Tag: 10 things

dec 11/RUN

4.5 miles
minnehaha falls and back
11 degrees / feels like -7
100% snow-covered

The coldest run of the year so far. It didn’t feel like 7 below to me with all of my layers: 2 pairs of running tights, long-sleeved shirt, sweatshirt, my warmest winter jacket, a buff, a hat, a pair of gloves, my thickest pair of mittens. The thing I’d like to remember most about the run was the river, burning white in one spot. Wow! As I ran south, I could see it sparkling through the trees.

10 Other Things to Remember

  1. the banks on the east side of the river were glowing white with snow
  2. crunch! creak! my foot stepping down in the snow — the crunch for the foot striking, the creak for it lifting off
  3. other peoples’ foot prints in the snow, all over the trail
  4. running on stretches of the falls path where no one else had been, looking down at the untouched white, like a blank page ready to be written on
  5. my shadow when the sun was out: sharp, in front of me
  6. my shadow when the sun was behind clouds: soft, faint, only the hint of contrast
  7. the falls were rushing over the limestone edge — all water, no ice today
  8. the sound of a plow on the path somewhere across the park. later, its aftermath: a cleared path
  9. an empty parking lot at the falls
  10. a big tree, felled in the ravine below the double bridge — was it my favorite fall tree — the one that turns a bright orange? no — whew!

Yesterday I finished a draft of another haunts section and I was wondering if I was done (for now) with writing about girls and ghosts and the gorge. Then this morning, re-reading my post from dec 11, 2023, I came across this line:

At one point on my run back, I suddenly felt a beautiful ache of emotion and thought: tender. Yes, I need to include a few lines in my haunts poem about feeling tender as I run — maybe in contrast with tough and the callouses I mentioned last week (6 dec 2023)?

The poem I finished yesterday was about being tender and, although callouses are not in the poem, they inspired it. I started thinking about how time works on this blog, how it took a whole year to take up that suggestion, and how that is often the case here. Things move slower, and not always forward but looping back and returning again and again to ideas. Then I thought about gorge time and Lorine Niedecker’s geologic time. A new section of my poem to write — on my practice and time and looping back to ideas and experiences!

dec 9/RUN

2.4 miles
2 trails
39 degrees

A quick run with Scott. It felt colder than 39 because of the wind. Scott talked about an annoying problem with moving a client to a different server and I talked about my current poem and where to go with it. Then Scott mentioned a small monitor he wants to get and how, of the four options, 3 cost $`100 with $25 shipping and one cost $110 with $15 shipping. I wondered which option people respond to more, and this thinking about how people chose reminded me of the latest If Books Could Kill podcast about the book, What’s the Matter with Kansas?, and why people vote the way the do. Of course this led to a discussion about the current state of politics and how we’re both doing (surprisingly okay and trying to protect our mental health).

10 Things

  1. the river is more open today but still different versions of gray
  2. the wrought iron fence is bent in the middle and at the top — what happened? we noticed a thick tree branch on the other side of the fence
  3. a somewhat subdued din of laughing and yelling at the playground
  4. a man on a bike unwilling to move over and give us runners and walkers the chance to pass each other
  5. a steady line of cars at the 3-way stop suddenly eased up as we approached — clear sailing across!
  6. a dog with their human turning down the steep-ish dirt path on the far end of the 35th street parking lot
  7. at the end of the run, walking home: the sound of woodpecker high in a tree (heard, never seen, although we both tried to find the bird)
  8. knowing that the wind was at our backs when I saw leaves flying towards us
  9. running by the green water fountain in the parking lot and wondering if there was any way that it was still on — not because I wanted any water, but just because I was curious
  10. sometimes the sun was out, and sometimes it was behind the clouds — what did the clouds look like? Did I even check?

where to take my poem

Where it ends now:

Wind, sun, frigid air,
the effort it takes
to keep moving, a
slow wearing down of
cone cells, soften her
hard shell and cause cracks
that start small then spread
then split her open and
able to feel more
of everything and
everyone here, now
and before.

Talking to Scott while we ran, I wondered if I wanted to end here or write about a section of the trail just north of the trestle that was repaved a few years ago, but cracked open again in less than a year, and then was patched/resealed earlier this year but is now cracked again. I keep thinking about this section. Why? Maybe it’s something about the endless cycle of crack and reseal and the belief that eventually no seal will stop the slope from sliding down into the gorge. Here, at this spot, is evidence of eroding ground and the opportunity to witness time passing on a different scale. Or, maybe it’s a particularly interesting (at least to me) example of how a cracked surface looks and acts. Is there any connection to my small cracks that spread and split? I don’t know.

As I continued talking with Scott, I mentioned Wittgenstein and his need to get off of smooth ice, where it’s difficult to walk, and back on rough ground where friction helps us move. Then I talked about how I don’t like running over cracks and appreciate when they’re repaired, but I don’t often notice smooth pavement. I orient myself on the path by the cracks. The cracks are where the stories are.

And now I’m thinking about how you can’t leave a trace on smooth, sealed asphalt — as opposed to footprints in mud or tamped grass or rutted dirt. Also cracks are where the ground/earth/flowers can poke through. And, I’m reminded of daylighting and how some people/groups are advocating for freeing water from being buried under cement:

the exhumation of streams from underground and reintroduction of them to the surface. There is ample research-based evidence for what seems intuitively true: natural waterways—meaning, those that flow through the topography of a landscape and not through a sewer—support healthier ecosystems than those encased in concrete darkness. Daylighting brings benefits to water quality that include nutrient retention, prevention of algal blooms, and overall more supportive environments for a diversity of species. It also keeps clean water out of the sewer system, where, currently, huge volumes of it unnecessarily go through the sewage treatment process, a waste of resources that can also cause sewers to overflow.

Reaching the Light of Day/ Corinne Segal

Now I’m thinking about management and maintaining and conservation and how this cracked path and its perpetual repair is where many different elements are entangled: park workers trying to maintain safe paths, a shifting and eroding ground — due to the “natural” instability of the area and chemicals from local lawns in the groundwater and seeping into the soil, overuse or misuse by visitors, the impact of heavy traffic on the parkway from commuters.

Where to go with all of this? Unsure, I returned to the part of my poem that’s inspiring this wander and I was struck by this bit:

able to feel more
of everything and
everyone here, now
and before.

A reminder: the cracked path doesn’t have to be an exact metaphor for my cracking open. It doesn’t have to be a metaphor at all. It can be another layer to this idea of this land as a work of art, as crafted/made/shaped into something beautiful (which does not = pretty) that enable us to feel things deeply. I’d like to bring in 2 things I mentioned in my rambling: 1. smooth asphalt doesn’t leave a trace, doesn’t tell a story but cracked asphalt can/does and 2. the process of cracking and sealing and cracking again enables us to witness time passing on a different scale; it makes visible what was invisible — too slow and slight to notice.

