june 18/RUN

3.2 miles
trestle turn around
72 degrees
9:30 am

I need to start getting up earlier for these runs. It’s too hot by 9:30. Sunny and windy. Lots of shade, which is one reason to love the green, even if it does block my view of the river. Did one of my most regular routes: the trestle turn around. Saw and greeted Mr. Morning!, then later, on my walk with Delia the dog, Dave the Daily Walker. I remember thinking about something, and wanting to remember it — 2 things actually — but now I can’t remember them. I almost stopped to record them into my phone, but I didn’t. Maybe if I keep typing, I’ll remember them?

10 Things I Noticed

  1. above the tunnel of trees: light green, dark green, green air. Felt like I was flying above the trees
  2. before the tunnel: 3 stones stacked on the ancient boulder. I wonder, are they same stones every time — they fall off and someone picks them up and stacks them again?
  3. 2 runners with a running stroller, a kid in it crying, one of the adults saying, “we’ll be home soon”
  4. voices drifting up from the Winchell Trail right by the railroad trestle
  5. the smell of pot by the ravine
  6. a few others bits of conversation — I think I was able to hear a word or two, but I can’t remember the words now
  7. starting out my run in the neighborhood, hearing some talking, not able to identify any words. I knew they were words, but no idea what the words were. I was reminded of these lines from a Jane Hirshfield poem I encountered a few weeks ago: “An almost readable language./ Like the radio heard while traveling in a foreign country—/You know that something important has happened, but not what.”
  8. the whooshing of car wheels mixing with the wind
  9. yes! I just remembered one thing I’d forgotten! a car blasting “Renegade” by Styx as I neared the double bridge just north of the old stone steps and longfellow flats
  10. surfaces: west dirt, dry dusty dirt, concrete, asphalt, grass

Back to “Renegade.” I started singing along in my head after the car passed:

The jig is up
the news is out
they finally found me

A renegade
who had it made
in ???? county

I couldn’t remember the last line, no matter how hard I tried, I decided I would look it up when I got back from my run. Here’s what I found:

The jig is up, the news is out
They’ve finally found me
The renegade who had it made
Retrieved for a bounty
Nevermore to go astray
This will be the end today of the wanted man

Wow, not sure I ever knew exactly what Dennis DeYoung sang there. Retrieved for a bounty? Nice.

Found these little poems from Charles Simic in a recent New Yorker:

A Tree of Dignified Appearance/ Charles Simic

Fed up with its noisy leaves
And its chirping little birds,
Plus that young woodpecker
Drilling himself a new home.

For Rent/ Charles Simic

A large clean room
With plenty of sunlight
And one cockroach
To tell your troubles to.

june 17/SWIMRUN

swim: 2 loops
lake nokomis
75 degrees
9:30 am

What a wonderful morning for a swim! Sunny and not too windy. The orange buoys were backlit so it was almost impossible to see them. Disorienting. I had to stop a few times to make sure I was headed in the right direction. I didn’t panic.

My thoughts wandered from a few complaints from my body, my left hip hurts, my hands are turning numb, my back is sore, to lyrics from Soundheim’s “Here’s to the Ladies Who Lunch” — Here’s to the ladies who lunch and the dinosaurs surviving the crunch and I’ll drink to that — to there’s a dragonly!, to blue empty sky with only one cloud, to is that a buoy or a boat?, to I’m all alone out here (and it’s wonderful), to it’s so much less windy today! I was tired when I was finished. I only did 2 loops (about 1.5 miles), but this is only my third swim since last September, so I’m okay with that.

Getting out of the water and drying off in the sun, I felt the slight breeze and the warm sun and thought: What a life! or This is the life!, I can’t quite remember. The point: I love swimming at lake nokomis and being by the water and feeling the warmth of worked muscles.

