Category: Running Log

may 7/RUN

3.4 miles
2 trails
52 degrees

52 in the afternoon is not warm enough for spring, but it was fine for my run. Sunny, still, beautiful shadows. All over the sidewalk: little explosions of shadow buds on the tips of branches. While on the upper trail I listened to my “Sight Songs” playlist, when I went below I listened to voices floating above, rustling below, and the warning cries of black-capped chickadees.

I took the lower trail through the oak savanna, past the ravine, up the gravel trail to the ancient boulder, down to the tunnel of trees, then down the old stone steps to the river.

10 Things

  1. rustling below — an animal, maybe a turkey? No, a human in a bright red jacket
  2. ruts and cracks all over the few parts of the lower trail that are paved
  3. green exploding everywhere, new leafs on a tree, pushing through the slats of the wrought iron fence
  4. voices of kids, playing at the school playground
  5. blue water
  6. tree shadows, some sprawling, some exploding
  7. a new layer of gravel
  8. ran through a small cloud of gnats and trapped at least two in my eye juice — yuck!
  9. very soft and deep sand on the small trail winding through the floodplain forest
  10. loose gravel on the hill out of the ravine, making it more challenging to run

more holes

Still playing around with how to visualize the different hole poems and how to introduce/present the different elements: word, line/string/thread, hole. A wild idea last night that I can barely imagine executing. For a poem in which I have a double grid — one grid drawn directly over the poem, another created out of thread elevated above it — I would use needles instead of pins for stringing the thread. Yes, this is ridiculous — if I’m doing the math right, that would be 84 needles to thread, which I will never have enough spoons for. But wait — what if I put 2 needles on the center dot and used pins for the perimeter? How would this look? I’ve been thinking of the needle as eye ever since I used the phrase, threading the eye of a needle. Hmm, that idea needs to simmer some more.

This morning, I returned to Holes 1 and thought about how to find the words on the pages of the New Yorker essay. This poem was the start of this w/hole journey, so I imagine it as an introduction to the series and to the key elements — in particular: hole = blind spot and line/string = lines of amsler grid. Sara this second has decided on this plan: a grid with my blind spot on it for each panel, drawn over the words of the poem / the words printed out on other paper, then cut out and pasted on top of the grid, each numbered / an additional grid with blindspot/hole drawn at bottom as key/for explanation. Here’s the first stage:

text with 4 grids, each containing a dark blob (my blind spot) and the words: another name for barely not blind is a hole in your vision that makes for an uneasy fellowship with the word.
Holes 1 / phase 1 (7 may)

an hour or two later . . . Next, I drew on an Amsler Grid then glued on a caption and the title of the poem. I still need to draw the hole in my vision directly on the grid. This will require scaling the hole down. I’m thinking of trying out the Chuck Close grid method on another amsler then cutting it out and tracing it on the “real” one. That’s post-run Sara’s job.

holes 2 : phase 2, 7 may

I like it! I was able to (very) roughly approximate my hole to fit in the smaller grid, but I won’t post it here until it has been published somewhere.

may 6/RUN

4.7 miles
veterans home in reverse
42 degrees

Brr. Was glad I wore my winter tights this early afternoon. I almost wish I had had gloves near the beginning. Saw the parks crew out near the savanna, looking like they were getting ready for another controlled burn. Overcast, windy.

10 Things

  1. the smell of freshly cut grass somewhere — was it near Wabun, or was that at my last run through Wabun
  2. the top of a wooden fence, missing
  3. another fence top, broken and slanted
  4. gushing water below, 1: on the bridge connecting the veterans home and the river road
  5. gushing water below, 2: above the falls, the creek below
  6. gushing water below, 3: the sewer pipe in the 42nd street ravine
  7. shshshsh of the soft suface on the dirt trail next to the paved path
  8. the very LOUD monthly severe weather siren that blasts the first Wednesday of every month
  9. a few school buses in the falls parking lot, at least one group of people clustered above the falls
  10. empty benches

grids and holes 1

A favorite journal, Unlost, is open for submissions. They feature found and visual poems. I’d like to submit a few of my found poems, so today I started fine-tuning holes 1. First I finished drawing grids and my blind spot/hole on the panels of the essay:

holes 1 / 5 grids

I could keep all the pages intact, then place some plastic over all them OR I could cut out the grids, put plastic over each, then place them beside each other to create the poem. I also like the idea of the double grid with pins and thread. Maybe I’ll try the pins tomorrow (and maybe I’ll leave the plastic for non-hole poems?).