Now, time to try and fit these ideas into a few 5 syllable lines!

dec 8/RUN

6.1 miles
hidden falls loop
36 degrees

Wow, what a great morning for a run! All the snow has melted so the paths were clear and I don’t remember much wind. I felt strong and relaxed and grateful to be outside when everything is bare and brown and open. And that river! Half frozen with a thin layer of ice, half open with shiny, dark water. I stopped at the overlook on the ford bridge and stared down at it, admiring the variations of gray and the feeling of air and nothingness — barren, vast, other-worldly.

10 Things

  1. the sound of a kid either laughing when his voice bounced as he went over something bumpy or crying so hard that his voice was breaking — heard, not seen
  2. several runners in bright yellow shirts
  3. two runners in white jackets
  4. some kids laughing and yelling near the skate park just past the ford bridge, again heard, not seen
  5. the view of the valley between ford and hidden falls — bare tree branches, then endless air, then the other side
  6. a blue port-a-potty with the door ajar
  7. the sound of water rushing over concrete at the locks and dam no. 1
  8. a lone goose honking somewhere near the oak savanna
  9. the contrast of wispy, dark branches against the light gray sky
  10. the river — no color, some shiny, some dulled by ice

an attempt to track my train of thought

I’m working on another section of my Haunts poem (which might need a different name as I stray away from ghosts). Before my run, I was thinking about being tender and erosion and H.W.S Cleveland (Horace William Shaler) as envisioning the grand rounds and the gorge as art. Before I headed out, I gave myself a task for during the run: to think about and look for examples of erosion and how it fits in with my idea that art is about making us feel things deeply (feeling tender). This task was inspired by this section in my poem:

his pitch for parkways
was about making space
for beauty and for
feeling things deeply —
he wanted to turn
this place into art.
Grass and benches and
trees to frame open
sky and the stone that
holds a river and
all who seek it. But
up here exposed on
the bluff, it is not
only the view that
makes the girl tender.
Wind, sun, frigid air,
the effort it takes
to keep moving, a
slow wearing down of
cone cells, smooth out her
edges, peel away
her layers, create
cracks that start small then
spread.

During my run, I stopped to record three ideas into my phone:

One: I thought about the cracks and the idea of being split open and how this splitting open was not a wound that needed to be patched but something else.

Two: I can’t quite remember how I continued to think about this idea of the wound and breaking open but I do remember suddenly thinking about eroding shorelines and bluffs and how cracks and a wearing away can be harmful. At first I wanted to make a clear distinction between the erosion I was writing about, and the tenderness it allowed for, but then I realized, just before reaching the ford bridge on my way back from hidden falls, that tenderness and feeling things deeply and art as inspiring this is both wound and that something else I can’t quite name. I spoke into my phone:

Beauty as not always pretty, sometimes ugly. Art as wonder and amazement, terror and pain.

I think I was remembering some lines from a podcast episode for Off the Shelf with Dorothy Lasky, as I mentioned terror.

I don’t think beautiful things are innocent, I guess, sadly. I mean, I don’t know what “innocent” means also, but yeah, I think beautiful things are holy, and I think that those things can be awful. I guess it’s like the sublime, and those things which we have awe about is what beauty is. And I don’t think it’s always kind, sadly. You know, I wish it were. It can be, but I don’t think that’s what is really there. It overwhelms. So, it is terrifying by its nature. Like, real beauty should make you terrified.

Good for the World

Three: By the time I had crossed the ford bridge, I had another thought about erosion and my diseased eyes:

My cone cells eroding is this slow softening, but at some point, most likely, there’s going to be a break — an abrupt break [when the few remaining cone cells in my central vision die, when I won’t be able to read or rely on my central vision at all]. And that is how the gorge works. It’s the slow softening of sandstone until limestone breaks off.

Yes! This is a helpful way for me to connect the gorge with my vision. I’m not sure that this third thing fits into this section of the poem, but I will use it somewhere!

posted an hour later: I can’t believe it, but after searching through the archive of this log, I realized that I have never posted this beautiful, tender poem by Mary Oliver:

Lead/ Mary Oliver

Here is a story
to break your heart.
Are you willing?
This winter
the loons came to our harbor
and died, one by one,
of nothing we could see.
A friend told me
of one on the shore
that lifted its head and opened
the elegant beak and cried out
in the long, sweet savoring of its life
which, if you have heard it,
you know is a sacred thing.,
and for which, if you have not heard it,
you had better hurry to where
they still sing.
And, believe me, tell no one
just where that is.
The next morning
this loon, speckled
and iridescent and with a plan
to fly home
to some hidden lake,
was dead on the shore.
I tell you this
to break your heart,
by which I mean only
that it break open and never close again
to the rest of the world.

dec 3/RUN

5.2 miles
bottom of franklin hill
21 degrees / feels like 12
75% snow-covered

What a wonderful winter morning for a run! With the sun and my effort, it felt much warmer than it was. The snow wasn’t slippery or deep and made a delightful crunching noise as I stepped down. The river was open again and dark brown. And the birds were so loud — not seen only heard. Mostly I ran on the bike path. Encountered some runners, walkers, dogs, at least 2 bikers, and at least one person smoking on a bench.

a new ritual

Like most of my rituals, this one began with little intention. I decided last week to stop at an inviting bench to check out the view for a moment and now I’m doing it every time I’m returning south from the trestle or beyond. The bench is facing the river and above the white sands beach. At one time I’m sure it was farther from the slope, but not it’s right on the edge. How long before it falls in? Today, while I was looking down at the river, I felt a blur of movement. What was it? Did I imagine it? I waited for a moment and then I saw a dog and their human through the bare trees, walking at the beach. They looked so far away and alone.

10 Things

  1. elementary school kids yelling and laughing out on the school field — such energy unleashed — wow
  2. small prints in the snow
  3. a truck speeding by, revving its engine on a bend in the road
  4. 2 or 3 stones stacked on the boulder, covered in snow
  5. a thin ribbon of bare pavement on the edge of the trail
  6. the feel of my feet sliding slightly as I ran down the snow-covered hill
  7. my faint shadow, just ahead of me, only visible occasionally
  8. the slabs of stone still stacked up under the franklin bridge, looking like a person
  9. all the steps down into the gorge are blocked off with chains
  10. a clump of dead leaves at the top of a tree looking like a monster nest

dec 1/RUN

5 miles
minnehaha falls and back
15 degrees / feels like 6
light snow

Brrr. I’m pretty sure that this is the coldest run of the season. I wore almost all of the layers: double tights, double gloves, double socks, a buff, a fleece cap, long-sleeved shirt, sweatshirt, jacket. No frozen toes or fingers, only a few frozen eyelashes.

It was snowing lightly. I barely felt the flakes but I could see them collecting in the cracks of the path and on the road. Not slippery. When I reached the park I noticed faint paw prints on the path.

Passing the parking lot, 2 adults were trying unsuccessfully to calm down a kid losing it — did the kid not want to be at the falls, or did they not want to leave it?

By the gorge, the ground is a rich brown carpet of dead leaves and dirt. A few bushes — buckthorn? — seem to have new, bright green leaves. A runner passed me in a bright yellow vest, almost as bright as the crosswalk sign at 38th.