A few other things I just remembered: minnows near thes shore, parting for my feet; opaque water — could I even see my hand in front of me? not sure…it was brownish green down below, blue above

run: 2.9 miles
2 trails
82! degrees
3:40 pm

Hot, so hot! Bright sun with a little shade. Listened to a playlist on the upper trail, the gorge below. Difficult to relax and notice anything but heat and the sweat dripping down my back. I’m going to try:

10 Things I Noticed

  1. in the parking lot above the oak savanna: 2 adults standing on the edge of the walking path doing some weird dance — it almost looked like tai chi — were they doing some tiktok dance?
  2. someone on an old school skateboard
  3. lots of bikes, zooming past me, too close
  4. a niceride or some other rental bike parked in the middle of the part of the Winchell Trail right before some old stone steps up to the 44th st parking lot
  5. the sewer pipe at 42nd was flowing
  6. voices above me on the paved trail
  7. some cool, shaded spots on the winchell trail
  8. hardly any bugs, except for the one that flew in my mouth that I had to spit out. Yuck!
  9. climbing the small hill near winchell, I noticed a runner on the paved path. I wonder if she was hot as I was?
  10. the sewer pipe at the ravine between 36t st parking lot and the overlook was trickling steadily, making it sound cooler

june 16/RUNSWIM

4 miles
marshall loop
74 degrees
wind: 20 mph / gusts: 26 mph
9:30 am

Sunny, warm, windy! Very windy. Luckily, I never seemed to be running straight into it. My visor stayed on, even when I crossed the bridge! I used to really dislike the wind, now it doesn’t bother me that much when I’m running. I like the sounds it makes. Today it russshhhed through the gorge, shaking the trees. I was going to write that it roared, but it had more of a shshshsh sound than an oar sound. No rowers on the river (I don’t blame them in this wind). No roller skiers or geese or blue jays.

10 Things I Noticed

  1. river, 1: white sparkles on the surface
  2. river, 2: more brown than blue
  3. river, 3: empty
  4. the crane on the east side is still there. I wondered where they were working. Later, as I reached the turnoff from cretin to the east river road I saw a “road work ahead” sign and thought that the crane might be near summit avenue
  5. the wind was at my back as I crossed over the bridge to the east side of the river
  6. smell: bacon, or pork of some kind, coming from the BBQ place next to Blacks
  7. was able to run mostly in the shade, some full, some dappled
  8. everything is green
  9. a man sitting in the back of a truck, waiting to begin work on the road or the sidewalk or something that they have blocked off at this intersection
  10. people over at the St. Thomas track, running laps

2.5 miles in, I stopped to walk up the steps to the lake street bridge and record a few thoughts I was having about my class and this running/writing project. The recording is not very good, too much wind and traffic, so I’ll only include the transcript of part of it:

In the middle of a windy run, and I was thinking that this project is so many things at once. It’s a compex mess of layers of things I’m trying to achieve, things I’m experimenting with, and the fundamental thing that keeps it all together is to have this little structure, this little bit of discipline: I go out and move for roughly the same amount of time and then I write about it. And in the log I have just a little bit of structure so that it gives, maybe not an anchor but, a tether to the world and to some purpose and intent.

I had a few more thoughts but I’m not including them here. When I spoke them into my phone, they sounded great, but listening back, they don’t quite make sense.

swim: 2 loops / 1.5 miles
lake nokomis
wind: 20 mph
5:30 pm

Windy again. Swimming from the big beach to the little beach wasn’t too bad, although a few of the swells behind me made it difficult to get in a stroke, or to breathe. From the little beach back to the big beach was harder. But, it didn’t bother me, in fact I loved it. The main thing I remember about the swim was how amazed I am in my ability to trust the flash that I see, maybe only once or twice, and that doesn’t look like anything but a smudge — to trust my belief that that flash is the buoy and that that is the right way to swim to stay on course. Even when I didn’t think I could see where the buoys were, I swam straight towards them and stayed on course. Wow. I love open swimming, and I’m so grateful that I can continue to do it. In other good news, my other nose plug stayed on while I swam, and I am not stuffed up at all. Hooray!

june 14/SWIM

1 loop (about .75 miles/1320 yds)
lake nokomis
95 degrees
5:30 pm

Open swim! Open swim! Hooray for the first open swim! It was hot and crowded and very windy. And wonderful, even though my nose plug fell off during my swim across to the little beach. I developed an allergy 6 or 7 years ago and have been wearing a nose plug ever since. I’ve often wondered if I still really needed it. Yep. Stuffed up nose last night. Oh well, I survived and now I know: always wear a nose plug.