may 5/RUN

5.2 miles
franklin loop
42 degrees

Initially I was planning to run south but then I remembered that Scott and RJP had seen a cool art display near the trestle so I ran north to find it. First I ran through the neighborhood, past the daycare playground which was empty of kids, and over the lake street bridge to the east side of the river. Then I ran north to franklin, west over the bridge, and then south to the trestle.

A beautiful morning! Ran into the wind for the first half, with it behind me for the second half. I had to adjust my cap a few times to make sure it wouldn’t fly off, but otherwise the wind didn’t bother me. In fact, I liked what it did to the surface of the water as I ran over the lake street bridge: a wide stretch of rough scales.

I did 9/11 and it helped me to not run too fast. I felt strong, especially in the second half of the run.

As I neared the trestle from the north, I began looking for the art display. I finally found it in a grassy stretch near the part of the walking trail that splits from the bike trail. It’s a cluster of mitten tulips! We’re not sure who did it, or why, but I love it!

After stopping to take these pictures, I kept running south. As I neared the tunnel of trees, I saw that the road was closed. Then I saw smoke — a lot of smoke. Were they smoking the sewers in the neighborhood. Then I heard the crackling of fire on the hill below lena smith boulevard. Oh — a controlled burn. I stopped to take some video. For some reason, most of it is in slow motion again. Only the first five and last five seconds of it are at normal speed.

controlled burn / 5 may 2026

holes, grids, other worlds and other mothers

Yesterday I gave myself a task: weave thread through the plastic grid, sew thread on paper, sew thread on a plastic bag. A preliminary2 verdict: thin yarn on the plastic grid is possible iff I find the right purpose; paper might work if I think more deliberately about it; plastic has a lot of possibility. I’d like to try replicating a drug-induced spider web on it! My sewing skills are very limited — limited = 7th grade home-ec class + the occasional darning of pants/shirts + sewing up the rip on the brand new couch that Delia the dog made when we first got her 10 years ago. Will that stop me? Maybe in the past, but not today! I’ve already cleared the first hurdle: I threaded a needle! Yes, with my very bad vision, I managed to thread the eye of a tiny needle. Oh — the eye of a needle?! That’s an interesting connection to this project and my poem about the string that ties eye to words to world.

eye = needle / string = thread

I posted about this last week (I think?), but I’m reminded of Wallace Stevens’ poem, “Tattoo,” again and the lines, light is like a spider . . . it crawls under your eyelids/And spreads its webs there–/Its two webs./The webs of your eyes Spiders and threads and eyes. Now thread = light = that invisible thing that connects us to words and meaning. So good!

Maybe I should also try creating the web on the latch hook grid? I don’t have a needle with an eye big enough for the thin yarn I’m using, so I’ll try to do it with my hands.

I just watched a clip from Coraline on YouTube titled, “Coraline — Meeting “Other Mother.” I want to think more about the other mother’s button eyes and the idea of the hole as a portal between the world of her mother and other mother. Question: So far, I’ve taken inspiration from Alice in Wonderland and Coraline about holes to other worlds, but what other classic kid movies/books feature a hole/portal? Just as I wrote those last words I recalled Narnia and “The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe,” which I loved reading as kid. A connection: the portal/hole/door is in a wardrobe, closet and through clothes. Is the thread/cloth connection significant?

other mother, button eyes
through the small door between

  1. 9 minutes of running, 1 minute of walking ↩︎
  2. preliminary = spending about 1 or 2 minutes trying each out ↩︎

may 4/HIKE

55 minutes
minnehaha off-leash dog park
59 degrees

More green, less dogs, a lot of wind, loose sand. Delia the dog was in her element — such joy in her body as she ran and leaped and sparred with other dogs. FWA and I talked about a distracted dog owner who failed to recognize that her big dog was overwhelming Delia. We both noticed how the beach was much smaller and the river much larger. Most of the mucky shoreline gone.

