Took a late morning walk with Delia and Scott on an overcast day. The theme: critters! Birds and dogs and little kids. As Scott said, the stars of the show were the 2 very big eagles perched at the top of a tall tree on edmund. Some walkers across the road pointed them out to us. At first I couldn’t see them. Scott was describing where they were and I tried to spot them, but I couldn’t see anything, only the feeling that there was something there. Somewhere in my head an idea occurred to me as I scanned the branches — there’s a blob there — but it never turned into an actual thing I was seeing. And then, suddenly, it did. A dark form with a white head, perched on a branch. A few minutes later, I saw the other one too. Still, stoic, only shifting its wings once. Wow!
Other critters: the energetic voices of little kids on a preschool playground, a tiny giggle from a girl getting out of a car, the feebee of a black-capped chickadee, a dog I’ve encountered before that likes to plop down in the middle of the road and not move.
It was chilly — I wore my gloves — but it felt like spring. Spring! Scott talked about some problem he was having with his plug-in involving time codes and microsoft not recognizing standard ones and Helsinki and sisu. I talked about my latest experiment: a crown of sonnets compromised of other people’s words about color. They’re connected by the last line of the one poem mentioning the color of the next one. So far I’ve done green and orange and yellow-red. I’m set up to start purple. I’m thinking of doing blue and metallics or silver, and green-brown-gray. Not sure about that last one — maybe just brown, but ending with a green line to bring it full circle?
Today I wore shorts! I did a variation on the beat workout. Mile 1 = chanting triples / Mile 2 = metronome at 175 / Mile 3 = Playlist (Color). The variation was that I took a little longer between miles and I tried to get faster with each one. I felt faster and more locked into the beat, which was fun.
Right after I started the run, the tornado sirens went off. Hmm — it’s not Wednesday and it’s not the first week of the month, so what was happened? I asked a walker I encountered and she told me it was tornado prevention month. Of course!
10 Things
the river road was crowded with a steady stream of cars as I entered the path
a small tree beside the path, some of its tops were spray painted orange
a bike was hidden behind the feet of the lake street bridge
a man and a woman standing next to 2 overturned lime scooters — the man had his phone out, was he about to rent them?
a tree leaning heavily against the wooden fence above the ravine — how long until the tree falls or the fence breaks or the park workers fix it?
a runner ahead of me wearing white mid-calf socks, looking smooth and relaxed
the part of the road between the franklin and I-94 bridges is open again
I mistook the tree trunk with a burl at the height of a head for a person again
a heavy gray sky
road closed April 12th — what for? a race?
color
Today’s ROYGBIV:
Red — Taylor Swift’s song, “Red” Orange — my sweatshirt Yellow — another runner’s bright yellow shirt Green — the grass, a pale green Blue — a recycling trashcan along the route Indigo — ?, maybe the color of a car? Violet — the sky, the palest, slightest hint of violet
I’m reading more of the book, On Color. Here are some passages/ideas I’d like to archive from the introduction:
1
Color is an unavoidable part of our experience of the world, not least as it differentiates and organizes the physical space in which we live, allowing us to navigate it.
Often, this navigation is assumed, taken for granted, unspoken. It is not that I can’t see color; it is that I see it in unreliable ways. Sometimes it’s there, sometimes it isn’t. Sometimes green is brown, yellow pink. Red is gray. Orange makes an object invisible.
2
But for all color’s inescapability, we don’t know much about it. There is no comparably salient aspect of daily life that is so complicated and so poorly understood. We are not quite sure what it is. Or maybe it is better to say we are not quite sure where it is. It seems to be “there,” unmistakably a property of the things of the world that are colored. But no scientists believe this, even though they don’t always agree with one another about where (they think) it is.
Chemists tend to locate it in the microphysical properties of colored objects; physicists in the specific frequencies of electromagnetic energy that those objects reflect; physiologists in the photoreceptors of the eye that detect this energy; and neurobiologists in the neural processing of this information by the brain.
*
For artists, the precise scientific nature of color is more or less irrelevant. What matters is what color looks like (and also, and not to be underestimated, how much the paint costs).