10 Things I Noticed

  1. the water was mostly smooth swimming from the big beach to the little beach
  2. lots of silver streaks or flashes below me: big fish, I think
  3. breathed every 5, except for in the choppiest parts
  4. only got quick flashes of orange and green buoys
  5. from the little beach back to the big beach the water was very choppy, lots of waves
  6. when I stopped to get my bearing, or to adjust my goggles, I could hear the loud din from the big beach — so many people!
  7. I hardly ever encountered any other swimmers out in the lake, although I know there were many more people swimming with me
  8. glimpse 1: a swimmer, not too far from me, between the first and second buoys. All I could see was the bright yellow swim buoy tethered to their waist
  9. glimpse 2: 2 women treading water near the 3rd orange buoy/little beach — at least, I think there were 2 of them. I couldn’t see them, just heard their voices. I couldn’t hear what they were saying, just that they were talking. I think it might have been about how difficult the swimming was today
  10. I passed by several lifeguards on kayaks — a few of them moved back to give me space, one of them seemed to paddle alongside me for a few strokes

A great first swim. I couldn’t sight the buoys very well, and couldn’t really see that I was going the right way. I just knew I was. Maybe because my eyes were giving my brain visual data that I wasn’t consciously aware of. Maybe because I use other modes than seeing to navigate. And maybe because my body has memorized this route, having done so many loops, every summer since 2013.

Swimming Laps/ Arthur Sze

Swimming backstroke toward the far end of a pool in sunlight—

yellow flares in the nearby aspens—

in the predawn sky, Mars and Venus glimmered—

how is it a glimmering moment coalesces, and the rest slides like flour through a sieve?—

how is it these glimmerings become constellations in a predawn sky?—

reaching the wall, I turn and push off swimming freestyle—

how is it we bobbed in water beyond the breaking surf, and I taste that salt in my mouth now?—

how is it, dishevelled, breathless, we drew each other up into flame?

how is it that flame burns steadily within?—
reaching the wall, I turn and push off swimming sidestroke—

with each scissors kick, I know time’s shears—

this is not predawn to a battle when the air dips to a windless calm—

let each day be lived risking feeling loving alive to ivy reddening along the fence—

reaching the wall, I turn and push off swimming breaststroke—

how is it I see below then above a horizon line?—

how is it I didn’t sputter, slosh, end up staring at a Geiger counter clock mounted on a barroom wall?—

I who have no answers and glimmering shards—

reaching the wall, I pause, climb out of the pool, start a new day—

june 12/RUNBIKE

5k
trestle turn around
71 degrees
humidity: 73% / dew point: 62
11 am

A wonderful run! Another day where it isn’t really cloudy, but CLOUD. The sky, almost white. The air, thick (or thicker than yesterday). Ran north on the river road trail past the welcoming oaks — good morning! And past the big boulder with no stones stacked. Through the tunnel of trees, above the old stone steps, under the lake street bridge, all the way to the trestle. I stopped to walk for a few seconds, turned around, and ran back. Worked on increasing my cadence while trying not to run faster and use more effort. That’s hard. I felt tired by the time I reached the trestle — and warm. The dew point is in the uncomfortable range.

10 Things I Noticed

  1. one of the welcoming oaks is very close to the paved trail, just a few inches away
  2. right before reaching the oaks, above the ravine, a tree that fell last week — or the week before? — is still there, leaning over the edge, split in a few places
  3. chick-a-dee-dee-dee-dee
  4. a honk or two
  5. 2 bikers and a roller blader, moving and chatting together on the bike path
  6. comiing up behind me, I heard a voice saying to someone else, “there’s 5 of us coming up behind you,” then one biker with a trailer passing me, then moving over to the side while 5 bikers in bright yellow shirts biked past
  7. another, fast biker, approaching a few seconds later. I tried to listen to hear if they said, “on your left,” I don’t think so
  8. rowers on the river! the evidence: the coxswain’s voice gently offering guidance through a bullhorn
  9. a walker, listening to some funk music through their phone in the tunnel of trees
  10. all (almost all?) of the benches were empty

Nearing the end of my run, when I heard the rowers, I had a moment of clarity. I decided to cross over to the grass betwen the river road and edmund and record my thoughts. Here’s a recording of it, and a transcript, with a few additional remarks:

june 12th

june 12th, 2.5 miles run (note: I ran another 1/2 mile after I recorded this, also: I had only finished my run 20-30 seconds prior to recording this so my heartrate was still high and my breathing was more labored). Try to be open to being interrupted. Take notice of the sounds that interrupt you, that call out to you, almost insisting, “listen!,” as opposed to just trying as hard as you can to notice everything and to constantly be vigilant about the listening, trying to return to it again and again. While this can be useful sometimes, we also need the interruptions, the time to just be, to slow down and let the world speak to us.