As we headed back, there was shouting ahead, then an older woman approached us and asked if she could walk with us. She explained that when she asked a man to get his big dog away from her small dog he called her a cunt and then yelled at her, then he kept harassing her. She didn’t feel safe. When the red-faced man (that is, according to FWA; I couldn’t see his face) paused and denied what happened, FWA successfully de-escalated the situation, saying to the man, just walk away. He did and we walked part of the way with the woman and her dog, Scotchie, short for Butterscotch. Love that name! After we parted ways, FWA and I analyzed our re/actions. I’m proud of FWA and I’m glad the situation was quickly defused.

We heard the pileated woodpecker, black-capped chickadees, and some corvid that didn’t sound like a crow and wasn’t screechy enough to be a blue jay.

grids

Scott and I went to Costco and loaded up on Grapefruit. I noticed a lattice/grid on the bag. Can I use it? It’s red (or orange? or pink?) so I’m not sure, but maybe?

grapefruit bag grid

I placed the grid directly over another holes poem just to see what it would look like. A thought: if this visual poem was in black and white, how would it look?

grapefruit bag grid — black and white

One inspiration for this switch to black and white: a story from Scott about the set on the Adams Family tv show1. While the show was in black and white to make it look more gothic, the actual set was in crazy colors. Nice!

While gathering a few different plastic bags from our Costco shopping to play around with, I thought about how my interest in plastic bags — because they seem to be an effective way to describe the distance between me and words and the world — is giving me a chance to give attention to the (over) use of plastic in packaging. So much plastic. More broadly, my interest in using everyday objects in my visual poetry is helping to give attention to objects that I would otherwise not notice. A door to a new way of being in the world is opening!

I almost forgot about another grid I discovered. Yesterday, RJP and I were at Michaels picking up a few supplies — yarn for her, needles and pins (no, not The Searchers song) for me. Sudden inspiration hit: what about the grids used in latch hook?!2 We asked a very helpful employee and found them. Yes! There is potential, I think, for using this in my Holes 4 poem. I wish I would have bought more than one!

1
2
3

1: panel with words of poem cut out
2: panel with bigger words of poem pasted on
3: both panels

I’m wondering what it would look like to play around with thread or yarn woven through the holes?

tomorrow’s plan: weave thread through plastic grid; sew with thread through/on plastic bag; sew with thread through/on printer paper.

  1. Fun fact: I loved watching this show when it was on reruns; I had a crush on Gomez/John Astin. ↩︎
  2. I know about latch hooking from my older sister MLP who loved to do it so much that once she latch hooked a map of China for a school report! ↩︎

may 2/RUN

7 miles
lake superior boardwalk, duluth
37 degrees

An impromptu trip to Duluth with Scott. Our first trip alone since last April when we went to visit my best friend in Iowa. We need more of these. This morning, we ran together above Lake Superior through Leif Erikson park and 3 miles north, then turned around and headed back. As we ran, I told Scott that the theme of the run was water.

10 Water Things

  1. thin sheets of ice on the water! earlier from the window of our room, I had noticed the texture of the water and wondered what was causing the strips of rough water amongst the smooth stretches
  2. water gushing out of a sewer pipe embedded in a ravine
  3. crack crackle crackle the ice sheet butting up against the rocks near shore and cracking — such a cool sound!
  4. drip drip drip water dripping out of some pipe deep in a backyard
  5. the rushing of the creek under the high wooden bridge we ran over
  6. Lake Superior — blue and beautiful, one giant ship, anchored miles from shore
  7. drip drip drip sweat dripping off my face
  8. a pool of water on the floor of the port-a-potty
  9. benches dotted on the bluff, filled with people enjoying the view
  10. almost all of the ice gone — I thought all of it was, until I noticed a few sheets still on the surface as we walked up the steps after the run