3
Color vision must be universal. The human eye and brain work the same way for nearly all people as a property of their being human—determining that we all see blue. But the color lexicon, meaning not merely the particular words but also the specific chromatic spacethey are said to mark, clearly has been shaped by the particularities of culture. Since the spectrum of visible colors is a seamless continuum, where one color is thought to stop and another begin is arbitrary. The lexical discrimination of particular segments is conventional rather than natural. Physiology determines what we see; culture determines how we name, describe, and understand it. The sensation of color is physical; the perception of color is cultural.
4
Always with color, what we see is what we think is there.
A Crown of Sonnets?
A few days ago while working on my color sonnets I suddenly remembered that sonnet crowns existed. I wasn’t quite sure what one was, I just knew of them. Could this work for my color poems? I like the thought of it, but I’m not sure I can make it work — but I’ll try, at least!
7 sonnets linked through a structure: the last line of one poem is the first line of the next, and the last line of the final sonnet is the first line of the firsts sonnet. Tricky to not make it sound contrived. (see Learning the Sonnet)
Some variations — link with lines throughout but don’t make the last line of the last sonnet the first line of the first OR do the first/last line with 1 and 7, but not throughout.
Overcast, warm. I was overdressed in a short-sleeved shirt with a hooded pull-over. I tried a slightly new route today: south on the river road trail, up to Wabun park, over the ford bridge, along the river in st. paul, stopping at the ford overlook, then turning around. A harder run today. I felt tired and had to convince myself to keep running a few times. Recited the poem I re-memorized this morning as I ran — Still Life with Window and Fish/ Jorie Graham. Such an amazing poem!
10 Things
a brown leaf whirling in the wind then startling me as it landed in front of me
kids yelling on the playground, one voice sounded frantic at first, like the kid was hurt. As I listened longer, their voice sounded less pained and more playful
a tall runner with long legs loping (with a long, bounding stride) — not graceful but awkward, gawky
2 (or was it 3?) big birds with wide wingspans riding the thermals near the overlook — almost floating, smooth, slow, silent
reading the plaque describing the giant rusted paddle wheel on display at the overlook — from 1924, part of the hydroelectric power plant — the rust was deep red-brown and speckled with orange
a skateboarder heading to the empty skate park
crossing the ford bridge from west to east, noticing how steep and crumbling the slope at the edge of the bridge was — I wondered how soon this would need to be reinforced
the river was a deep and dark blue with small waves and no shadows
someone playing frisbee golf in wabun park — not seen, but heard: the clanging of the chain netting as it caught the frisbee
running above on the paved trail, noticing a man walking a dog below, feeling tall and fast as I passed them
Here’s a poem I found the other day. I love the idea of writing a thank you poem to a poet. Maybe I’ll do one?
After two days of running in a row, a break. Decided to bike in the basement and check out a show FWA recommended, The Residence. The detective is a birder, which is cool on its own, but she’s also black, which is even cooler because it raises the visibility of black birding (see J. Drew Lanham and “Birding While Black”). Thank goodness for the audio description — I like how it’s voiced by a black actor — because I would have missed so much of the show without it! I like the detective, Cordelia Cup. Her m.o. is attention and focus, filtering out distractions, but not shutting down possible evidence or suspects. Much of that attention is visible, but she also relies on hearing and touch and smell. I’m about 1/2 done with the episode. I like it, so I’ll keep watching.
walk: 45 minutes longfellow flats 44 degrees
A beautiful afternoon! Warm sun, low wind. Delia and I took the 15 worn wooden steps down to the winchell trail and walked along the chainlink fence. I noticed a few small slabs of asphalt and wondered how long ago this was paved. 10 years? Less, more? A flash of color in my peripheral: electric blue spray paint. Admired the soft oak tree shadows stretched across the paved trail. Heard, but couldn’t see, a woodpecker high in a tree. Passed 2 guys in bright orange shirts. Took the old stone steps down to the river. Looking across to the other side, I noticed a door carved into the bluff, only accessible by boat. On this side, I noticed the gentle lapping of the water over some big rocks.
The color of the day: brown. Everything, brown: dirt, tree trunks, branches, dead leaves, bluff, steps. I suppose I might consider some of it, especially the things lit my sunlight, as orange — deep orange.
Wore my new Brooks for the first time today. I need to adjust the laces at the top, but otherwise, they’re great. Hooray for past Sara for buying these shoes, and hooray for new shoes! Sunny and cooler today. Wind. I felt strong and relaxed, occasionally my back was tight.