Here, I try to remember the name of a poem that I think fits. I decided it was titled “Lost.” It is!

Lost/ David Wagoner

Stand still. The trees ahead and bushes beside you
Are not lost. Wherever you are is called Here,
And you must treat it as a powerful stranger,
Must ask permission to know it and be known.
The forest breathes. Listen. It answers,
I have made this place around you.
If you leave it, you may come back again, saying Here.
No two trees are the same to Raven.
No two branches are the same to Wren.
If what a tree or a bush does is lost on you,
You are surely lost. Stand still. The forest knows
Where you are. You must let it find you.

Also, another example of this is the time I was really focused on running, not paying attention, to the point that I didn’t even notice the geese that were on the other side of the road, congregating in someone’s front yard. All of a sudden, one of them gobbled, not ferociously but loudly, almost yelling at me to listen and to notice.

Three things to note here: First, I wrote about this moment in my running log, under the heading “delight of the day” on march 2, 2022.

Secone, it was not geese who interrupted me, but turkeys (hence, the gobble reference). I think I mis-said geese because I was thinking about Mary Oliver’s poem, Wild Geese and the lines:

Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting –
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

Third, this recording was inspired by a moment on today’s run when I was interrupted by something. I forgot to say what that something was in the recording and I’m already struggling to remember it. I think it was the voice of the rower?

And, that’s…to get to that point..ooo! And then I think about how Mary Oliver has that poem where she talks about how some people can just get there right away. They just open up and stuff pours in. Others of us need a lot more practice. It’s a constant struggle…This would be..the exercise is kind of passive insofar as you’re not doing anything to make it happen, you’re just letting it happen and be around and aware when it does.

Mary Oliver doesn’t exactly write, “stuff pours in,” she writes:

from “The Book of Time” in The Leaf and the Cloud/ Mary Oliver

For some souls it’s easy; they lie down on the sand
and are soon asleep.
For others, the mind shivers in its glacial palace,
and won’t come.
Yes, the mind takes a long time, is otherwise occupied
than by hapiness, and deep breathing.
Now, in the distance, some bird is singing.
And now I have gathered six or seven deep red,
half-opened cups of petals betwen my hands,
and now I have put my face against them
and now I am moving my face back and forth, slowly,
against them.
The body is not much more than two feet and a tongue.
Come to me, says the blue sky, and say the word.
And finally even the mind comes running, like a wild thing,
and lies down on the sand.
Eternity is not later, or in any unfindable place.
Roses, roses, roses.

Having this moment of clarity was so great. Before heading out for my run, I was struggling to describe the different forms of attention that we’ll be working on in my class. I have too many ideas, too many sources, too many things that I want to share. I was feeling overwhelmed. On the run, I wasn’t thinking about how to work through this problem, but this idea of interruptions and being open to them found me. This “finding” is an excellent example of what I’m trying to teach about the value of moving outside! It’s not all that we can do while moving, and it doesn’t always happen, but it’s part of why I show up almost every day beside the gorge, moving and breathing and trying to be present.

As I thought about attention before I went out for a run, and the types of attention I want to describe in my lecture recording (I’m doing it like a podcast), I thought about Mary Oliver’s poem “Luke” as a good example of being open to attention. After typing up those bits from MO’s The Leaf and the Cloud above, I see some strong connections between it and “Luke.”

Luke/ Mary Oliver

I had a dog
who loved flowers.
Briskly she went
through the fields,

yet paused
for the honeysuckle
or the rose,
her dark head

and her wet nose
touching
the face
of every one

with its petals
of silk,
with its fragrance
rising

into the air
where the bees,
their bodies
heavy with pollen,

hovered—
and easily
she adored
every blossom,

not in the serious,
careful way
that we choose
this blossom or that blossom—

the way we praise or don’t praise—
the way we love
or don’t love—
but the way

we long to be—
that happy
in the heaven of earth—
that wild, that loving.

Thank you running and the gorge and my feet for making it possible for me to move so that I could untangle this knot in my thinking and be with the birds and the rowers and the river!

bike: about 12 miles*
around lake nokomis and back

*my very outdated, over-the-hill apple watch crashed again while we were biking, so I don’t know the exact distance. Somewhere between 11.5 and 12 miles. I finally decided that I need a new watch. It’s coming on Tuesday: an early birthday present!