I noticed dark forms moving below me, on the winchell trail. A coyote or turkey or . . . ? Looking longer I finally saw 2 runners.

The river! Mostly white with wide slashes of exposed, dark water. The falls! Still gushing but covered in thick columns of ice. Winter is here.

All the steps at the falls and on the trails are still open. Will they close them this week?

Running south, between 42nd and 44th, I noticed a bench with an open view of the river and the other side. Decided I would stop on my way back north. I did. Beautiful. And right above the edge of the world.

10 Things

  1. a distracted squirrel in the middle of the trail — gathering a nut?
  2. a smoke smell on edmund, probably from a chimney
  3. a gently sloping hill leading down to the river just past the double bridge, filled with tree trunks and dead leaves
  4. mostly the river was white — ice covered with a thin layer of snow, but there were random patches of dark water. Some of them were thick slashes, others looked like geometric shapes — trapezoids, rectangles, triangles, but not a circle in sight
  5. voices below me — who is there? some hikers, deep in and beyond the winchell trail
  6. the small wood between the 44th street parking lot and the winchell trail, usually hidden, was exposed to reveal a short dirt path
  7. birds! not seen, but heard — sweet tweets and chirps, sounding like spring
  8. a fat tire with a faint, flickering headlight
  9. the fake bells from the light rail train, followed by some quick horn taps
  10. a woman reaching the falls overlook and exclaiming in delight and wonder — wow!

the start of another haunts section?

Before I went out for my run, I did a little research on the bike/walking trails along the river. Deeper digging is required. Maybe a trip to the central library, or an email? Anyway, I learned that they created paved trails above the gorge and beside the river parkway in the fall of 1973. The main trail I use is only 6 months older than me! That seems like it would make a good line for a section that features the trails, either just the paved ones above, or the ones below too.

Mostly the girl stays
above on a trail
as old as she is.
Paved in seventy
three, when gas prices
and an interest in
conservation were
high.

Here’s a wonderful poem from Carl Phillips:

Speak Low/ Carl Phillips (from Speak Low)

The wind stirred–the water beneath it stirred accordingly …
The wind’s pattern was its own, and the water’s also. The
water in that sense was the wind’s reflection. The wind was,
to the water, what the water was to the light that fell there,
or appeared to fall, spilling as if the light were a liquid, or as
if the light and the water it spilled across

were now the same

It is true that the light, like the water, assumed the pattern of
what acted upon it. But the water assumed also the shape
of what contained it, while the light did not. The light seemed
fugitive, a restiveness, the less-than-clear distance between
everything we know we should do, and all the rest–all
the rest that we do stirring, as the wind stirred it, the water
was water–was a form of clarity itself, a window we’ve
no sooner looked through than we’ve abandoned it for what
lies past that: a view, and then what comes

into view, or might,

if we watch patiently enough, steadily–so we believe, wishing
for what, by now, even we can’t put a name to, but feel certain
we’ll recognize, having done so before. It olled, didn’t it,
just like harmlessness. A small wind. Some light on water.


nov 29/RUN

2.55 miles
2 trails
20 degrees / feels like 9

Today I hit my yearly goal of 1000 miles! It was cold, but not too cold. No frozen fingers or numb toes. I ran at 2:30 in the long, afternoon light. Wow — I love the light at this time in the season and the day. Why? Longer shadows, a feeling of everything slowing down, settling in, preparing to rest. I stayed up above as I ran south, then turned down to the entrance of the Winchell Trail on the way back north. The river was a wonderful purplish-blue and scaly from the wind. My legs felt sluggish, and my feet were sore on the uneven asphalt. I stopped briefly near the edge of the world to make note of the moment — the sun, lowering, purple-blue river, a steep slope, water falling from the sewer pipe. Not a slow drip, but a shimmering shower. Yes — I thought about a section of my poem and how my description of water as dripping from the pipe wasn’t the only way to describe it. Often, it’s more than drips.

10 Things

  1. a graceful roller skier. I don’t remember hearing their poles, just watching the way the relaxed and flowing rhythm of their arms and legs
  2. the river through the trees at the Horace Cleveland Overlook — purple, slight agitated from wind
  3. encountering a walker climbing the hill near Winchell, bundled up in a winter coat with his hood up
  4. my shadow — so tall! — in front of me, once she left the path and went into the woods
  5. the top railing of one section of iron fence which should be straight was curved in — what caused that to happen?
  6. the jingle-jangle of a dog collar somewhere
  7. dry leaves rustling in the brush beyond the trail
  8. the smell of smoke at the usual spot on edmund
  9. a tall person in a coat swinging up against the iron fence near the 38th street stairs
  10. someone on a hoverboard or a strange skateboard with a bright light on the front, moving fast along the trail — I thought skateboard because they seemed to moving like a skateboard across the path in gentle arcs

An Entrance/ Malena Mörling

For Max

If you want to give thanks
but this time not to the labyrinth
of cause and effect-
Give thanks to the plain sweetness of a day
when it’s as if everywhere you turn
there is an entrance-
When it’s as if even the air is a door-

And your child is a door
afloat on invisible hinges.
“The world is a house,” he says,
over lunch as if to give you a clue-
And before the words dissolve
above his plate of eggs and rice
you suddenly see how we are in it-
How everywhere the air
is holding hands with the air-
How everyone is connected
to everyone else by breathing.

The air as a door, breathing as a way we are connected.

nov 28/RUN

3.1 miles
locks and dam no. 1
23 degrees / snow flurries

A 5k run with Scott in the snow! Flurries collecting on the edge of path and in the cracks of the asphalt. Flurries in the air making my already pixelated view — due to dead cone cells — even more pixelated. Strange, dreamy, disconnected. It was cold, but not too cold. I was overdressed: double gloves, double tights, a buff, a hood, a cap. Before the end of the first mile I was losing layers: 1 pair of gloves, then a hood.

We talked about last year’s marathon, and doing it again next year, and how it wasn’t as cold as we thought it would be. I mentioned that one of my favorite views is blocked because of too many branches. Scott liked how I described it, thick with thin branches.

10 Things

  1. brown leaves on the edge of the path, mixing with the snow
  2. a white-gray sky
  3. the flurries with big and clumpy, one flew in Scott’s throat and he freaked out a little
  4. the ravine below the double bridge was open and brown and bare
  5. a steady stream of cars, distanced from each other, flowing south on the river road
  6. all the benches were empty
  7. as we ran on edmund, a car behind us gently revved to alert us to their presence
  8. bright green leaves on a tree near the savanna
  9. a biker biking by in bright yellow shoes
  10. after the run, FWA driving us, we counted 6 wild turkeys crossing the road

That was hard to come up with 10 things today!

1

In January of 2024, I devoted a month to windows. This morning, on poets.org, I found this beautiful window poem, Wooden Window Frames / Luci Tapahonso. Here are the opening lines:

The morning sun streams through the little kitchen’s  
wooden panes; its luminescence tempts me to forego coffee.  
But I don’t. The dark coffee scent melds with the birds’ 
chirping along the hidden acacia. Then, a small bird 
alights on the cross of the wooden clothesline.  
Its tiny head turns from side to side, then as if sensing me,  
it gazes at me through a window square.  
We ponder each other, then remember our manners,  
and it flies off into the clean, cold air. 