10 Things
a flash of silver in the sky — a plane
a blue sky — cerulean — no clouds or birds
the river, 1: from the trestle on the west side: blue
the river, 2: from the franklin bridge: small waves, textured
the river, 3: from the lake street bridge: sparks of light moving fast, making my head buzz in disorientation and delight
the deep bellow of a train horn on the east side
the soft knocking of a woodpecker
a turkey on the trail — as I neared them, they flared their feathers then moved over
another turkey in the brush on the edge of the trail
the bridge railing casting a thick grid of shadows on the path
Listened to voices in the gorge below — high-pitched, a laughing kid or a startled animal? — and wind and water in the trees for most of the run. Put in my color playlist on the bridge. Went deep inside the beat as I listened to “Mr. Blue Sky.”
Tried to think about my orange poem — I’m a little stuck — but got distracted by my effort and the wind and the turkeys. Now, after the run, here’s some inspiration:
In case you’re wondering, the fruit came first, the color name second. They called it red-yellow for some time, and for some time it was just that. Red brought nearer to humanity by yellow, as Kandinsky described it. I am just that: a human who wants to be closer to god. What is the true opposite of human? Maybe orange. A piece of sun, its properties have been known to help us recall the feeling of cool-blue grass under toes, the chime of a baby robin, the holy scent of ripe mud. What is it that makes us want to get close? To the gods, to summer, to sweetness, before we retreat again . . .
One section — right now, it’s the beginning — of my orange poem is this:
Before word fruit and before fruit color not as concept but movement, a certain length of light finding its way to the back of an eye, to a brain, through a body. More than sight, sensation, the feeling of heat* bursting out of the blue**
*or flame? **blue as orange’s contrast color and blue as the lake water surface an orange buoy sits upon
hmm . . . I’ll play around with this some more. I need to connect this section with my experiences with seeing and not seeing orange buoys.
4.15 miles minnehaha falls steps and back 45 degrees
Yes, spring! Bright sun and clear paths. Warmer air. Lots of runners and walkers and one roller skier in a bright yellow shirt. My lower back/glutes did not hurt when I was running — even though they had ached slightly (or softly?) yesterday and last night.
Did a slightly different route today: river road trail, south / godfrey / hiked down the steep trail then ran across the flat, grassy part below the falls where the creek pools and begins to bend / walked up the 100+ steps / climbed over the green gate / ran through the park / north river road, trail / boulevard grass
Running south I listened to the roller skiers poles striking the ground and happy voices, returning north, my color playlist. An orange song happened at the end, Shake it Well/ Koo Koo. Like most orange words, its about the fruit.
10 Things
a loud rustling in the dry leaves below the double bridge
a big turkey on the winchell trail, they moved off to the side to let me pass — no hissing or gobbling
white foaming water falling beside slabs of ice
the creek, moving past over the rocks, glittering in the sun
a woodpecker somewhere in the trees, laughing
the bench above the edge of the world, empty
something big and bright and shining across the river
something else big and white — at first I thought it might be the sky through a gap in the trees but later I decided it was a building
my shadow in front of me — sharp, looming, distracting
a lumpy shadow cast on the paved trail by a gnarled tree branch leaning over a crooked fence
This month, I’m slowly incorporating steps into my training, and my thinking about color, especially but not exclusively, orange. Here’s a color poem I discovered yesterday:
black fog I can’t find my way through. Black trees, black moon. I once knew the sky from the water. This course I remember, its narrowing. How I crept my way down the ladder like clutching the gluey rungs of a throat. I know you know how I’ve been. Like you, like blood sucked from a cut. A hot metal gash, a beat of alarm, too late. The water is listening. That’s my name in its mouth.
