nov 2/RUNSWIM

4 miles
locks and dam no. 1
39 degrees

Okaaay 39 degrees! As I said to Scott, this is my weather! Love it. Black running tights, long-sleeve green shirt, black vest, black gloves, buff. I felt relaxed and strong and not in need of a port-a-potty. Windy. Lots of leaves on the trail, some of them wet and slick, especially thick on the part of the path south of the double bridge that dips below the road and on the hill climbing up to Wabun park. Some BRIGHT yellow, an occasional slash of red. Any orange? I don’t think so. The river under the ford bridge was darker gray with scales. The gate was closed so I couldn’t run all the way to the locks and dam door. Heard some geese honking, on the ground, not in the sky. Someone was sitting at the Rachel Dow Memorial bench, no one was sitting at the one above the edge of the world. Encountered several other runners — all older men? — and lots of walkers. One woman, climbing up and out of the locks and dam behind me, suddenly blew her nose, which startled me enough to prompt her to apologize.

At the halfway point, I stopped to walk up the hill and put in “The Life of a Showgirl” on shuffle.

favorite image: After the run, walking home, the wind picked up and a swirl of leaves, like confetti, flying through the air. Yellow leaves, I think. Wow!

before the run

Encountered some interesting language on instagram this morning:

You can’t think your way into a new life, you have to train for it.
Consistency creates safety.
Repetition rewires truth.
Embodiment is built, one breath at a time.

Whether it’s your healing, your art, or your leadership
you don’t need to perform change, you need to practice it.
That’s why our rituals matter: breath, movement, stillness.
They turn insight into muscle memory.

Don’t chase becoming. Train remembering…

source

train / not in your head, but your body / repetition / habit / ritual / rewire / don’t perform, practice / breath movement stillness / greater understanding deep in the muscles / don’t become, remember

My first reaction: on a surface level, many of these words resonate for me — embodiment, training, habits and repetitions and rituals, remembering

This is an ad for a 3 hour retreat led by Mariel Hemingway. I was curious (and skeptical), so I went to her site to learn more. At the bottom of the page, I found this:

Disclaimer: The Return of the Queen™ is a sacred space rooted in personal experience, spiritual reflection, and embodied remembrance.

Mariel Hemingway offers guidance based on her own lived journey — not as a therapist, medical professional, or licensed counselor, but as a woman who has walked the path of deep inner healing and returned with wisdom to share. The content and practices shared throughout this experience are designed to support emotional exploration, self-inquiry, and spiritual growth. They are not a substitute for professional mental health, medical, or therapeutic care. Every woman’s path is unique. Results will vary depending on your personal history, readiness, and the depth of your participation. Please honor your own inner and outer needs. If you require clinical or medical support, we lovingly encourage you to seek care from a licensed provider. This is not about fixing or diagnosing. This is about remembering. Thank you for honoring the sacredness of this space and taking full responsibility for your own wellbeing..

source

At the top of the page, it describes the retreat as a “3-hour journey back to your Sovereign Self.”

Sovereign Power

Sovereign has everything to do with power. It often describes a person who has supreme power or authority, such as a king or queen. God is described as “sovereign” in a number of Bible translations. In addition to describing ones who have power, the word sovereign also often describes power: to have sovereign power is to have absolute power—that is, power that cannot be checked by anyone or anything. Nations and states are also sometimes described as “sovereign.” This means that they have power over themselves; their government is under their own control, rather than under the control of an outside authority.

Merriam-Webster dictionary entry for sovereign

The language of sovereignty doesn’t work for me, even as I recognize the need to claim your own life. And I don’t like “queen” and the understandings of power it evokes.

Past Sara, the feminist academic, could have spent the entire day dissecting these words and the foundation that undergirds them, but Sara-right-now isn’t interested in wasting time in that way. Although, I am interested in giving some attention to other models that are about embodiment, training, practice, remembering but not Power and control and Sovereignty. Robin Wall Kimmerer discusses memory and remembering; she links it to deeper traditions and human and non-human communities.