Biked with FWA over to the lake to pick up our swim caps! Tuesday is the first open swim! Hooray!! Several memorable things happened, which I want to remember for me and for FWA:

  1. At Sandcastle, they had entertainment: a singer with a guitar. He sang John Denver’s “Country Roads,” but changed some of the words to fit Minneapolis. Instead of Almost heaven, West Virginia he sang, Almost heaven, South Minneapolis, which was awkward. He kept in Shenandoah River in Blue Ridge Mountains, Shenandoah River when, as FWA suggested, he could have sang, Mississippi River
  2. Picking up our caps, a lifeguard asked FWA if he goes to Gustavus (he was wearing a Gustavus t-shirt). When he said yes, she added: “My friend and I just transferred from there to St. Olaf.” Anyone who goes/went to either Gustavus or St. Olaf and knows about their rivalry and might find this remark funny
  3. Biking to lake nokomis on the minnehaha creek path, rounding a hidden corner, we heard a bell ringing repeatedly. It came from a double-recumbant bike, just letting us know they were there. Tne franctic ringing and the sight of a recumbant bike with 2 people on it seemed surreal and strange and funny

june 10/RUN

3.6 miles
marshall loop
71 degrees

71 degrees at 9:30 in the morning. I need to start my runs earlier. Today is my daughter’s last day of school so I can. Hooray for not having to wake her up, help her find something to eat, get stressed out when school has already started and she hasn’t even come downstairs! Another good run. Hardly any wind, not too much sun. Dry. Too dry. I could feel it in my tight skin and the inside lining of my nose.

10 Things I Noticed

  1. the river, nearing the lake street bridge on the west side: such a pale blue it was almost white, a nice contrast with the vibrant green
  2. the river, heading east over the lake street bridge: still, quiet, no waves, no sparkling. Something about its flatness, combined with the unruly green made it look hot — not like the water was hot, but that being near it was
  3. the river, heading west back over the lake street bridge: the water was split with one half blue, the other half brownish-green — a reflection of the trees along the shore
  4. the river, standing at the overlook at the middle of the bridge: more cloudy currents below. What causes this? Is it sand bars, or something else?
  5. on the bridge, I noticed a big crane over on the St. Paul side. I wondered if I encounter it while running through the neighborhood (I didn’t).
  6. below the bridge, I noticed the walking trail was open again — they must have fixed the bit that caved in
  7. a runner ahead of me on the bridge and then running up the marshall hill. They kept going on marshall; I turned on cretin
  8. at the top of the hill, Blacks coffee looked mostly empty, at least the low of empty stools I saw in the front window
  9. today, I remembered running through the tunnel of trees. This time I was heading south instead of north. What I remembered: a blur of green off to the side, a paved path stretching far in front of me, no one else around
  10. no stones stacked on the boulder

Did I hear any birds out by the gorge? I can’t remember.

Bird/ DORIANNE LAUX

For days now a red-breasted bird
has been trying to break in.
She tests a low branch, violet blossoms
swaying beside her, leaps into the air and flies
straight at my window, beak and breast
held back, claws raking the pane.
Maybe she longs for the tree she sees
reflected in the glass, but I’m only guessing.
I watch until she gives up and swoops off.
I wait for her return, the familiar
click, swoosh, thump of her. I sip cold coffee
and scan the room, trying to see it new,
through the eyes of a bird. Nothing has changed.
Books piled in a corner, coats hooked
over chair backs, paper plates, a cup
half-filled with sour milk.
The children are in school. The man is at work.
I’m alone with dead roses in a jam jar.
What do I have that she could want enough
to risk such failure, again and again?

june 9/RUN

3.5 miles
2 trails, longer version*
70 degrees

*the longer version = paved river road trail, south/take the paved trail down to the overlook in the 44th street parking lot/Winchell Trail, north — past the 38th street steps, through the oak savanna, down the dirt hill studded with rocks in the ravine, up the gravel/ return to the paved river road trail, north, through the tunnel of trees, past the old stone steps/cross the river road to edmund at 33rd, go south on edmund

Is summer finally here? Warm and sunny this morning. Most of the time, I ran in the shade. I may not like how the leaves conceal my view of the other side of the gorge, but I appreciate how they make it cooler and shield me from the sun. A good run, no big revelations or moments of delight. Thought about the class I’m prepping and how grateful I am for the practice I developed of getting outside, moving, then writing about it. I started it partly as a way to survive the new administration in 2016, then relied on it a lot during the early years of the pandemic. Now, it’s central to my work on care and wonder. These thoughts, while I ran, came in flashes or bursts or flares — which word do I like best?