Took Delia for a walk this morning. With the sun and the birds and the dry ground, it felt warmer than 34. Spring! What a wonderful morning! Walked down the wood steps to the winchell trail just above the ravine. Heard the steady, soothing drip of water falling out of the sewer pipe and onto the scattered rocks — riprap — then over the limestone ledge to the exposed pipe on the forest floor. No more ice or slick spots. The soft light made all the brown and rusted orange glow. I studied the husk of a tree on the edge of the gravel trail — still upright, but not much of a trunk left, and no leaves, one or two rotted branches. Climbed out and over to the Drs. Dorothy and Irving Bernstein Scenic Rest Area Overlook to check out the view. Then went down the steps to the abandoned dirt and leaf-littered trail that hugs the edge. Part of this trail only has the posts for a chainlink fence, part of it has the whole fence half-buried. Walked through the tunnel of trees, then down the old stone steps to Longfellow Flats. Walked past a huge tree on the ground, moved off to the side of the trail by park workers. The trunk was stripped clean and bare at the top, and thick with bark at the bottom — a very noticeable contrast in girth and texture. The river was beautiful and blue up close, all silvery sparkle from a distance. Powered back up the steps, which felt good on my glutes and calves, crossed the river road and made our way past 7 oaks to home.
Steps Taken
worn wooden steps at the edge of the 36th street parking lot
the makeshift steps closer to the ravine made from slabs of rock sticking out of the dirt
limestone steps at the Drs. Bernstein Overlook
the old stone steps to longfellow flats — 112 steps
10 Things
silvery river burning through a break in the trees
drip drip drip — water falling into the ravine
bright blue graffiti on a wall only seen when you’re deep in the ravine
the abandoned posts of a chainlink fence above the gorge
the way the thinned-out trees, the soft sand, and the small curve of the path frames the water and the air — wide open, vast, yet contained enough to take in all at once
at least 2 woodpeckers softly knocking on rotting wood, later one of the woodpeckers laughing
the st. thomas bells
voices behind, then two walkers passing past us
on the forest floor, looking up at the top of the bluff, watching as runners glided by, looking so high and small
in the floodplain forest, not too far from where the trees open to the river, a tree covered with bright green moss
tree with moss and shadow
orange
During the walk, I thought about orange, especially in terms of the history of the color that I had just read yesterday. The fruit came before the name of the color. It wasn’t that the color didn’t exist until it was given a name, it’s just that people didn’t recognize it as orange. It was yellow-red or brown. I also thought about what I had read about Van Gogh and his still life painting with oranges, how his focus was not the fruit, but the color. The color as its own thing. I pulled out my phone, and spoke this idea into it:
Orange existed before it was attached to a word, before it was attached to an object.
It snowed a few wet inches Tuesday night but you wouldn’t know it today. It’s all gone. The paths were clear and dry. I thought about orange things as I ran. I heard lots of dripping water, a few voices, birds. So many birds as I approached the marshall bridge! Oh — and the gobble of a turkey near the Minneapolis Rowing Club! I stopped to try and see it, but I couldn’t. Heading north, just past the trestle, I took the recently redone steps down to the winchell trail and admired the river. Calm, quiet, grayish blueish brown.
10 Orange Things
orange lichen on the east side of the ancient boulder*
an orange cone
looking over the edge of the double bridge above longfellow flats, a white barricade with orange stripes had fallen halfway down the steep bluff
orange netting on the fence
an orange stocking cap on a walker
orange bubble-letter graffiti
my orange sweatshirt, worn under a dark blue hooded pull-over
an orange road closed for race sign
orange leaves on the ground
orange rust on a metal plate
*I showed Scott the picture I had taken of the lichen and he said, that’s not lichen, that’s spray paint; it says VISA. I like seeing it as lichen better, but it is frustrating to have been so wrong with what I was seeing. I remember looking at the picture and thinking something else was there, that my idea of it as lichen wasn’t quite right, but this thought didn’t quite make it to the surface.
until Scott told me what I was actually on this rock, I thought it was lichen
I wanted to think about an orange effort as I ran, but I was distracted by my unfinished business. No port-a-potties anywhere. Thankfully I made it home without earning a poop story.
april’s monthly challenge
On April 1, I identified my monthly challenge as steps even as I wondered if it would stick. Yesterday I wasn’t so sure. I started working on a purple hour sonnet, then revising other color poems and converting them into sonnets. This morning I work up hell-bent on orange. I will study orange, steps be damned, I thought. But just now, while reading the chapter, “Orange is the New Brown,” in On Color, I encountered this sentence:
Through the late sixteenth century in England, “orange tawny” is commonly used to mark a particular shade of brown (even though chromatically brown is a low- intensity orange, though no one then would have known that).