While we ran, we talked about our kids and Star Trek and an article Scott had read about fraternal twin girls with the same mother but different fathers. I saw my shadow and started singing Me and my Shadow. Scott asked who had sung it and when I said, I wasn’t sure but I had a version with Frank Sinatra and Sammy Davis on my shadows playlist, he said, Sammy Davis Jr. is his shadow? Yikes. And I said, Jesus, how have I never noticed that before. Then a string of associations: I mentioned that they sang it on a tv special which led to a discussion of the Andy Williams Christmas special, then the kids in it, which reminded Scott of the scared kid on the Ray Coniff Christmas Special who hears a creepy story about a little gray lamb read to her by the guy who played Wilbur on Mr. Ed — Scott couldn’t remember the actor’s name. Scott started reminiscing about watching Mr. Ed with his mom on Nick at Nite, which prompted me to start singing the theme song from “The Patty Duke Show” — because, of course I would.

It was a good run, and a great mental victory. As I said to Scott, I’m excited to push myself mentally to run these longer distances. It is a wonderful feeling to successfully push through these tough moments.

a quick note about grids

Yesterday, while driving back from 2 Harbors to our hotel in Duluth we started talking about the show Alone and then what it means to be “off the grid,” Yes — another meaning of grids! How can I play around with this in my exploration of grids?!

april 30/HIKERUN

hike: 53 minutes
minnehaha off leash dog park
40 degrees

At the beginning it was chilly this morning, even with gloves, but by the time we were heading back to the parking lot, it had warned up. More green. Another very LOUD woodpecker. Fun encounters with other dogs. One of them was just a little smaller than Delia and covered in chocolate fur. Something about how they darted around made me think they weren’t dog but some other creature — Thing 1 or Thing 2 popped into my head. More good and difficult conversations with FWA. I’m trying to respect his need to figure things out on his own timeline, but it’s very hard to watch and not say anything.

When we got back to the house, Scott told me that he read an article in the Star Tribune this morning about how they might have to shut the dog park down. It’s sacred Dakota land and some (many? all? — I haven’t read the article; it’s behind a paywall) tribal leaders want it returned to the Dakota people. I would be very sad if this wonderful park closed, but I support the Dakota people and their claims to the sacred land. I hope some sort of compromise can be reached.

run: 4 miles
river road, north/south
49 degrees

An afternoon run. A little warmer and much sunnier. So crowded on the river road! Car after car after car. Near the trestle, the cars were backed up — at least 10 cars stopped in a line, extending both ways. The floodplain forest below the tunnel of trees was thick with green — no more river view here.

After climbing out of the tunnel of trees, I heard voices below me in the gorge. Rowers! The rowers are back! A few minutes later, I saw a roller skier. Two wonderful signs of spring. Now it just needs to stay warmer!

strings

This morning, I decided to work on a new poem. Instead of holes, and my blind spot, it’s about strings and threads and the lines that connect/tether me to words and meaning. I created this poem out of words from a favorite NYer essay: “Mystery Man.” I mapped it out, then printed out the words in bigger text, then pinned it up on my cork board, then connected the words with black embroidery thread, making it look like a murder board. Here’s the poem. Each stanza is from a different page.

the strings
that tie

eye

to word
to world

are
un

ravelling.

the strings that tie / eye / to word to world / are un/ ravelling

Is the string/thread dark and thick enough to see clearly, or should I go for thin black yarn?

I like the idea of this resembling a murder board, particularly in relation to my use of the word “unravelling.” Unravelling has two, almost opposing, meanings: 1. to fall part, to undo and 2. to solve a mystery, to make clear, to unknot or disentangle. So, the ties between eye, word, and world, are both coming undone AND are becoming more clear.

april 29/RUN

4.65 miles
veterans home, reverse
47 degrees

Sunny, cool-ish. Overdressed in tights and my hooded pullover. Everywhere green and gorgeous. I was too dazzled by the green to notice the river. Was it sparkling? I also didn’t notice the falls — how hard and fast were they falling? I do remember giving a quick glance to the creek: gray, open, flowing fast.