2

My Faith Unfolds Itself/ Alafia Nicole Sessions

after Faith Ringgold’s exhibit, “Black is beautiful,” at the Picasso Museum, Paris, 2023

like a ribbonless plait:            
the rain outside descends in strands:
percussive opera for the sheltered:            

petrichor of hominy and green:
grief everywhere, all at once : and then
            the sun : reminds me I’m not new:

they are my dowry : the gone ones
            and their light : refracted through
the body’s fluids : o rivers : how to

            marry threads of water with faith:
predates language : but the word was
            the beginning : have we come this far by fate:

roots fracture, forget, then return : curse
            the pattern of rupture then mend : not unlike
the making of a quilt, or muscle : broth born

            of fire and water : fists full of ephemerals:
blood-honey : water always finds her way:
            I plump and soften : like soaked grain.

nov 23/RUN

3.1 miles
trestle turn around
36 degrees

Another wonderful almost winter morning! Sunny, hardly any wind, clear paths. In January, a day like this would feel tropical and offer hope for a coming spring. Ran with Scott to the trestle and back. We talked about the Love Supreme arrangement he’s doing for the jazz combo he’s in and how he’s learning a lot about the form of its 4 movements. I talked about my “And” poem and wondered if there was a 3 syllable word that might convey sudden understanding. Scott answered, Eureka! Nice, but not quite the right feel for my poem. I could use clarity, but I don’t want to — clarity is more the mood of the moment that the reader feels without it being spelled out for them, I think.

A mile later, Scott described how you code and in css (where and means both this and that must exist to make a statement true) and how you code or (where or means either this or that can exist to make a statement true). I was fascinated by how and was restrictive and narrowing in the code while or was expansive. In my poem, I’m understanding and as generous and open and allowing for more possibilities not less. I told Scott that I might need to write an or poem now. And is accumulation, more layers while or is a stripping down.

And = all these things can be true, and more
Or = at any give time, any one of these things could be true

Am I getting too far into theory here, trying to be too clever?

Speaking of or in poetry, here’s a great or poem I just found:

Or / Thomas Sayer Ellis

Or Oreo, or
worse. Or ordinary.
Or your choice
of category

        or   
        Color

or any color
other than Colored
or Colored Only.
Or “Of Color”

        or   
        Other

or theory or discourse
or oral territory.
Oregon or Georgia
or Florida Zora

        or
        Opportunity

or born poor
or Corporate. Or Moor.
Or a Noir Orpheus
or Senghor

        or   
        Diaspora

or a horrendous
and tore-up journey.
Or performance. Or allegory’s armor
of ignorant comfort

        or
        Worship

or reform or a sore chorus.
Or Electoral Corruption
or important ports
of Yoruba or worry

        or
        Neighbor

or fear of . . .
of terror or border.
Or all organized
minorities.

And here’s what Robyn Creswell writes about the poem:

There is no doubt that Thomas Sayers Ellis’s “Or,” is a poem, but it is one of the few that feels to me like a rap—an especially good one. This is because of the way it establishes a pattern and then continually breaks away from it. The poem is based on the repetition of or, but as we read through it, what seemed like a formal constraint becomes a principle of transformation, a hinge that keeps flexing. The poem begins, as I read it, by riffing on the either/or logic of identity questionnaires (“You could get with this, or you could get with that,” as Black Sheep once put it, in a different context). But it quickly ramifies into geography, history, poetics.

Thomas Sayer Ellis’ “Or,”/ Robin Creswell

10 Things

  1. Hi Dave! How ya doing? / Well, I’m out here . . . is Dave sick too? (I’m congested but tested negative for covid twice)
  2. a runner in shorts with bare legs
  3. for a few blocks, at the start of the run, the only wind was the wind we made with our moving bodies
  4. June’s white bike hanging from the trestle
  5. bare branches mixed with bright green leaves
  6. a table with an orange water jug set up on top of it — is this for a group run (I didn’t see any group), or for anyone running by?
  7. the long, jagged crack on the new asphalt just past the trestle seems to be growing longer
  8. a trace of smoke smelled on the way to the gorge — from a fire pit or a chimney?
  9. our faint shadows briefly ahead of us
  10. stopping at the bench right above the steep slope — like I did the other day, Scott wondered how long before it fell into the gorge

nov 22/RUN

5.5 miles
franklin hill turn around
34 degrees

Perfect running weather. Cold, but not too cold, calm, overcast. Clear paths, a dreamy, detached feeling. As I ran, I thought of a goal for this winter: continue working on running with a slower heart rate. I started this during the summer/fall with marathon training, and I think it helped me avoid injuries. This winter I’m thinking I should target 155-160. I wonder what fun experiments I can do while trying to keep my heart rate low?

10 Things

  1. as I ran, I gave attention to my arms — when my form was good, I felt like my arms were blades scissoring the air
  2. the river was half bronze, half pewter
  3. 2 walkers who were not together were both 
    wearing bright RED jackets
  4. 3 stones were stacked on the boulder — the one on top was barely balanced
  5. the yellow leaves were thick on the part of the path that descends into the tunnel of trees
  6. a roller skier bombing down the hill
  7. a noisy squirrel rooting through the dry brush
  8. the slabs of stone stacked under the franklin bridge always look like a person to me — they did again today, looking like a sitting person as I passed them on my way down, just stones on my way back up — I imagined someone playing a trick on me, first sitting there, but then after I passed, putting the stones down
  9. some regulars I haven’t named yet, but that I’ve encountered for years: 3 older white men, walking, stretched across the whole walking path — is it the same guys every time, or different ones, all of them man spreading? That’s what I could call them: the man spreaders
  10. rotting sewer smell in the tunnel of trees, close to where the city is doing some work

More work this morning (and afternoon), on my “And” poem. So far, I’ve written about the formation of the gorge (wanting to be somewhere else) and the designing of the Mississippi River Gorge park (to protect from overdevelopment and sell the gorge as a symbol of the water city). Now I’m getting into my love of the view, which is about what I see — softened, elemental forms, like tree line or water or white sand beach — but also what I feel — open, a veil lifted, a little clarity, freer and more able to breathe and move, to the other side (which stands in for many things, including St. Paul where my mom lived until she was 18, the place where people who died dwell, the normal-sighted and real world that I feel distanced from. I think the view is also about how standing above the gorge enables me to witness how it holds all of these things together, that it doesn’t divide but connects. There is not a gap between girl and world, but a space that can hold them together, along with water and stone, mothers and daughters, hear and there, now and then. These are all references to past sections of the poem.

nov 21/RUN

4.15 miles
minnehaha falls and back
37 degrees
wind: 30 mph gusts

Windy and colder. I wore my full winter uniform: black running tights, long-sleeved green shirt, purple jacket, black fleece-lined cap, black gloves, buff. I overdressed — or did I? I can’t decide. It snowed yesterday, but by the time I went out for my run (noon), it had all melted. All that was left were a few puddles.

