors of the leaves. Reds, oranges, yellows all around. Two favorites:

1: Running down on the Winchell trail, I passed a small tree with pink! leaves — the pink of florescent crayons from the 80s. Wow! I had to stop running and marvel at it for a moment. I might have taken a picture of it if I had my phone, but I didn’t have my phone, and I don’t imagine a camera could capture that color.

2: Stopping at the bottom of the 38th street steps, looking across to the east bank of the river, everything looked orange. Were the trees on the other side all orange, or was the orange coming from the tree on this side that was partly obscuring my view? I tried looking across from different angles, but I still couldn’t tell. The uncertainty of this fascinated me.

I was greeted by Mr. Morning! I didn’t recognize him in his jeans and jacket. I had become used to his summer habit: shorts and a short-sleeved t-shirt. I don’t remember what the river looks like, but I do remember glancing down at the thinning trees on the steep slope.

Anything else? A strange thumping sound somewhere down in the ravine. No geese or chickadees or albino squirrels. No roller skiers or fat bikes or kids laughing on teh playground. No umbrellas or packs of runners. Lots of empty benches and bright headlights and wet leaves. Once, the sploosh! of a car driving over a puddle.

oct 14/RUN

5.4 miles
franklin loop
48 degrees
drizzle, on and off

Feeling stronger and faster with every run. A overcast, rainy morning. Not gloomy, at least not to me: full of reds and yellow and oranges. Encountered Santa Claus in a bright orange, or was it yellow?, jacket. Heard lots of water everywhere, falling off the trees, gushing in the ravines, seeping out of cracks in the limestone, dripping down the steps on the bridge. I heard a lot of water just before reaching the trestle. I wondered if it was the inaccessible spring that I’ve read about.

When I started my run, the roads and sidewalks felt slippery, but I didn’t have any problems on the trail. I thought about the water section in my GGG collection — what does water do? Today, it: dripped, puddled, pooled, slid, (over)flowed, sprinkled, gushed. And, it exposed things that are difficult to see: cracks, fissures, slightly uneven ground. Water — as puddles or ice or snow — reveals what is normally hidden.

10 Things

  1. the river from the lake street bridge, 1: flat, smooth, pewter
  2. the river from the lake street bridge, 2: leaning over the railing, see the faint brown sandbar beneath the surface
  3. the shorter rock next to the ancient boulder almost looked like a little bear to me as I ran by — the rain had darkened the rock making it look like black fur
  4. still green down in the tunnel of trees
  5. the bright reddish-purple leaves on some trees lower to the ground
  6. empty benches
  7. on the east side, birds were chirping as I ran under the trees
  8. on and off, rain — mostly, I was sheltered from it by the still leafed trees, so it was difficult to tell what was rain and what was drips
  9. some kids laughing and yelling up on the hill
  10. puddles on the franklin bridge

Before sitting down to write my list, I remembered something to add to it, but by the time I started I had forgotten it. What was it? a few minutes later: this isn’t it, but I remembered something from the other day. There was a Palestinian flag made out of yarn on part of a fence somewhere on my run a few days ago. It might have been down near the tunnel of trees. I wonder if it is still there?

GGG update

During my “on this day” practice, I found some inspiration:

1 — 14 oct 2019

Looked up vista and found something interesting: “Vista is generally used today for broad sweeping views of the kind you might see from a mountaintop. But the word originally meant an avenue-like view, narrowed by a line of trees on either side. And vista has also long been used (like view and outlook) to mean a mental scan of the future—as if you were riding down a long grand avenue and what you could see a mile or so ahead of you was where you’d be in the very near future.”

My view is the opposite of these older meanings of vista in two ways: First, the narrow and tree-lined view makes me think of tunnel vision, when you only see what is straight ahead of you in your central vision. I see mostly with my peripheral. Second, my desire for a view is not in the hopes of seeing a specific future. Instead, I want to return to the past, or not the past, but to see a broader and longer view of the now, where everything exists together at the same time — maybe Mary Oliver’s eternal time?

also: there is an avenue (one article about the grand rounds and the gorge called them ornamental avenues) beside the river, but that is only the formal path to take. There’s the walking trail which meanders and (roughly) follows the terrain and is designed, not to get somewhere faster, but to engage with the gorge. And then there are dirt trails, alongside the paved trail, and deeper in the gorge, that don’t offer a clear or direct future. Not sure if this will make sense to a future Sara. I’m also thinking about Wendell Berry and the distinction he makes in “Native Hill” between roads and trails — I’ll have to find it.

Maybe I should do a You Are Here about a view, or I could call it an Overlook? Yes.

2 — 14 oct 2021

Earlier today I was thinking about pace — and only slightly in relation to running pace, more about pacing and restlessness and ghosts that haunt the path. Pace and pacing, like watches or clocks, impose limits and boundaries: a running pace uses seconds and minutes per mile (or km) and pacing involves walking back and forth in a small or confined space, retracing your steps again and again until you rub the grass away and reach dirt, or wear the carpet bare. What to do with that information? I’m not quite sure…yet.

to remember: Scott just told me that the musician, D’Angelo died today from pancreatic cancer. He was 51, my age. Scary and sad. My mom died of pancreatic cancer; it sucks.

oct 13/RUN

4 miles
minnehaha falls and back
55 degrees

Fall, leaves, fall; die, flowers, away;/lengthen night and shorten day; (Emily Brontë). Ran at noon because I got my hair cut this morning. A great time for a run, at least today. Sunny, calm, cool. I wore my bright yellow shoes and felt strong. Chanted in triple berries, then one of my Your Are Here poems:

Held up by the openness,
Not hemmed in by the trees.

Admired the golden leaves, but forgot to look at the river. Did I notice it even once? If I did, I can’t remember. I did notice the rushing creek and the gushing water fall. Saw a school bus, then heard some kids laughing at the playground by the falls. At my favorite spot, I stopped to look at the falls. Then I walked up the hill and put in Taylor Swift’s new album.

10 Things

  1. bright blue, cloudless sky
  2. the faint outline of the moon above a still green tree
  3. folwell bench: one person sitting there
  4. bench above the edge of the world: empty
  5. benches at the falls: all empty
  6. a runner behind me — were they catching up? for a few minutes I could hear their shuffling feet, then nothing — did they turn off somewhere, or was I just going faster?
  7. something on the bottom of my shoe was making as shshshsh sound as I ran. Stopped at a rock to rub it off
  8. the sweet smell of tall grass near “The Song of Hiawatha”
  9. a leashed dog spinning around and jumping up, then sitting calmly beside a human
  10. puddles on the part of path near the ford bridge — a result of last night’s rain

GGG — before the run

I think I’m getting closer to being done with this collection? One of the poems I still have to write is called “Everything.” It is two pages wide. In the upper left corner of one page is: I go to/the gorge/to witness. In the lower right corner of the second page is: everything. These lines are the rock walls framing the open space of the gorge above the water/ground. In the open space, I’m planning to fill it with things I’ve witnessed at the gorge, culled from the 10 Things I noticed lists I’ve been making for at least 5 years. Just now, a thought: what if I organize the things to reflect the seasons, so the upper right quarter = spring, lower right = summer, lower right = fall, upper left = winter. In theory it sounds good, but what will it look like?