On Color, 45
Chromatically? Even though I’ve read/heard this word in relation to color for some time, today it made me pause and wonder about why the chromatic scale (a favorite scale to play) is called a chromatic scale.
The twelve notes of the octave—all the black and white keys in one octave on the piano—form the chromatic scale. The tones of the chromatic scale (unlike those of the major or minor scale) are all the same distance apart, one half step. The word chromatic comes from the Greek chroma, color; and the traditional function of the chromatic scale is to color or embellish the tones of the major and minor scales. It does not define a key, but it gives a sense of motion and tension. It has long been used to evoke grief, loss, or sorrow. In the twentieth century it has also become independent of major and minor scales and is used as the basis for entire compositions.
Searching for a definition, I also found a reference to James Sowerby’s Chromatic Scale:
Chromatic scale of colours arranged as a chart. Sowerby’s accompanying text provides a nomenclature for 63 colours divided into primaries of yellow, blue and red: with binary colours (blends of two primaries) and ternary colours (combinations of three primaries). Sowerby considered this might be useful to artists and considered that in primary colours “Gamboge is most perfect yellow, used in water colours…Carmine, most perfect when good…Prussian, or Berlin blue, most perfect.” Plate 5 from the monograph A new elucidation of colours, original prismatic, and material; showing their coincidence in three primitives, yellow, red and blue…,
The chromatic scale as even steps up or down a musical scale. “The distance between 2 successive notes on a scale is called a scale step — half step or whole step.
Chromatic colors possess a hue (e.g. red, blue, green) while achromatic colors are variations of light and dark (shades of gray, black, white).
What is orange? Why, an orange, Just an orange! (from Color/ Christina Rossetti)
Revisiting my month with Mary Ruefle, I wrote this about orange and Orange Theory:
. . . a red (all out effort) breath might involve being shocked, experiencing such intense awe or surprise that you lose your breath for a minute. Orange breaths involve intense feeling that can be sustained longer, but are still uncomfortable. Orange breaths are anxious breaths.
And now I’m thinking about how Mary Ruefle’s sad color poems — orange sadness, purple sadness, etc. — could be read as happiness poems too: “if you substitute the word sadness for the word happiness, nothing changes.” What is the more positive version of anxious? Excited? Maybe call my poems excitement poems? No, not excitement, attention. Of course, attention!
Earlier today I encountered an amazing poem that fits with the theme of attention:
Windy and cold. Cold enough to bust out my black vest, but not cold enough for the purple jacket. Lots of swirling and floating leaves. Did I hear any birds? Not that I remember, but I did hear voices — kids on the playground and a squeal near longfellow flats that I think was an excited little kid but could have also been a hurt animal. Saw one roller skier twice, or 2 different roller skiers once.
My back was stiff this morning, but didn’t hurt at all while I was running. The run was relaxed — I stopped several times to look for rusty things – and felt good. The wind didn’t bother me while I was running, but now, sitting at my desk, my ears are burning.
Also, sitting at my desk, looking out my window, a runner that often see is running by. This is the first time I’ve seen her at home, the other times have been near the ravine at 36th. I suppose I should include her as one of the regulars. The distinctive thing about her, the thing that makes it possible for me notice and remember her even with my bad vision, is her strange gait. She runs with a hitch in her step. I marvel at it: how can she keep running with that hitch? how does she not get injured? does she feel the hitch, or is she unaware of it? Tentatively, I’ll call her, Miss Hirple Hip because I learned last month, while looking for a word that rhymes with purple, that hirple means limp and because her limp starts in her hip.
Before the run I wrote about my chosen challenge for the month: steps (see below). I made a list of things I want to explore. After that, I briefly wrote about 2 poems that I re-memorized this morning, which brought me to color and rust. I thought about the process (the steps) of rusting — oxidation — and decided to search for rusty things while I ran. Has my plan for the month already derailed? Instead of steps, will I fixate on rust? Future Sara will find out!