10 Things

  1. at first I thought the river was blue, but then I decided it was pewter
  2. gushing falls
  3. (almost?) empty park
  4. dark rocks sticking out of the creek — why don’t I remember seeing them before?
  5. the hollow sounding recording of bells from the light rail train across the road
  6. all of the walkers were bundled up like it was winter, which it almost is — winter coats, hats, scarves
  7. a red car in the parking lot, loud talking — a phone call? — coming out of the rolled up windows
  8. a faint smell of smoke from a fire in the gorge
  9. the sound of kids playing on the school playground — a soft din of laughing, talking, shrieking
  10. the stretch of brown wooden fence between folwell and 38th is in rough shape. Today I noticed one section with a broken slat and leaning out into the open air

nov 16/RUN

3.1 miles
trestle turn around
52 degrees
wind gusts: 36 mph

Ran with Scott in the afternoon. Windy but warm. Wore shorts and a sweatshirt that I took off a mile in. Sunny. We talked about progressive things: insurance (Scott), glasses and degenerative diseases like progressive cone dystrophy (me).

10 Things

  1. still a few YELLOW leaves clinging to the trees
  2. a beautiful almost purple blue river
  3. soft brown trunks
  4. a whining leaf blower, disrupting everyone — runners, walkers, roller skiers, squirrels
  5. a twin mattress with a ripped cover next to a trash can
  6. another runner in dark tights (purple?) with a green shirt
  7. in the tunnel of trees the path was covered with leaves
  8. adjusting my cap, worried the wind would knock it off
  9. a navy blue glove propped on a branch
  10. the water-logged black stocking cap still on the post above the steps

I’m working on a section of my Haunts poem that plays with the idea of progress and challenges the belief that progress is always better and that our lives move in strictly linear ways. I’ve written about progress before, on 7 feb 2022.

nov 13/RUN

5.85 miles
ford loop
42 degrees / humidity: 78%

November! A day for singing a song of gray. A pale, sunless sky, some wind, lots of bare branches. The tree outside my window and a few others by the gorge were YELLOW! Greeted Dave, the Daily Walker — hey Dave! Almost tripped on a few rocks on the dirt path next to the trail on the east side. Admired the waves from the bridges: from ford, little scales and from lake, a slight current down the center — from a sandbar? Heard a chickadee — chick a dee dee dee dee — and the constant grumbling of the city beneath everything.

Thought about different time scales and how time works for me while I’m running — encountering memories of past Saras, echoing their movements. Imagining the gorge before Cleveland created the Grand Rounds, before Longfellow was a neighborhood, before the gorge was a gorge. Having no idea how much time had passed — never hearing the bells of St. Thomas or looking at my watch. Having no memory of small stretches of the trail — being lost in a thought or the motion or my effort.

10 Things

  1. the fast slapping of a runner’s feet passing me from behind
  2. the clear open view from a bluff on the east side of the river, looking over to the west side
  3. 3 stacked stones on the boulder
  4. a black stocking cap placed on the top of a pole beside the trail
  5. the frantic bark of a dog, bothered by a nearby leaf blower
  6. the barricades blocking the sidewalk in front of Governor Walz’ house
  7. the ravine near Shadow Falls, mostly yellow from leaves on trees and the ground
  8. voices from below, near Longfellow flats beach
  9. a sour sewer smell near the Monument
  10. a man call out a command — drop it! — to his dog near the south entrance of the winchell trail

While looking for something else, I came across this beautiful poem by Minnesota’s first indigenous poet laureate, Dr. Gwen Westerman:

Breathe Deep and Sing/ Gwen Westerman

We sing for the mussels,

we, the otters and beavers, the frogs and dragonflies,

the waterbirds and songbirds, the coyotes too.

We breathe deep, and sing for the mussels

who are the lungs of the Mississippi River.

Our river—polluted by

sewage and wastewater,

dredged and dammed,

pockmarked by dead zones

of chemicals and dyes,

banked by the edge

of destruction.

Our river—

A global super-flyway,

it flows through the heart of us,

flowed through the heart of us

for centuries, beyond centuries,

beyond memory.

Through wetlands and backwaters,

communities and economies,

plagued by invasive species,

invasive humans—

environmental degradation

that flowed through the heart of us.

Our river—

It calls to us, it beckons us,

our dreams flow along with it.

So, we sing for the mussels,

we, the otters and beavers, the frogs and dragonflies,

the waterbirds and songbirds, the coyotes too.

We breathe deep and sing for the mussels

who are the silent sentinels of our river.

They hold the stories and the pain of

our river—40, 70, 200 years ago.

Like the trees above them

along the banks of

our river, the rings of the mussels’ shells

are a living record of our environment

and of our river.

They mark the resilience,

the struggles, the restoration

of floodplains and river bottoms,

the restoration of health and hearts.

How do we heal our river

without healing ourselves?

Our river—

It calls to us, it beckons us,

our dreams flow along with it.

Its water shapes us, embraces us,

and is our first medicine.

So, we sing for the mussels,

we, the otters and beavers, the frogs and dragonflies,

the waterbirds and songbirds, the coyotes too.

Breathe deep and sing with us for the mussels.

nov 11/RUN

5.45 miles
franklin hill turn around
38 degrees
wind: 13 mph / gusts: 27 mph

Sunny, windy, cooler. Wore one of my mild winter combinations: running tights, shorts, long-sleeved shirt, sweatshirt, vest, gloves, headband that covers my ears. I overdressed. Had to take off the sweatshirt near the top of Franklin. A good run. I’m running 30 seconds faster per mile and feeling stronger in the cooler weather than I did when it was warmer.

Yesterday, I woke up feeling not quite right. I slept a lot during the day. Almost a sore throat. Took a covid test: negative. Still feel a little off today. Is it a cold? Should I cancel my annual check-up that’s scheduled for tomorrow?

I deactivated my twitter account and haven’t checked the news since the election. Mostly I’m not thinking about what is coming, and instead focusing on writing, trying to help my kids with their struggles, and living (temporarily?) in the world I’ve built through my practice.

10 Things

  1. the surface of the river was burning white through the bare trees
  2. forest branches creaking and moaning in the wind
  3. one or two trees in the floodplain forest still green
  4. bright pink bubble-letter graffiti under the 1-94 bridge
  5. 4 stones stacked on the ancient boulder
  6. Daddy Long Legs walking with someone today — I think every other time I’ve seen him, he’s been alone
  7. a pale blue sky with one or two puffs of cloud
  8. a biker slowing climbing the franklin hill on the road, a car following behind impatiently then hastily passing him
  9. an empty bench facing an open view — so much air and sun and softness
  10. walking up the hill close to the trees on the slope, I noticed a blanket spread out, hidden in the grass — was someone sleeping in it?