10 Things I Noticed

  1. the river! It was a beautiful blue. I didn’t stare straight at it, but noticed it off to the side, looking extra blue because of the sun and the green that framed it. No details to add, like sparkling waves or fast moving currents or big branches floating downstream. Just blue. As I ran, I felt the constant, pleasant presence of blue.
  2. running in the 36th street parking lot, past the entrance to the Winchell Trail, I heard a strange horn-like sound. It was LOUD — what was it? Then I saw a very little kid on a bike, no adult that I could see (which doesn’t mean they weren’t there; I often don’t see people who are there). They called out, “daddy?” a few times. I wondered if I should stop to see if they were okay, but their “daddy” didn’t sound urgen or scared so I kept going
  3. 4 people gathered on the walking trail, sort of, but not quite, off to the side
  4. a few kids crossing the river road just past the gathered group
  5. encountering several bikes, staying in their same, still seeming too close
  6. a squirrel standing still, which I initially mistook for a cardinal (because, yes, my vision is that bad)
  7. a person, or 2 people?, stretched out on one of the many benches resting right above the river — not the bench by the big old rock or near folwell, but near the old stone steps
  8. water trickling out of the sewer pipes
  9. update on #1: passing through the oak savanna at the end of my run, I encountered “daddy,” the kid, and the source of the loud horn: an extra loud bike horn. The dad blasted it for his kid’s amusement right before I reached them. He was on a fat tire, the kid on one of those training bikes without pedals — what are those called?
  10. the smell of chemicals for a lawn, or water from a hose

No clicks or clacks from a roller skier’s poles, no doppler effect from a radio, no chirping robins or screeching blue jays, no rowers, and, again, no memory of what happened while I ran through the tunnel of trees. Forgetting this stretch of 3 or 4 minutes has happened twice now. Interesting….

Five Landscapes/ COLE SWENSEN

One

Green moves through the tops of trees and grows
lighter greens as it recedes, each of which includes a grey, and among the
greys, or beyond them, waning finely into white, there is one white spot,
absolute; it could be an egret or perhaps a crane at the edge of the water
where it meets a strip of sand.

Two

There is a single, almost dazzling white spot of a white house out loud
against the fields, and the forest in lines
receding, rises,
and then planes. Color,

in pieces or entire; its presence
veneers over want; in all its moving parts, it could be something else

half-hidden by trees. Conservatory, gloriette, gazebo, or bandshell,
a door ajar on the top floor.

Three
The trees are half air. They fissure the sky; you could count the leaves, pare
time
defined as that which,
no matter how barely, exceeds
what the eye could grasp in a glance;
intricate woods opening out before a body of water edged
with a swatch of meadow where someone has hung a bright white sheet
out in the sun to dry.

Four

A white bird in a green forest is a danger to itself. Stands out. Shines. Builds
up inside. Like it’s dangerous to cry while driving or to talk to strangers or to
stare at the sun and a thousand other things
we’ve always heard
people who wear white see better at night, though they gradually lose this
trait as they age.

june 8/BIKESWIMBIKE

bike: 8.4 miles
lake nokomis and back

swim: 400 yards
lake nokomis

My first outside bike ride of the year and my first swim! As my vision declines, I never know how hard it will be to bike. Will I be able to see? Will it be too scary? Today was okay. It’s very hard for me to see potholes or react quickly to unexpected things (crowded trails, passing another biker), but as long as I don’t go too fast and I give careful attention (all the time) as I ride, I should be okay. It’s a bit exhausting, but who cares? I can still bike!

Things I Heard While Biking

  1. drumming woodpeckers, twice
  2. the music from the ice cream truck
  3. a biker calling out calmly and quietly as she passed, “on your left”

Biked to the lake with my 19 year-old son, FWA. He’s planning to swim across the lake with me, at least once, although I’m hoping he’ll try it more than once. I’ve been dreaming about one of my kids being old enough to join me in open swim — you have to be 18. They were both on the swim team and are great swimmers. He wasn’t up for the 69 degree water, but I was. It didn’t seem cold to me. I love the cold water on my muscles. Very nice! It didn’t feel as good inside my right ear. Since FWA was with me, and I haven’t swam since last september, I decided to take it easy and only do one loop around the buoys at the big beach.