When I wasn’t thinking about anything, which was much of the time, I thought about not running too fast and pushing through tough moments

10 Things

  1. a class-sized group of kids down in the oak savanna — running above, I heard their voices, then saw them hiking below the mesa on the winchell trail
  2. passing a guy on veterans bridge — I was about the say hi when I noticed he was talking into a phone
  3. the surrey kiosk is up — today, on a wednesday, it was empty and closed
  4. running down the locks and dam hill, passing a man, exchanging greetings — hello / hi
  5. encountering a series of bikers — spaced far enough apart that I wondered if they were together — the first two had bright headlights on
  6. from behind, the faint noise of bike wheels moving very slowly, finally passing — a woman very upright in a bright yellow jacket biking very casually
  7. explosions of white blossoms on some of the trees lining the trail
  8. a mower at wabun, the smell of freshly cut grass
  9. the parking lot at veterans home was crowded and full
  10. a moment: running just north of the 44th street parking lot — shadows then suddenly more light: a net or web of shadows, some sprawled, some with little circles at the tips (the buds of trees)

When I saw these shadows I stopped running, pulled out my phone, and took a few pictures. A thought: this net of shadows would be the grid/net obscuring the text of a NYer essay. I’ll have to play around with it. As I kept running, I thought about shadowboxes and silhouettes and playing around with them in a visual poem. I stopped twice more to take shadowed pictures.

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10

I decided to post all the pictures that I took so I could study them some more. I like imagining these shadows as a net or a veil, a weaving/gathering of threads/strings/lines that affect my view of what is beneath them. Here it is the sidewalk, on the NYer page, it’s the words.

a thought: I’ve been trying to create neat and precise (well, precise-ish) grids of lines to mimic the Amsler grid, but does that really express/show how I see, or how I feel about, the words as I try to read them? What if I drew a “normal” grid directly on the text and then made the grid elevated above it more slanted, askew, not straight or orderly?

a few hours later: I made another frame out of cardboard and then tried to turn it into a loom that I could thread a grid on. Unsuccessful. Too hard to cut the slats enough so I could wind thread through it. I’m not completely giving up on this idea, but I think I’ll take a break from it. A little discouraging, but that’s okay. I think I just need some time to build up the skills to figure it out.

april 28/EYEDOCTOR

Went to an eye doctor this morning that I saw 8 years ago. Back then, early in my processing of my vision loss, I had accepted it, but I didn’t know much about my vision and I was a bit overwhelmed. When I told the doctor I had been diagnosed with Best’s Disease, he said that it didn’t look like Best’s to him; it was a more vague cone dystrophy. He was very clinical in his approach and way of communicating and I thought he was an asshole. Today he was just as clinical, but I didn’t think he was an asshole. He was nice and openly admitted that they don’t know a lot about these eye disorders and he explained that I might have Best’s, and I might not. There were no answers. There was also no acknowledgment of my vision as a strange or serious thing. Only neutral language and talk of returning in a few years to have it checked again. Oh, and the suggestion that my thinning retina looks similar to age-related macular degeneration and might respond to injections in my eyes every two months for the rest of my life. But, those injections won’t improve the retina thinning, just help it not thin anymore, and there haven’t been any studies on eyes like mine so there’s no guarantee that they will work and that means the very expensive procedure definitely won’t be covered by insurance. I left the appointment feeling frustrated and disappointed. Scott and I talked about it as we walked back to the parking garage. I recall saying something like, it sucks to lose my vision, but what makes me okay with it is that it’s so strange and fascinating. I want a doctor to acknowledge that strangeness. After saying that I’m unusual in my perspective and that most people want reassurance that it’s not too strange or severe, Scott added: you want to lean into the freakiness of it. Yes I do. I don’t care that there’s no cure, or that they don’t know much about it. I don’t want to submit to (and pay for) every expensive test they have to exhaust the possibilities of what it could or couldn’t be. I just want an expert to acknowledge the strange and serious and terrible beauty of my vision! But of course, the medical approach to eye care, with its emphasis on fixing and curing and making people “normal” again, doesn’t allow for that.