For the first half of the run, I listened to the gorge and my feet and the wind. For the second half, I put in my “It’s Windy” playlist.

nov 9/RUN

5.25 miles
bottom of franklin hill and back
47 degrees

A great November morning. Most of the trees bare, almost everything light brown and steel blue. A few yellow leaves still on the trees. I felt relaxed and was able to run without stopping — until I needed the port-a-potty. Found a freshly cleaned one at the bottom of the hill, then ran back up it all the way without stopping. For the last 2 miles I felt strong and resilient and ready to resist.

10 Things

  1. roller skiers — at least 3 of them, not together. All of them looked graceful and strong and ready for it to snow
  2. the awkward slapping of oars on the water from a rowing shell far below
  3. the bells of St. Thomas ringing briefly
  4. more awkward slaps from oars, this time from a shell with 3 people. I heard them when I was at the bottom of the hill and watched as they angled across the river. One of them had on a bright yellow — or was it orange? — shirt
  5. a man sitting on a bench, his back to the gorge, reading a book
  6. faint voices getting louder — was it runners or bikers? both
  7. the floodplain forest is open — no more leaves — I glanced down the steep slope to the forest floor
  8. a runner on the other side of the road in black shorts and white tights
  9. 4 stones stacked on the ancient boulder
  10. a walker bundled up in a coat with a scarf

I had a thought about my Haunts project near the start of my run. I’m writing a lot about looping and orbiting, but I haven’t written about pacing back and forth — all of my out and back or turn around runs, when I cover the same ground twice, and stay on one side of the river. I’m thinking about the difference between restless pacing and cycles/loops/orbits.

I didn’t see any eagles or hear any geese. No regulars or fat tires or music blasting from car or bike speakers. No one singing or doing something ridiculous. Only one honking car horn. No chainsaws or sirens or leaf blowers.

Today I checked out Carl Phillips’ poetry collection, which won the Pulitzer Prize, Then the War. Here’s an early favorite of mine:

The Enchanted Bluff/ Carl Phillips

You can see here, though the marks
are faint, how the river must once have coincided
with love’s most eastern boundary. But it’s years now
since the river shifted, as if done with the same
view both over and over
and never twice, which
is to say done at last with conundrum, when it’s
just a river—here’s a river . . . Why not say so,
why this need to name things based on what
they remind us of—cattail and broom, skunk
cabbage—or on what

we wished for: heal-all;
forget-me-not. Despite her dyed-too-black hair
wildly haloing her soulders, not a witch, caftanned
in turquoise, gold, turning men into better men,
into men with feelings—instead, just my mother,
already gone crazy a bit, watching the yard fill
with the feral cats
that she fed each night.
Who says you can’t die from regret being all
you can think about? What’s it matter, now, if she
learned the hard way the difference finally between
freedom and merely
setting a life free? As much
as I can, anyway, I try to keep regret far from me,

though like any song built to last, there’s a
rhythm to it that, once recognized, can be hard
to shake: one of by fear, with its double flower—
panic, ambition; two if by what’s the worst thing
you’ve ever done?

I love these lines:

But it’s years now
since the river shifted, as if done with the same
view both over and over
and never twice, which
is to say done at last with conundrum, when it’s
just a river—here’s a river . . .

I’d like to use, as if done with the same/view both over and over/and never twice.

I want to fit it into my 3/2 form and use it my Haunts section about looping and doubling back. Maybe something like this:

Occasionally
the girl does not run
on the rim, changes
her route, as if done
with the same view, both
over and over and
never twice.

nov 7/RUN

3.1 miles
trestle turn around
48 degrees

Ran with Scott around 3:30. Love that late afternoon fall light! Soft, with long shadows. Do I remember anything else?

10 Things

  1. lots of leaves on the path
  2. a woman bundled up with a winter cap and scarf
  3. a cute dog — small and brown
  4. the pungent smell of poop as I walked by a woman picking up after her dog
  5. feeling cold as the wind pushed up under my sleeves
  6. no stones stacked on the boulder
  7. the long, lean shadow of a tall tree cast on the road
  8. a quick glance down the wooden steps just past the trestle: bare branches
  9. pale yellow leaves on a tree near the lake street bridge
  10. a big crack and deep hole on the edge of the river road — that’ll pop a tire! (Scott)

And here’s part of a November poem I found in some notes for Haunts. It’s by A.R. Ammons, one my favorite poets:

Configuration/ A.R. Ammons

1

when November stripped
the shrub,
what stood
out
in revealed space was
a nest
hung
in essential limbs

2

how harmless truth is in cold weather to an empty nest

3

dry
leaves
in
the
bowl,
like wings

4

summer turned light into darkness and inside the shadeful shrub the secret worked itself to life

icicles and waterpanes:
recognitions:

at the bottom, knowledges and desertions

5

speech comes out,
a bleached form,
nest-like:

after the events of silence the flying away of silence into speech—

6

    the nest is held
    off-earth

by sticks;

so, intelligence stays out of the ground

erect on a
brittle walk of bones:

otherwise the sea, empty of separations

7

leaves
like wings
in the Nov
ember nest:

wonder where the birds are now that were here:
wonder if the hawks missed them:
wonder if
dry wings
lie abandoned,
bodiless
this
November:

leaves— out of so many
a nestful missed the ground

nov 5/RUN

2 miles
edmund south/river road, north
45 degrees / drizzle

Election day. Read an accurate description of how today feels: like we all are waiting for the results from a biopsy. I’m hopeful.

Did a quick 2 miles with Scott before the rain started. Throughout we felt drizzle but it wasn’t until we reached our alley that it began to rain. Everything gray and heavy. Most of the leaves on the trees have fallen — except for the one in front of our house — full and green. We talked about a color video that Scott had just watched. Texture and wine dark seas and having no names for blue but many for green were discussed.

My favorite view: bare trees means more open air and the other side visible! I admired the tree line on the east side of the river. It gave off the feeling of being a straight line stretching across. Of course, nothing is completely straight for me; it’s all approximation.

10 Things

  1. a cluster of headlights — stuck behind a slow-moving street sweeper
  2. a thick trunk pushing through the bottom of the fence above the ravine
  3. running past Dowling, hearing faint laughter from kids somewhere
  4. the water was a blueish-gray, the sky almost all white with gray smudges
  5. stopping at the overlook, noticing how uneven and slanted the paving blocks have become
  6. a house on the corner, all black or dark green or dark something, no contrasting trim, difficult for me to see anything but a hulking shape or a dark void, absent of color
  7. running past a water fountain and wondering if it was still turned on
  8. the welcoming oaks have lost all of their leaves
  9. passing above the savanna, seeing something white below — was it a hiker in a white shirt or the information sign?
  10. something remembered from yesterday: the sound of chainsaws in the savanna

Working on a section of my haunts poem tentatively titled, And. It’s inspired by a line from the first section: a gap grew/between girl and world. I realized that the and here is the gorge, and it’s more than a gap; it’s the place that be/holds girl ghost here there now then water stone. It’s also the absence around which I orbit. It’s not empty but filled with open air and possibility. Anyway, I was reminded of a Community clip from Troy and Abed:

Here I’m reading Troy’s and as making more space for the story Abed is telling. I love how Donald Glover delivers the ands.