10 Rusty Things
the bolts on a bench at 42nd street
the metal plates at the entrance to the sidewalk on the next block
almost every chain link fence
the sound of the st. thomas bells ringing from across the river
wind chimes in a yard
the bottom of a lamp post on the edge of the trail
just above the wheel well of a car
a metal pole that used to hold a sign but no longer does
a cover for the wires stretching up from the ground to a power line pole
the sound of the dead leaves as they rustle in the wind
Some general thoughts I had about rust as I ran: rust is an edge dweller / while there are lots of edges around here, there isn’t that much rust, at least where I was looking
Steps
Last month, I came up with my challenge for this month. Steps. Will I stick with it? I can’t ever be sure, but it is a very promising theme. So many things I can do with it. Here are just a few:
identify and list all of the steps on the franklin/ford loop
incorporate stair climbing into marathon/strength training
explore the history of step as a concept — a measurement
how are steps designed — what regulations exist around steps, best practices, etc.
steps and low vision, steps and accessibility
step-by-step instructions + how to manuals
activities that require a certain sequence, activities that do not
ladders
memorable steps in literature and poetry
step counters and 10,000 steps
feet — it begin here: feet first, following
Refreshing My Memory
It’s been almost a year (I think?) since I checked that I can still recite the poems in my 100 list, so during April — for National Poetry Month! — I’m revisiting my poems and refreshing my memory. I’m working in reverse order:
Crumbling is not an instant’s Act — / Emily Dickinson — I decided to memorize this poem because of its description of erosion — all of it, but specifically the line, An Elemental Rust. Erosion — as evidenced by the gorge and in my dying cone cells, is a key theme for me right now. Also: rust as a process, a color. I want to add to my collection of color poems with one about rust.
Tattoo/ Wallace Stevens — I first read this poem in a dissertation about Lorine Niedecker and her nystagmus. Immediately I thought of Alice Oswald and Dante and insects that travel from your eye to the world and back again to deliver data so you can see. I love this idea and have been playing around with it in terms of color vision while I’m swimming — I imagine light as the fish in me escaping to determine the color of the water/waves, and then reporting back to me. Another mention of color — I think I should return to my color poems!
Yesterday afternoon we got 2 or 3 inches of snow. By the time I went out for my run in the late morning, much of it had melted, even on the grass. Excellent. It’s the warmer ground and the bright sun that did it. I was over-dressed in my purple jacket with a stocking cap. Halfway through the run, I took off the cap and held it in my hands.
As I ran south to the falls I chanted in triples. Lots of berries and sweet things (hot fudge sauce, fresh whipped cream), histories and mysteries and possibles, both muddy trail and mud on trail, and metronomes. On the way back, I put in my “doin’ time” playlist for the last day of my time month. I was planning to not stop to walk for the second half, but when a runner who was running the same speed or just a little slower than me joined the path in front of me, I decided to stop a few times to get some distance from them. One of the places I stopped was the bench above the edge of the world. I don’t remember what the river looked liked, all I remember was that looking at it made me feel calm and content and vast.
overheard while running by the falls: one person to a group of others, he should do it, his arms are the longest. Were they taking a group selfie?
10 Things
water falling, 1: a steady gush out of a gutter
water falling, 2: trickling from the sewer pipe at the ravine
water falling, 3: gushing at the falls — mostly white foam
shadow, 1: the small shadow of a bird crossing my path
shadow, 2: the sprawled, gnarled, twisted, softened shadows of oak trees on the road
shadow, 3: the sharp circle of the lamp part of the lamp post
missing: the top railing of a wood fence on the edge of the trail
several people in the falls parking lot, waiting to pay for parking
empty benches
a thin layer of snow on a leaning branch in the ravine
Found this poem the other day:
Color Keeps Time / Patrycja Humienik
or it rides us like a torrent. Blurs and fastens, flesh
to seconds. Just look at your veins. In vespertine woods, I tried to read moss by hand. There’s something laconic about green that I need.
Lover, let the morning slow time through the branches.
vespertine: relating to, occurring, or active in the evening laconic: using few words, concise to the point of seeming rude or mysterious
What kind of time are different colors? What sort of time is orange, for example? If purple is twilight, orange is late afternoon or early summer evenings.
I tried to read moss/by hand. This line reminds me of Robin Wall Kimmerer and her suggestion that “Mosses, I think, are like time made visible. They create a kind of botanical forgetting. Shoot by tiny shoot, the past is obscured in green. That’s why we have stories, so we can remember” (Ancient Green/RWK).