10 Things I Noticed While Swimming

  1. the season has barely begun and the part of the white buoys under the water was thick with muck…yuck
  2. no clear views below of biggish fish or hairbands or the bottom
  3. near the shore, dozens of minnows parted as I moved through the water
  4. the water was opaque, with shafts of light pushing their way through
  5. I could see the white buoys, mostly the feeling that they were there
  6. the view as I lifted my head to the side and out of the water to breathe was much clearer than my view as I looked straight ahead
  7. I heard some kids laughing as I neared the far end of the beach
  8. when I started, there were a few groups of people swimming, when I stopped, I was one of the few people still in the water
  9. I breathed every five strokes
  10. there was a seagull perched on the white buoy as I neared it. At the last minute, it flew off — was it looking for a big fish?

Here’s Poetry Foundation’s poem of the day. I love how H.D. imagines the trees as water — and how they describe it! Running in the tunnel of trees, past a part that seems surrounded by green, I’ve felt like I was swimming in a sea of trees.

Oread/ H. D.

Whirl up, sea—
whirl your pointed pines,
splash your great pines
on our rocks,
hurl your green over us,
cover us with your pools of fir.

note: Oread = “a nymph believed to inhabit mountains.”

june 7/RUN

3.25 miles
2 trails + extra
66 degrees

The rain that looked like it was coming never did, so I went out for a run. It’s overcast. Not cloudy, but CLOUD — one big cloud covering everything, making the sky gray and the greens more green. It seemed humid to me and I sweat a lot, so I thought the humidity would be high. Nope, only 47%. The run felt good, relaxed.

On the surface, all I remember is trying to lift my knees and my left hip and looking out for other walkers or runners or bikers. Can I remember more if I try? Yes!

10 Things I Noticed

  1. lots of bikers, mostly single bikers or groups of 2, one large, spread out group, several of them wearing bright yellow jackets
  2. no blue jays or chickadees, but lots of little chirping birds — I wondered if they were warblers
  3. the faint voices of kids playing on the Dowling Elementary playground
  4. exchanging deep head nods with a man using a walker
  5. Minneapolis parks is mowing today — saw and heard a big lawn mower speeding by on the path. More evidence of the lawn mowing: the smell of freshly cut grass
  6. encountering another runner down below on the winchell trail, near its southern start, where all the asphalt has reverted to dirt. They were wearing sweatpants and maybe (I can’t quite remember) a sweatshirt too?
  7. voices below, in the gorge — rowers?
  8. mud on the trail from yesterday’s rain, but not enough to slip in or on or through
  9. trickling water in several different spots in the ravine, just north of the oak savanna
  10. the dirt trail below the mesa that the parks dept cleared out last year is showing signs of being reclaimed: weeds popping up in the middle of the path

Today I got lost in the run, in some sort of reverie or just my mind shutting down for a while. I can’t remember what the river looked like, though I know I looked at it. I can’t remember anything about running through the tunnel of trees, not even a hint of a memory of the dark green or the sound of cars above, or whether I encountered someone as I ran past the old stone steps. Strange and wonderful. I like getting lost.

Found a beautiful poem through this tweet:

As from a Quiver of Arrows/ CARL PHILLIPS

What do we do with the body, do we
burn it, do we set it in dirt or in
stone, do we wrap it in balm, honey,
oil, and then gauze and tip it onto
and trust it to a raft and to water?

What will happen to the memory of his
body, if one of us doesn’t hurry now
and write it down fast? Will it be
salt or late light that it melts like?
Floss, rubber gloves, and a chewed cap

to a pen elsewhere —how are we to
regard his effects, do we throw them
or use them away, do we say they are
relics and so treat them like relics?
Does his soiled linen count? If so,

would we be wrong then, to wash it?
There are no instructions whether it
should go to where are those with no
linen, or whether by night we should
memorially wear it ourselves, by day

reflect upon it folded, shelved, empty.
Here, on the floor behind his bed is
a bent photo—why? Were the two of
them lovers? Does it mean, where we
found it, that he forgot it or lost it

or intended a safekeeping? Should we
attempt to make contact? What if this
other man too is dead? Or alive, but
doesn’t want to remember, is human?
Is it okay to be human, and fall away

from oblation and memory, if we forget,
and can’t sometimes help it and sometimes
it is all that we want? How long, in
dawns or new cocks, does that take?
What if it is rest and nothing else that

we want? Is it a findable thing, small?
In what hole is it hidden? Is it, maybe,
a country? Will a guide be required who
will say to us how? Do we fly? Do we
swim? What will I do now, with my hands?

