feb 6, 2017 / 5.25 miles / 32 degrees
In the earliest months of this blog, before I took the poetry class, my plan was to create a syllabus for myself and dig deeper into what running means to runners and how they write about it:
I spent all morning doing research on running and trying to figure out my running syllabus. There’s a lot of things to think/read/talk about with running that don’t just involve training or equipment/products or how you feel when you run. I’ve been thinking of focusing on studying and practicing different forms of writing and storytelling about running, like: memoirs, race reports, my running stories, personal essays. I tried looking for syllabi that studied the writing of runners, but I can’t seem to find anything. I guess I’ll have to dig a bit deeper.
Here’s the small syllabus/schedule I created for myself: running, a syllabus
At the end of this entry, I discuss my understanding of the relationship between running or writing — or, at least what it could be. These ideas are the beginning of what will become my practice of moving while writing and writing while moving:
Writing doesn’t have to be completely sedentary and running isn’t about being brain dead or “working like a bastard to not collapse.” Part of my project is about rethinking my running as more than physical (over)exertion and rethinking my writing as more than mental (over)stimulation.
feb 6, 2019 / 3.4 miles / 15 degrees, feels like 8 / 100% snow-covered
During feb 2019, I was trying out an experiment in which I played around with the “feels like” temperature. Here’s what I wrote for this day:
Also feels like: too warm for double gloves, an ice rink, a winter wonderland, I’m the only one not in a car, yaktrax
And this is a common thought for me in the winter:
I wonder what people driving by think of me running in this?
feb 6, 2020 / 4 miles / 27 degrees
I love this description of my thoughts about words. I like my voice here — could I turn this into a poem?
Heard the birds as I was heading to the river and thought about how clichéd it seems to mention chirping birds and then that I still like mentioning them and then how I wish I could identify birds better or had better words for describing their sound and then that the simple word, “bird” and the sound description “chirp” still give me a thrill so I’m fine not searching for fancier words right now. I’ll spend my time enjoying the sound of birds chirping.
I just realized that this might be an example of J Drew Lanham’s “being with birds”!
And here’s another example of me (as in the 2019 entry) being concerned with what others think:
Did I look foolish to the drivers? Why do I care?
I love this poem: I Heart Your Dog’s Head/ Erin Belieu. I would love to be able to bring things/feelings together like Belieu does. Maybe I could try — just an experiment/draft/homage?
feb 6, 2017 / 5.25 miles / 32 degrees
feb 6, 2021 / 3.25 miles / 0 degrees, feels like -18 / basement
Two things to remember from this entry. First, a discussion of Dickinson (the show):
Did a short bike ride while I finished the 3rd, “house party” episode of Dickinson. Slowly, I am appreciating it more and understanding my reactions to it. Here’s a scene that I like and don’t like at the same time:
After their parents leave for an overnight trip to Boston, Emily tells her younger sister Lavinia and older brother Austin: “We need to throw one of our classic Dickinson house parties!”
Austin: This is going to be a disaster.
Emily: Parties are supposed to be disasters Austin. Parties are like shipwrecks. You should emerge from them soaking wet. Out of breath. And helplessly disoriented.
This scene made me laugh. After that, my reaction: no thanks to shipwrecks and getting soaked. I don’t mind the disorientation, but not when it’s the result of such tumult and destruction. Part of me worries I’m too much of a square (while another part of me doesn’t care if I am a square), but more of me is tired of this narrow definition of exuberant passion as reckless, destructive abandon–destructive to self and others. I want to see other ways of being exuberant that aren’t tragic.
The second thing I’d like to remember is about lists and my love for them:
After the bike, I ran while listening to my latest audio book: 8 Perfect Murders by Peter Swanson. It’s good. At one point, the narrator (who may or may not be a murderer) reflects on his love for making lists, asking, “Why does everything need to be a list? What compels us to do that?” His answer: lists fill a void, give us meaning. This answer makes me think of Umberto Eco’s interview: We Like Lists Because We Don’t Want to Die. It’s funny that this list discussion came up in the book because right before heading downstairs to work out, I was thinking about lists and why I like them–why do I like them? Here are 3 reasons I quickly wrote in my plague notebook:
Why I Like Lists
- Easier for me to see (with my fading central vision)
- Open-ended, always room for another addition to the list
- They led me back to poetry: I took my first ever poetry class in 2017, even though I was scared of poetry and didn’t think I was really into it, because the title of the class was: Please Add to this List. I loved the class and discovered I loved and needed poetry.
feb 6, 2023 / 2 miles (swim) / ywca pool
During February of 2024, I’m focusing on the peripheral. I’d like to make a list of poems about peripheral vision. Here are 2 to add:
Because of my interest in peripheral vision and what it means to see movement (as opposed to sharp, fixed details), I’m always trying to find poems that offer details and descriptions of movement. I love how much Pastan focuses on how the birds move — they swoop and gather, cast wing shadows, rustle like leaves. She doesn’t offer any descriptions of their color, size, or sound. She doesn’t even name them. I don’t miss those details. The description of their movement is enough.
Memory of a Bird/Linda Pastan
The Birds/ Linda Pastan