The idea of distinguishing between practice and performance is interesting to me. Just yesterday, I submitted a poem to be considered for a journal issue with the theme of performance. Here’s what they wrote about performance:

Theme Description: The theme for this issue is performance. To perform is to, for some audience, create the illusion that reality is this, rather than that. We do this everywhere–our social (and social media) lives, our dress, our relationships, our feelings, our genders, all performed in their ways; all around us there is the low hum of wishful artifice imparting an intended impression onto seen and unseen—perhaps even imaginary–spectators. Taken to its logical conclusion, a reasonable, if cynical, truth emerges: performance, in our day-to-day, is so essential, so inextricable from our quote-unquote “authentic selves,” that perhaps the authentic self is simply the sum of a lifetime of performances–that the show has somehow become its own type of truth. In professional wrestling, the word for this is “kayfabe”–the unspoken agreement that not only is the show inextricable from reality, but that, in essence, the performance is the reality. Or is it? How do we perform, and for whom? Send us your work!

What is the relationship between performance and reality? My submission to this call was about my running/training/performing beside the gorge. Here’s what I wrote to explain how it fits with the theme:

“When I learned that I was losing all of my central vision, I started giving more attention to the world and my favorite place in it, the Mississippi River Gorge in Minneapolis and St. Paul. Regularly, I return to it, run around it, and write about what I’ve noticed there. This habit is a ritual is a ceremony, happening almost daily, that when performed brings a new world in which I am still able to see, but strangely, into existence.”

The title of my poem: How to Be When You See Strangely, Performances Daily

swim: 1.4 miles / 1.5 loops
ywca pool

We rejoined the Y and I was able to swim!! I’m excited to swim inside this winter, to reunite with my pool “friends”: the shadow on the pool floor, the fuzzy things floating near the bottom, the pale torsos and froggy legs, the friendly people. Today it was the nice guy who, when I asked him if I could share a lane with him, said Of course!

oct 31/RUN

5 miles
franklin loop
43 degrees
cold drizzle

This is Halloween. This is Halloween. As I ran, I listened to Apple Music’s Halloween dance mix. A great run. I felt so fast and strong and capable of running hard for long periods of time. And I did — relatively speaking. Faster and longer without stopping than I have in the past year.

10 Things

  1. slick leaves on the path — don’t remember hearing them squeak
  2. running on the east side, near meeker island dam, a large group of kids laughing and playing on the other side. too far to be at a school playground. were they on the white sands beach?
  3. puddles on the franklin bridge
  4. a runner running far ahead of me, then walking, the stopping to sit on a bench — he wore bright blue shorts
  5. bright headlights
  6. the river from the franklin bridge — a view of the trestle and reflections of trees, but no rowers
  7. the river from the lake street bridge — empty pewter river, pale brown sandbar, slight ripples
  8. on the franklin bridge, a small red dot off in the distance, then it turned green — a stoplight
  9. a person with a dog, turning down and entering the meeker dog park
  10. a soft rain, difficult to notice with my hat and tights and sweat

October viewing update

Finished Theater of Blood — so good! Although the second to last death was super gross — let’s just say it involved gluttony and a funnel. And the last “death” — presumably the worst because it was the final one — was more terrible than actually dying; it involved hot knives and blinding the one remaining critic. Sigh — the idea that not being able to see is a fate worse than death, or a living death. Regardless, I really enjoyed the movie.

Also watched John Carpenter’s The Thing. I really liked it — some gross special effects, but a very good movie. Good pacing, good acting, a good premise with haunting questions about trust and how/where enemies lurk.

Current Writing

I’m on a role right now with my writing. I have so many things to work on, that I don’t want to take the time to explaing them right now!

oct 30/REST

Since I ran Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, and because my hip is a little sore, I decided to not run (as opposed not to run). Instead, I’ve been writing and submitting poems to journals. Will I have any luck? Future Sara will report! Usually on rest days, those days when I don’t even take a walk or do Yoga, I don’t post on this log. It’s a loose rule for me: no posting unless I go out by the gorge. But, I wanted to archive the list of movies Scott and I have watched for Halloween, and I didn’t want to wait until tomorrow. So, here I am, and here’s the list:

October Viewing

I love Halloween (and Halloween) and early-ish (pre Hellraiser) horror movies. Scott does too. I’m not sure if he always did, but being married to me for almost 29 years, he does now. Every year we watch Halloween on Halloween night. Some years that’s all we do, and some years we watch other horror movies throughout October. Like this year. One of the best selection of movies, I think. So that we don’t forget, here’s a running list:

  • The Omen (1976)
  • He Knows You’re Alone (1980)
  • House of Wax (1953)
  • Amityville Horror (started, but never finished) (1979)
  • Chopping Mall (1986)
  • The Monster Club (1981)
  • The Fog
  • The Pit and the Pendulum (1961)
  • Theater of Blood (1973)

So many good ones. The only dud was Amityville Horror. Too serious and slow and painful to watch. Vincent Price is amazing. He Knows You’re Alone was surprisingly feminist. I had watched it as a kid, so probably 40 years ago, and had always wanted to see it again. It held up. The biggest name in it is Tom Hanks — he’s only on screen for a minute or two, and he doesn’t even get killed. We have about 25 minutes of Theater of Blood left. So good! The 70s movies are so dark and disturbing; this one is giving off Clockwork Orange energy. And, Diana Rigg is in it! I love her — 2 favorites: Evil Under the Sun and On Her Majesty’s Secret Service. Chopping Mall was delightfully campy and was in on the joke, but too many boobs. I had forgotten how boob-laden mid 1980s movies were. Sure, the 1970s was jiggle tv, but you only saw the outlines of nipples and the movement of boobs (or am I remembering wrong?), but the 80s were all about gigantic (fake?) fully exposed to the air boobs. I had never seen The Fog, but Scott had. Even so, he hadn’t realized that several of the people in Halloween were in this too, including Jamie Lee Curtis and Nancy Loomis (Annie!)

Tonight, we’ll finish Theater of Blood and then maybe watch the Foo Fighters horror comedy, Studio 666. And maybe we’ll also watch John Carpenter’s The Thing. WAIT — I have a plan for tonight. Finish Theater of Blood, then a double feature: John Carpenter’s The Thing and They Live. Excellent.

the mannequins!

In 2019, I started working on a poem about the wonderful State Fair mannequins. Here’s what I wrote in sept 2019:

I find delight (reading Ross Gay’s wonderful, The Book of Delights, I’m trying to be better about claiming my own quirky delights) in this mannequin andher continued (and improbable) presence at the State Fair in a space barely touched by progress where the amateur is celebrated and beauty is never slicked up. Every year, walking into the creative activities building and seeing these cracked, faded, weathered mannequins still adorned in handmade hats and coats and scarves and sweaters, looking creepy and odd, I am delighted–and not in an ironic, hipster way. Here, the ugly and old and outdated have a space. I think I’m almost able to articulate this delight, but not quite. I’ll keep working at it. Something about how these mannequins represent resistance to the relentless need (by capitalism) to constantly change things to make them better! and newer! and prettier! and, in doing so, erase/remove/destroy those things which don’t fit their vision of better/newer/prettier. I love things that are ugly and overlooked and unsettling.

I’ve been working on the poem, off and on, ever since. Today I decided to polish it a little more and then submit it Okay Donkey — “a literary magazine that likes to read the odd, the off-kilter, and the just plain weird. We like work that’s funny, that’s sad, and that’s both funny and sad.” I’m not sure if I’m weird enough yet, or genre-bending (definitely not), but I decided to submit it again today.

oct 29/RUN

4.5 miles
veterans home in reverse
49 degrees

Another beautiful late fall day. Sun, sparkling river, gushing falls, red and orange and yellow leaves. Parts of the run were easy, parts of it weren’t. Felt tired this late morning/early afternoon. Ran up the hill through Wabun to the veterans home, then over the bridge, past John Stevens’ house and to the falls. The bench above the edge of the world was empty but the Rachel Dow Memorial bench had two people sitting on it. ALL of the kids were outside on the Minnehaha Academy playground as I ran past it on the other side of the road. Two memorable things: 1. a teacher calling out to a student — no, no, we do not climb the fence. get down! and 2. I heard a trumpet playing Reveille. It sounded like a live trumpet and not a recording. Is that what they play to call kids in from recess?

Scott sent me this poem. I’m posting it partly for its cleverness, partly for our shared dislike of licorice, and partly because I love the word It.