For reasons I can’t totally express, this poem seems fitting to post this late morning, after spending time working on an introductory lecture for a class I’m teaching on noticing the world, then documenting that noticing in a log, and after writing in this log entry that I got lost in the run.

Also, it’s always a good time to post a Carl Phillips poem. His work is wonderful.

june 4/RUN

3.5 miles
marshall loop
65 degrees

Saturday, mid-morning. I was worried that the path would be very crowded, but it wasn’t too bad. Maybe that was because I avoided some of the trail right above the river, through the tunnel of trees? Ever since I realized that I’m often hearing bluejays when I think I’m hearing crows, I hear bluejays all the time. Should I try to build some affection for them, or wallow in my annoyance? Mostly a good run. My left hip felt tight towards the end. Thought about trying to let the wonder win and being more open and generous to everything and everyone I encounter. It’s difficult. I suppose today’s run (and most of my runs) helped. So many other people out by the gorge, sharing in its awesomeness (can I find a better word? I wanted to say amazing-ness but, is that an actual word? I’m tired of “beauty” and it doesn’t quite capture what the gorge is, or what it does (to me). I’m using “wonder” too much. Fabulous? I’ll keep searching).

10 Things I Noticed

  1. heading east, over the lake street bridge, the water was blue and had lots of white, ghostly streaks near the surface. Not swirls but something else — what causes these cloudy currents? A few years ago, I wrote about these, referring to them as cataracts, or the clouds that come when eyes develop cataracts
  2. heading west, over the lake street bridge, the water was brown and the ghostly streaks less visible, even more ghostly
  3. lots of traffic everywhere — on the bridge, up the marshall hill. Running on the sidewalk, a safe distance from the road, I was able to pass some cars as they waited to merge or at the light
  4. running up the hill, I smelled some flowering bush. Not lilacs, but something else that I should remember but can’t right now. Too much!
  5. running at the top of the hill, I smelled waffles from Blacks coffee
  6. a kind pedestrian moved out of the way to let me pass on the sidewalk. When I thanked them, they replied, “Oh, no problem!” or something friendly like that
  7. some sort of sporting event happening at st. thomas. I could hear the cheers and an announcer saying something over the loudspeaker
  8. 3 bikers biked passed me on the bridge. I was pressed as close to the railing as I could. One of them whizzed by so closely that I almost felt their breeze. I whispered under my breath, “people suck.”
  9. music coming out of (I don’t think it was loud enough to be described as blasting) the speakers of a passing bike. No doppler effect
  10. emerging from the tunnel of trees, I heard (but didn’t see) the click click clack of the ski poles of a roller skier!

Listening/watching again Aimee Nezhukumatathil’s book launch for World of Wonders, I finally found the source of one of my new mantras: let the wonder win. In the Q & A at the end, AN says:

It’s there. A grief is there. Sadness and rage is always there. And then the wonder wins. I make sure the wonder wins. And definitely there are harder days than others, but that’s where the practice is. I try with all my might to make the wonder win by the end of the day.

Live with Aimee Nezhukumatathil and Ross Gay

Yes, that is where the practice is for me: struggling, finding ways, working dilligently on letting the wonder win out over everything else. Hanging onto the love and the joy and the generosity and the belief that there are good, delightful, beautiful, amazing things in the world that always make it worth it. Letting the wonder win is an expression/performance? of hope.

Found this poem by Jane Hirshfield on twitter this morning:

Termites: An Assay/ Jane Hirshfield

So far the house still is standing.
So far the hairline cracks wandering the plaster
still debate, in Socratic unhurry, what constitutes a good life.
An almost readable language.
Like the radio heard while traveling in a foreign country—
You know that something important has happened, but not what.

What is an assay? Searched online and found this: “the term, she says, is used as it is ‘in the mining industry, where a substance is disassembled and analysed to determine the strengths and quality of its various parts; only in this case the examination is done with the imaginative mind rather than the chemical one.’