I’ve posted an entry every year on this day since I began this RUN! blog.
jan 23, 2017 / 4 miles / 35 degrees
This is the entry where I first wrote about gray and expressed a desire to find the words to describe how I feel on a gray day:
A gray day. Warmish, but gloomy. Days like today make it hard for me to see. It’s not really dark outside, just overcast. But because of my macular dystrophy, overcast feels a lot darker. And it makes everything look fuzzy, like I’m seeing it through a slightly dirty piece of plastic.
A few months later, in my first poetry class (ever!), I used the words in a Bernadette Mayer experiment: A Gray Day, 8 Versions
Also in this entry, I write about how I’d like to develop my other senses to compensate for diminishing vision:
I wish I could articulate the sense of disconnection I feel when my sight is fuzzy. It’s as if I’m running in my own bubble. I’d like to work on developing my other senses to compensate for this disconnection and to embrace experiencing the world differently: to hear it or smell it or touch it, not just see it.
I think I’ll challenge myself to try this out.
Is this the “real” start of this project of noticing and finding better words? Wow.
jan 23, 2018 / 4 miles / 25 degrees / 85% snow-covered
The first time I remember seeing, or at least documenting, a cross-country skier skiing in the road!
About an hour before I went running, my daughter and I took Delia the dog for a walk and we saw people cross country skiing in the street. Don’t think I’ve ever seen that before.
jan 23, 2019 / 3.5 miles / 17 degrees, feels like 10 / 50% snow-covered
The first use of one of my favorite phrases for ridiculously cold winter mornings:
I decided to get one more run before the river road became an arctic hellscape (a phrase I read in a running article about winter).
And here’s the introduction of a project that I’ve returned to every so often, but haven’t really done anything with it…yet: layers
I suppose 17, feels like 10 is cold but I was warm. Sweating. Less than a mile in, most of me was almost too warm. Except for my fingers, which always take the longest. Pushed my sleeves up after the lake street bridge. Then shifted my buff from my head to my neck. By mile 2, I wished I had worn a different hat–maybe a baseball cap instead of the thick teal stocking cap I had on. At the end of the run, I unzipped my jacket and took off my gloves. How cold does it need to be before I’m not hot at the end of a run? Not sure I want to find out, but I probably will if I try running outside later this week or early next week.
Writing that last paragraph makes me want to experiment with ways to describe the unlayering process that occurs as I run–both literally, as I shed gloves and buff, but also metaphorically as I remove layers of doubt, anxiety, restlessness.
jan 23, 2017 / 2.3 miles / 32 degrees / 100% sloppy snow-covered
An ideal what-you-imagine-when-you-imagine-a-pretty-snowy-winter scene. A terrible path. It snowed an inch or two last night. Wet, sloppy snow that’s half melted into a mess on the path. But I needed the fresh air so I put on my yaktrax and headed to the river, unsuccessfully dodging big puddles. Enduring the mess was worth it.
Enduring the mess was worth it. (Almost) always the truth.
jan 23, 2021 / 3.1 miles / treadmill, basement
Shame on you, past Sara, for not mentioning what book it was that you were reading!
I listened to my audio book as I ran.
I try to think about what future Sara would like to remember, but sometimes I forget or misjudge what might matter to her.
jan 23, 2022 / 3.4 miles / 2 degrees / 100% snow-covered
Another appearance of a cross-country skier! This time on the boulevard grass and not the road.
Saw Santa Claus, several fat tires, half a dozen walkers, and a cross-country skier, skiing in the wide boulevard between edmund and the river road. It’s always a great run when I encounter a cross-country skier!
Right now, January 23, 2024, I’m working on a poem (an assay) about not seeing, so I had to add this bit of the poem I posted in this entry here:
No, the largesses of glasses is not seeing.
The gift not seeing gives:
The world instantly soften, blurs.
The pattern of carpet
or leaves out a window,
words on a page,
the face in a mirror.
Blurs
jan 23, 2023 / 4.1 miles / 24 degrees / 90% snow-covered
I want to remember this cool project that I discovered last year on this day:
This morning, I found an amazing poetry project by Anna Swansoncalled “The Garbage Poems.” It’s a series of found poems composed of words taken from the trash she found at swimming holes. She has an interactive site for the poems where you can create your own garbage poems. You can also read her poems and click on each word to find which garbage it came from. How amazing! I’m very excited to have encountered her work. Not only are these poems amazing, but she has also written many others about wild swimming!