Here’s a positive thing that came out of that appointment: I advocated for myself! The doctor was about to leave and even though he didn’t ask if I had any questions, I offered one: do you have any resources for living with low vision. He said, oh, of course, that’s a good idea! I’ll give you a referral for a low vision specialist and occupational therapy. Yes. I’m ready to learn more about low vision specialists and their approach to vision and vision loss! (I know that I’ll have to be very clear about what I want and need — and it’s about tips and tricks for navigating and not how to be normal! Advocating for myself her was a big deal; getting information about low vision resources was one of my main reasons for this appointment!

And one more interesting thing, a concept that could be the title of a poem, or at least the primary influence: Variant of Uncertaint Significance. When talking about genetic testing and using it to try to determine what exactly my eye condition is he mentioned it multiple times.

VUS When analysis of a patient’s genome identifies a variant, but it is unclear whether that variant is actually connected to a health condition, the finding is called a variant of uncertain significance (abbreviated VUS). In many cases, these variants are so rare in the population that little information is available about them. Typically, more information is required to determine if the variant is disease related. Such information may include more extensive population data, functional studies, and tracing the variant in other family members who have or do not have the same health condition.

found poems (non Holes)

Before leaving for the ophthalmologist, I returned to a favorite erasure collection, A Wonderful Catastrophe, and read a few poem that offer inspiration:

from A Wonderful Catastrophe/ Colette Love Hilliard

I listen to the leaves
and
try to forget about
that
World within my head

from A Wonderful Catastrophe/ Colette Love Hilliard

I
remembered
loss could be
beautiful

I was hoping to run today, but I didn’t have time before my appointment, my eyes were very dilated for hours and I wouldn’t have been able to be out there in the very BRIGHT sun.

april 27/MAKING

Before working on my Holes project, a quick walk as the rain hit with Delia the dog. At first only a drizzle, but by the time we made it around the 2nd block, rain. I could barely tell with my raincoat on — a bright green jacket inherited from my dead mother-in-law — and my hood up. For the rest of the day: rain. No heavy storms, just a steady rain.

drip drip drop little April showers

Making

First, more fun with distressing plastic. I “drew” an Amsler Grid on a ziploc bag. Then I draw another one with my blind spot in the center. Then I cut the center of the spot out. I like this technique, and it’s very easy to do, and to replicate!

The perpetual problem with this plastic: it looks cool when I hold it up, but it doesn’t quite work when placed on the page: you can’t see the distressed grid and it doesn’t obscure enough of the words.

At some point, another thought: create a frame out of strips of cardboard. First I tried strips that were 2 inches thick. I slotted the strips to make the frame, then put the distressed plastic with the amsler grid/blind spot over it. I placed this frame over one panel of Holes 4. I liked it, but it was messy. And difficult to read. I wondered, would making a thinner frame help? I made one with 1 inch strips and added a different distressed Amsler grid. Still messy, still not quite right.

assessment: I like the idea of the frame, but I need to work on the execution — learn to cut the cardboard more neatly. Also: I need to make the words just a little more legible — if not, the actual words, the shadow of their presence.

1
2
3
4
  1. image of poem panel — I like how the words of this panel create their own poem: it‘s you that is something (yes, I know that it is technically its and not it’s, but I don’t care)
  2. side profile of 2 frames
  3. the first attempt with the thicker frame
  4. second attempt with the thinner frame placed over a panel where the words of the poem have been cut out

None of what I made was very successful, but it’s so much fun to try making things. Even as I still am not very good at it, I love that I keep trying. And I can tell I’m gaining confidence and improving. I still struggle to cut through cardboard effectively, but my lines are getting straighter. I’m glad I’ve stopped using my bad vision as an excuse!

note: if I can figure out how to more effectively execute the cardboard frame, I could use it as a loom for my thread grid!

also

Here are 3 other things that I’d like to make note of, and return to:

1 — achilles exercises

To help with achilles pain, strength the calf muscles: the gastrocnemius and soleus. I want to check out the 5 exercises mentioned in this post.