I’m also thinking about this bit from a wonderful Maggie Smith poem:

If I list everything I love

about the world, and if the list
is long and heavy enough,

I can lift it over and over—
repetitions, they’re called, reps—

to keep my heart on, to keep
the dirt off. Let’s begin

with bees, and the hum,
and the honey singing

on my tongue, and the child
sleeping at last, and, and, and—

nov 4/RUN

5.75 miles
franklin loop
59 degrees / mist and drizzle

Wow, wow, wow! What a cool (vibe, not temp) morning beside the gorge. Everything damp and dripping, bright orange leaves, mist. I first noticed the mist in the floodplain forest, then on the river. Looking to the north while crossing the franklin bridge, the river disappeared into it. I greeted Daddy Long Legs — good morning! Saw a rowing shell on the river, gliding. From high above I couldn’t hear their awkward oars slapping the water. Noticed the reflections of trees in the water near the east shore.

10 Things

  1. drips of water tinkling from the trees — or was it wind moving through leaves?
  2. leaves + puddles = muck: yuck!
  3. the bright white boat glowing on the dark river
  4. a broken slat on a freshly painted fence
  5. a group of glowing orange trees near the base of the bridge
  6. walkers with raincoats, their hoods up
  7. no stones stacked on the big boulder
  8. a dirt trail leading down near meeker dam, just past a wrought-iron fence
  9. a sandbar just below the surface, under the lake street bridge overlook
  10. white sands beach, glowing through the bare trees on the other side of the river

As I ran, I was thinking about water and stone and how I feel like both. Water, flowing and carving out new possibilities, and stone, slowly being worn down, transformed, losing layers. I also thought about air and its relationship to water and stone. Octavio Paz has a wonderful poem, Wind, Water, Stone. I also kept returning to the idea of erosion.

Reading through past entries tagged with “water and stone,” I found this bit from march 13, 2024. Some of the same thoughts I was having this morning! Such loops and repeated cycles of thoughts!

restless water satisfied stone erosion movement 

not 1 or 2 but 3 things: water and stone and their interactions
erosion, making something new — gorge

Then: Water as a poet / stubborn Stone yields, refuses, resists
water = poet / stone = words/language
erosion = absence, silence, making Nothing
me = eroding eyes / stone being shaped / a form of water shaping stone

I wear down the stone with my regular loops

Add a variation of this line, originally in my mood ring, Relentless, somewhere:

I am both limestone and water. As I dissolve my slow steady flow carves out a new geography.

In other rock-related news, FWA is planning to play the epically awesome bass clarinet Concerto for a Aria competition this spring. It’s called Prometheus and the four short-ish movements are based on Kafka’s short story about the myth:

There are four legends concerning Prometheus:

According to the first, he was clamped to a rock in the Caucasus for betraying the secrets of the gods to men, and the gods sent eagles to feed on his liver, which was perpetually renewed. According to the second, Prometheus, goaded by the pain of the tearing beaks, pressed himself deeper and deeper into the rock until he became one with it. According to the third, his treachery was forgotten in the course of thousands of years, the gods forgotten, the eagles, he himself forgotten. According to the fourth, every one grew weary of the meaningless affair. The gods grew weary, the eagles grew weary, the wound closed wearily. There remained the inexplicable mass of rock.—The legend tried to explain the inexplicable. As it came out of a substratum of truth it had in turn to end in the inexplicable.

Prometheus / Franz Kafka

What to make of that inexplicable rock?!

nov 2/RUN

6.1 miles
hidden falls loop
54 degrees

Sunny and warm! Ran in the afternoon in shorts and a short-sleeved shirt. What a view! Running over the ford bridge, I enjoyed looking at the river — almost flat, dark blue, small ripples that made me think, and not for the first time, of fish scales. There wasn’t much wind, just enough to create the fish scale effect. The bluff on the way to hidden falls was open and broad and beautiful — so much air! so far above the valley floor! Near hidden falls I heard some kids’ voices below.

10 Things

  1. running past the new skateboarding park, seeing a group of people skating, hearing some funky music playing from somewhere — a phone?
  2. 2 skateboarders attempting to do tricks on the path
  3. a runner ahead of me in a bright yellowish-green shirt
  4. a fat tire! biking on the bridge
  5. running through wabun, hearing chain links rattle from a frisbee on the frisbee golf course
  6. yesterday I mentioned the stinky mulch on the side of path had been removed — nope, still there, still stinky
  7. my shadow beside me, faint in the afternoon light
  8. a small tree with bright orange leaves
  9. looking far down at the ground, noticing the all the rocks around the bridge
  10. something in a tree that looked like a big owl to me but must have been a balloon or a bag or a dark sweatshirt

nov 1/RUN

5.6 miles
ford loop
40 degrees

I overdressed this morning in a long-sleeved shirt, sweatshirt, tights and gloves. The sun was warmer than I thought. Most of the leaves are off the trees and on the ground. The ravine near Shadow Falls was a beautiful rusty red. The thin creek running through it shimmered in spots.

It helped to get outside and be beside the gorge. It’s an exhausting time. Both of my kids are supposed to be in college this semester, neither of them are. They are each working on their mental health. It’s hard to see them suffer. On top of that, the impending election is terrifying. While I ran, I forgot about all of this.

10 Things

  1. the bells of St. Thomas tolling twelve times as I crested the Summit hill
  2. 2 small bowls on a neighbor’s front steps, filled with full-sized reese’s peanut butter cups
  3. a man walking a dog listening to talk radio without headphones — I couldn’t tell if it was about politics or sports
  4. water falling softly from shadow falls
  5. the river from lake street bridge: gray, rippled, a shimmering line of light near the east shore
  6. a graffitied port-a-potty with the door very slightly ajar — was it open, or was the door unable to fully close?
  7. the trees on the west side of the river near locks and dam no. 1 were bare and a fuzzy brown
  8. the sudden start of sirens close by — a fire truck coming up the hill from the locks
  9. the stinky mulch that had been piled on the edge of the path was gone
  10. an opening on the bluff — what a view of the river and the other side!

Yes, That’s When/ Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer

I like my body when I’m in the woods
and I forget my body. I forget that arms,
that legs, that nose. I forget that waist,

that nerve, that skin. And I aspen. I mountain.
I river. I stone. I leaf. I path. I flower.
I like when I evergreen, current and berry.

I like when I mushroom, avalanche, cliff.
And everything is yes then, and everything
new: wild iris, duff, waterfall, dew.

oct 31/RUN

3.5 miles
trestle turn around
38 degrees / drips then drizzle then freezing rain

Happy Halloween. Snow later this morning. Wanted to get in a quick run before that happened. When I started it was only dripping but as I finished, freezing rain. Wore black running tights, a pink hooded jacket, a black winter vest, and black gloves. Running north I had the wind in my face. Running south, to my side. I enjoyed this run. Hardly anyone else out on the trail and cool temperatures. Winter running is coming!

Since I’m trying to finish an audio book that’s due in 2 days, I listened to it instead of the rain — except for in the last minutes of the run. I took out my headphones and heard water falling steadily.