It/ Gertrude Sturdle

It is never
what it seems to be
unless it is licorice.
And then
sadly
it is.

the cells, cells, cells, cells, cells, cells, cells

Yesterday I mentioned using Poe’s “The Bells” as a template for my own poem about the cells: dying cone cells, strange rod cells, the uncontrolled growth of cancer cells, a narrowing of space (cell as room, place). I started working yesterday afternoon and am back at it this morning before my run. Fun!

version 1

EA Poe’s original first verse:

Hear the sledges with the bells—
Silver bells!
What a world of merriment their melody foretells!
How they tinkle, tinkle, tinkle,
In the icy air of night!
While the stars that oversprinkle
All the heavens, seem to twinkle
With a crystalline delight;
Keeping time, time, time,
In a sort of Runic rhyme,
To the tintinabulation that so musically wells
From the bells, bells, bells, bells,
Bells, bells, bells—
From the jingling and the tinkling of the bells.

My version

Feel the leaving of the cells —
the failed cells.

What a world of loneliness their abandonment foretells.

How they tumble, tumble, tumble,
In the fading of the light.

While the cones start to crumble
,
All the rods seem to rumble
in the loosening of her sight;
Then it’s grays, grays, grays,
and a veil of fuzzy haze.
With an undead half possession and the cast of haunting spells
On the cells, cells, cells, cells,

Cells, cells, cells—
On the slumbering and the stumbling cells.

type of bell: sleigh bells
bells / foretells / wells
merriment / melody

tinkle / oversprinkle / twinkle

a line about the night air
night / delight
time time time
time/rhyme
tintinabulation / musically
bells repeated 7 times
jingling / tinkling — slant rhyme

cells: dead cone cells

cells / foretells / spells

world — loneliness / abandonment
tumble / crumble / rumble
grays grays grays
grays / haze
undead half possession

oct 28/RUN

4.25 miles
the monument and back
49 degrees

Before running I was thinking about bells (see below), so I decided to run over to the Monument and time it so I could hear the bells from St. Thomas. It worked! Just as I crested the Summit hill: bells! 3 rounds of chiming, which means it was 11:45. Ran to the port-a-potty in the parking lot (yep, a little unfinished business — oh well), then over to above Shadow Falls. Hiked down into the ravine and listened to water falling although I didn’t get close enough to see it so, who knows, maybe I was hearing shadows falling instead? Wow wow wow! That ravine! So wide and open and glowing a pale yellowy green. Amazing! After a few minutes of marveling, I hiked back up and started running again, just as the bells were chiming for noon.

All around, it was peak color. Butter yellow, marigold yellow, cherry red, crimson, orange. Leaves on the trees, leaves on the ground. Did I see any leaves flying in the air? I don’t think so. I did see some turkeys! Almost a dozen grazing in the grassy stretch at the bottom of the hill in the middle of the road. When I returned 20 or 30 minutes later, the turkeys had crossed the road and were blocking the path.

Stopped on the bridge at the overlook to check out the bright colors on the shore and the sandbar just below the water. There were small scales on the water and the reflection of the bridge railing in the water was flickering.

added the next morning: I just remembered the albino squirrel! After exiting the port-a-potty, heading back to the Monument, there it was at edge of the bushes: an albino squirrel.

before the run

During my On This Day practice, reading through my 28 october 2021 entry, I was reminded of Edgar Allen Poe’s “The Bells,” and returned to an obsession, something that haunts Girl Ghost Gorge: the bells, bells, bells. In the earliest versions of GGG, when it was called Haunts, the bells commenced and concluded the collection. The vibrations of the bells, ringing like a bell, the soft echo, the fading away, but not really fading away of the sound of bells. Had to stop for a minute to find out what Scott was listening to in the next room. I heard bells and wondered, is that coming from him, or am I hearing wind chimes outside? It was him. I exclaimed, “I am literally writing about bells right now!” and in a Owen Wilson voice, playfully mocking me, he said, “Wow.” Back to the bells — just when I thought I was done with this collection and ready to submit it to the Two Sylvia’s women poets over 50 contest, I must write about the bells. The St. Thomas bells, the bells in poetry, bell as echo, slant rhyme, the image of a stuck bell, ringing, vibrating, as similar to my constantly moving buzzing central vision.

aside: some years ago — was it before or after the pandemic? — I gathered together bell words and ideas and thoughts and made a page for my How to Be project. Not long after I finished, Scott gave me some bad news: something happened to our wordpress sites and anything posted in the last week was lost forever. No! I had written so many things in that time, including my page about the bells. Some of it I remember, some of it is lost.