2 — The Art of Kindness, Helen J. Shen interview

I’ve barely started listening to this amazing interview with Helen J. Shen! There’s some great insight on the difference between being nice and kind and how to acknowledge, then let of of imposter feelings, and that’s just in the first 17 minutes!

3 — crocheted technology

Scott sent RJP and I a link to this brief post about crocheting — I don’t crochet, but I’m thinking a lot more about fiber arts these days!

For tomorrow: a run, a ophthalmologist appointment (how bad is my vision these days?), and reading more poems — and posting one here. I’m really enjoying all the making and experimenting, but I haven’t been reading other people’s poetry that much in the last month1.

  1. Right after writing and publishing this thought I realized that I have been looking at and posting poetry — I’m reading Her Read by Jennifer Sperry Steinorth and loving it. I’ve been looking at visual poetry, but not any other forms. ↩︎

april 26/RUN

4 miles
up wabun / down locks and dam
59 degrees
overcast

It is supposed to rain all day tomorrow, so I ran today. Warm — shorts and a short-sleeved shirt. Spring! I ran south on the trail. Lots of bikers but no reckless biking. I almost wrote that I forgot to look at the river, or that I don’t remember what I saw when I looked at the river, but then I remembered that I noticed it at the bottom of the locks and dam hill. Blue-gray and choppy,

sight of the day: a little kid (2 or 3?) hanging over the edge of a part of the wooden fence on the edge of the hill leading down to the oak savanna, an adult holding onto them tightly. What can you tell from a scene while running of a little kid with their back to you? Not much, I guess, but it felt like the kid had a wonderful curiosity, and the adult with them was supporting/encouraging/safeguarding it.

running thoughts: I felt strong and more confident, having run the 10k race yesterday. I ran too fast — I need to slow down! After the run was finished my achilles felt a little strained or strange or both. One of my funning YouTubers has achilles problems and they keep them in check by doing calf raised after every run. Maybe I should try that?

10 Things

  1. smell: cannabis somewhere nearby
  2. a cardinal’s pew pew pew call
  3. a bike peloton (15-20 bikes) on the paved path
  4. someone on e-bike zooming by on the road
  5. more green buds
  6. some empty benches, some occupied
  7. someone on a bike biking alongside a runner — marathon training, maybe for Grandma’s Marathon?
  8. a white car speeding down the locks and dam hill, turning around, then speeding back up it
  9. gnats! one landing on my check near the edge of my eye — I could see a black spot in my peripheral vision
  10. the boot hanging off a stalk in a neighbor’s yard is still there, a month later

holes

Today I’m experimenting with different ways to visualize my Holes 4 poem:

you look at words. you don’t see the gaping hole. you see seltzer fizz and a nothing that is something not sharing its secrets.

First, I cut up a ziploc bag and made dots in it with a pencil. This looks like fizz or static or snow, which is cool. A problem: you can feel it, but you can’t really see it. How to make those marks show up? Then I cut the static ziploc into the shape of my blind spot — actually, I cut out 20 of them. It’s still not visible, but I like the texture and the idea of making the visual less visible. I think I’ll use these somewhere.

After spending some time with distressed ziploc bag and not getting anywhere, I tried a different approach. First, streamline the poem, get rid of the fizz, and get over the idea of trying to represent fizz or static. Here’s the new version of the poem:

you look at words, you don’t see the gaping hole, you see a nothing that is something not sharing its secrets.

When I shortened the poem, I was able to “find” it on four instead of six of the pages of the new yorker essay.

Next, instead of trying to make fizz, I decided to distress a new sheet of ziploc plastic with a criss-cross pattern. I really like it!

view 1
view 2

I really like this way of distressing the plastic. And, it’s easy to do and to replicate! When I put it directly over the text of the essay, it didn’t obscure the text enough. Soon I realized that it needs to be at a slight distance. I keep coming back to the idea that these poems need to be 3-D. How should I do that?