Here are the original references to bells in my first and last Haunt poems from 2021:

opening

Listen to 
bells on 

the other 
side ring

out sound that
spreads from 

hard center
to soft

edge

close

Echoes.

Bells bounce off
boulders,

bridges, time,
singing

familiar
tunes from

the other
shore. We

are not those
 bells but

their excess,
reverb,

sounds after
the sound

that surround.
Buzzing

persisting
trying

to pass on
songs of

joy love grief
anger

that began
before

we were here,
before

we believed
we were

all there was,
before

we were ghosts.

Hmmm….I really like how I begin and end with the bells, as if signaling a ceremony. And, this collection, is a ceremony! Or, at least, it has a ceremony as part of it. Listening to the bells as a way to prepare yourself for the poem — the one made up of words, the one made up of the family of things at the gorge, the one shaped out of a life from the wearing down of stone and the flow of water.

after the run

Walking home after finishing my run I had a thought: using Poe’s “The Bells” as a starting point, write a chanting poem about the cells, cells, cells — cone and rod cells, the cancer cells that killed my mom. Faulty cells, drying up cells, dying cells, the narrowing of a world (cell as small, confined space), uncontrolled growth (cancer, late-stage capitalism).

What an amazing morning/noon! I felt strong and relaxed and grateful to live near this place and have strong lungs and legs and the discipline to return here again and again.

oct 27/RUN

3.25 miles
trestle turn around
59 degrees

A late afternoon run. Nice! I might try doing more of these later workouts this winter — but not outside, in the dark! I like the light at this time (around 5) — softer, longer, winding down, golden. I only stopped once — to take off my sweatshirt. I considered taking it off while I was running, but thought better of it. I felt strong and confident that I could keep running.

10 Things

  1. bright yellow leaves
  2. a roller skier
  3. laughing voices below me in the ravine
  4. bright yellow t-shirts and vest on some of the walkers
  5. still green below the sliding bench
  6. a long line of cars stopped on the river road whenever there was a stop sign
  7. someone speeding by on a scooter
  8. in the tunnel of trees the path was covered in bright red leaves
  9. a loud honk ahead of me, on the lake street bridge
  10. no geese or turkeys or rowers

vision study

I went in for my second vision test appointment at the U. Colin, a post-doc in the psychology of vision department tested me on a fancy machine that takes 300 pictures of my eyes a second to track what and where I’m looking.

First, a calibration. I put my chin on the chin rest, didn’t move my head, and moved my eyes to track a dot as it traveled from the upper left corner and around the lower right. When I saw it, the dot would explode in confetti. Nice!

Second, a reading test. I was given a sentence to read that kept getting smaller. I struggled to read it when the text was big, but it got easier, and I got faster as it got smaller. I could read sentences that were even too small for my tester to read. When that was finished a screen popped up: 390 trials. Colin said, oh boy. What? The screen said I needed to take 390 of the “trials” to determine if my vision/eyes would work for this study. I asked, what’s the average number of tests? Colin: 100. Of course, my weird eyes would require more testing and of course, this delighted me.

Third, the real test. I had to stare between two dots and try to identify the 3 letters that flashed. At first, the text was too big for me, and I couldn’t see any of the letters. Then Colin decided to try and make the letters a lot smaller — way smaller than anyone had ever done, or even that the program could handle. He thought it was very cool and I could tell he was excited. When I asked him why, he said that he had never seen anyone’s vision work this way. Yes! Even among people with strange sight, my sight is strange! I knew it.

It was fun to do the study and talk with someone about my vision. Will I qualify for continuing? Not sure yet. My vision might be too strange, and too much for this program. They’ll let me know sometime in the future. Whatever happens, it was fun and I got more verification that I’m unusual!

This afternoon, I submitted 5 of my Girl Ghost Gorge poems to a journal, and my chapbook, “I Empty My Mind, I Stuff it with Color” to a contest.

oct 26/HIKE

2+ hour, 4 mile hike
mississippi river gorge
62 degrees

Almost every fall, in September or October, when the weather is still nice, and not too long before the snow will start flying, Scott and I devote an afternoon to the river. Sometimes we hike, sometimes we bike. Today, we did an epic hike, taking the Winchell Trail from 35th to the southern entrance at the Horace WS Cleveland overlook, then down to the locks and dam no. 1, over the metal grate platform above the river to where the water used to rush over a concrete wall. We stopped to take in the view of a canoe passing through the locks and the Mississippi River stretching north. Then crossed back over the platform, hiked up the hill, crossed through turkey hollow, and walked back home through the neighborhood. Wow! What a wonderful afternoon. Half the city agreed and joined us on the trail. Yes, an exaggeration, but there were more people on the trail than I ever remember seeing before, and the sloped grass at the overlook was packed, too.

10+ Things

  1. a clear and close-up view of the rock wall at the locks and dam: soft, crumbling sandstone at the bottom, hard limestone at the top
  2. 4 big turkeys looking for food in someone’s yard
  3. noticing the silhouette of something dangling from the chest of the one of the turkey’s — Scott said it was a long feather
  4. pointed out the green leaves on a bush that had called out to me yesterday as I ran, saying blue! Scott agreed that there did seem to be a hint of blue on this green
  5. intensely yellow leaves — lemon yellow
  6. light green leaves — pear-colored
  7. almost to the bottom of the locks and dam hill, a closer view of the water’s surface: scaled
  8. the river was low at the locks and dam — when it’s full, the water covers the bottom of a stand of trees and a sandbar. Today they were both exposed
  9. what used to be a roar of rushing water on the concrete wall, is now one narrow stream at one end — the water looked green as it fell over the mossed covered concrete
  10. crossing over the metal grate platform, taking in the wide view of the river, remembering taking RJP here more than 10 years ago — almost everything looks the same, only the vending machine that sold Sierra Mist is gone
  11. the enormous and exposed roots of a tree at the base of the trunk, looking like an elephant’s foot

oct 25/RACE

10k race
Minneapolis Halloween Half
45 degrees / rain

A wonderful race! Not even close to a PR, but a huge success: Scott and I ran the whole thing together; we didn’t stop even once even though we were undercooked — I haven’t run a 10k without stopping for a year; I had a lot left at the end and was able to sprint; I had no problem running up the steep hills; I was happy and smiled as I crossed the finish line; and no unfinished business! I think it’s been more than a year since I ran more than 5 miles without the urgent feeling of needing to poop. What a mental victory! I didn’t think there was any way I could run this whole thing without stopping, especially the hills, but I pushed through and did it.

A classic Sara-moment: I recited “A Rhyme for Halloween” to Scott as we ran up the first big hill, 1.5ish miles in. Nice! Then, referencing the line, Baruch Spinoza and butcher are drunk — I talked about how Judy B (Judith Butler) likes Spinoza and his skepticism and used to read him as a kid.

At least 10 Things

  1. Waldo — the first thing the announcer said, I found Waldo! / a runner running up the steep hill near mile 5: I’ve counted 7 Waldos so far
  2. running costume: Olivia Newton John from Physical — headband, tight curls, bright colored tights, leg warmers, jean jacket
  3. Maria, Luigi, Waluigi running up the hill — where’s wario, Scott wondered
  4. the cobblestones were terrible — so rutted and puddles
  5. bright orange tree on one side of the road, bare branches the other
  6. a dog poopin’ in Front of Gold Medal Park
  7. 2 people with gorge tattoos on their calves!! I was so excited that I had to ask them about them and told them that I wanted to get one too. They were so appreciative of my delight, which was completely genuine, that they thanked me! I think I might have to get a gorge tattoo on my calf — and an outline of Lake Nokomis, or something related to Lake Nokomis, on my shoulder
  8. the terrible pacer — the one who always runs too fast and that caused to me to overdo it at the beginning of a 10 mile race and then fell apart in the second half — was there, and was pacing too fast again. I overheard some other racers complaining about him
  9. no live national anthem, instead a terrible recording
  10. puddles and potholes and rutted cobblestones
  11. a runner nearby, shaking out his arms and saying, this is tiring!
  12. several women, descending the hill into the flats, realizing how much more there was to run, and how steep it was, saying oh fuck!
  13. thanking another runner for letting me know she was passing me, her thanking me back
  14. crossing the finish line and feeling great — joyful, relieved, in disbelief that we managed, on our limited training, to run the entire thing without stopping

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.