10 Things

  1. the usual puddles on neighborhood sidewalks: just past the alley, a stretch on the next block, a big one covering entire slab on 46th
  2. bright headlights cutting through the trees on the other side of the ravine
  3. a few stones stacked on the big boulder
  4. under the lake street bridge: a red blanket stretched on the uneven limestone with a person under it, an empty wheelchair nearby
  5. a small stretch of the river road between lake street and the trestle was flooded. It almost was cresting the curb
  6. most cars slowed down for the flooding, but one didn’t — splash! — thankfully not on me
  7. only one other runner out there
  8. roaring wind
  9. light gray sky
  10. a steady, strong rhythm of striking feet

That wheelchair broke me open for the rest of the run.

Yesterday, Scott, RJP, and I voted early! Everyone at the polling place was happy and nice and excited to be voting. A great experience, even as it was difficult because of my failing vision. Before voting, we were required to fill out an absentee ballot form. Only the highlighted parts, the person who handed us the form instructed. The problem: I can’t see yellow, and that was the color of the highlighted text. RJP had to point out the sections. Scott was unsettled as he was reminded of how bad my vision is getting. At first, when I looked at the ballot, I couldn’t quite make sense of it, but after a moment, slowly, I could read the different categories and names. I thought I was filling in the entire bubble (Harris/Walz, OF COURSE!), but when I double- then triple-checked it, I had only filled in half of it. Another few times, and I finally filled it all in.

water section of haunts

Wrote this bit about the hidden cut-off wall in downtown Minneapolis that was put in place in 1876 and still holds the river back from breaking through the last bed of limestone:

A century and
a half later, the
concrete, hidden deep*,
still stands and the river,
ever restless*, has
not stopped trying to
move past it. Water
will flow where water
wants to go, under
over through. Near the
gorge the girl beholds
its quiet refusal
to be contained.

*should I cut these extra bits?

I thought about the idea of water going where it wants to go as I ran through the rain, navigating the streams and puddles.

oct 29/RUN

3.1 miles
locks and dam no. 1 and back
61 degrees / humidity: 80%

High today of 78. Tomorrow 72. Halloween 49. As Scott says, It’s always cold on Halloween. I felt overheated during the run. Face burning and dripping sweat. I had been planning to do a 10k — the Hidden Falls loop — but it felt too warm. Maybe on Thursday. I wore black shorts and a darkish blue short-sleeved shirt. The same thing I wore for the marathon.

I listened to an audio book, The God of the Woods, so I was distracted as I ran. Can I remember 10 things?

10 Things

  1. an intense, sweet and sour and woody smell as I ran by a pile of wood chips at the edge of the trail
  2. tall piles of wet leaves at the end of the street, waiting for the city workers to return and scoop them up in their truck
  3. beep beep beep — a city truck backing up
  4. 3 or 4 stacked stones on the ancient boulder
  5. a group of bikers, all wearing bright yellow long-sleeved shirts
  6. crunch crunch crunch — my feet running through a blanket of leaves on one side of the trail
  7. a faint shadow on the sidewalk, cast from the light of a weak, cloud-covered sun
  8. someone sitting on a bench near the overlook, wearing dark clothing
  9. the water fountain near 36th appears to still be on — the st. paul ones are already turned off, when do they turn off the minneapolis ones?
  10. the clicking and clacking of a roller skier’s poles and the bright blue of their shirt — did I see this today or on my walk yesterday afternoon?

more on the water section of haunts

I’m still gathering ideas and resources for my water section. Here’s another one:

Though the river has always been dynamic, it looks very different than it did just a few centuries ago. In the past 175 years, people began making major engineering changes to the river in attempts to harness it for industry. Before we started building mills, dams and locks, the Mississippi here was a wild and free-flowing river.

Rather than the series of dammed reservoirs we have today, the river was a braided channel with at least a dozen islands between the falls and Bdóte, where the Minnesota River enters the Mississippi. The river had rocky rapids, gravel bars and beaches, fast and slow spots, deep and shallow spots and floodplains.

Meet our twin cities locks and dams

Possibly to put beside this, a line from a poem I revisited this morning:

And if the world has ceased to hear you,
say to the silent earth: I flow.
To the rushing water, speak: I am
(from Let this darkness be a bell tower/ Rainer Maria Rilke)

oct 27/RUN

6.25 miles
flats and back
45 degrees

I’ll take this weather every day. Sunny and cold enough to not overheat but not cold enough to feel cold. Wore shorts, a short-sleeved shirt, and a sweatshirt. Took the sweatshirt off at mile 3. Ran much faster and for longer without stopping than I have recently. Was greeted by Mr. Holiday near the beginning of the run — good morning! Heard some voices down below — rowers? hikers? My right kneecap shifted a few times as I ran. At first, I was worried and thought, usually that only happens when I walk, but then I remembered that in the fall my kneecap can move around some. Is it the colder weather?

I ran the first 5k without stopping, then walked a little before starting again. I turned on the metronome at 175 and listened to it as I ran up the hill. Then I switched to a Billie Eilish playlist. I was hoping that listening to the metronome would get me inside of the beat and open me up to noticing and feeling more, but I couldn’t quite get there. I could hear that I was in time with the steady click, but I couldn’t feel that moment when we were fully in sync, when the striking of my feet was the beat happening.

10 Things

  1. more leaves off the trees, more open air above the gorge to view — bright and looking almost hazy. Was that the air or just an effect of how bare and un-green the other side was?
  2. the bright, silvery reflection of the sun off a bike’s mirror — the bike was not moving, but was parked by a bench and 2 people
  3. fluttering leaves in front of me, showing me that the wind was at my back
  4. the leaves hovered in the air, one of them long enough for me to touch it
  5. a roller skier in all black
  6. another roller skier in a bright yellow long-sleeved shirt
  7. signs and port-a-potties left over from yesterday’s race
  8. the seep in the flats was seeping enough to have left a big wet spot on the road
  9. vision error: got too close to the edge of the trail and hit my face on a branch, then ran right over another pile of branches and almost tripped
  10. so many leaves on the path, covering holes and cracks and bumps — rolled my ankle on a bump that I couldn’t see

Before the run, I listened to a recording of a draft of a section of the poem I’m working on and had some good ideas for revisions. Very excited about how my Haunts poem is coming together!

oct 26/RUN

4.75 miles
minnehaha falls and back
36 degrees

Scott and I were supposed to run the Halloween Half this morning, but we both decided it was too much — for Scott it was his feet, for me my gastro-stuff. I was not interested in stopping at every port-a-potty along the route. Instead, I decided to go out for a much shorter run to the falls and back. Mostly I felt good, but halfway in, a growing need to go the bathroom. Boo. I hope I can figure out/fix this problem soon. Other than that, I enjoyed the run. Not too cold, clear, hardly any wind. A beautiful morning!

10 Things

  1. the tree 2 doors down from me, which was red a few years ago, is a bright yellow this year
  2. stretches of the sidewalk covered in leaves
  3. the falls were roaring and misting
  4. the tinny recording of bells coming from the light-rail train across Hiawatha
  5. the view! open air, bluffs on the other side
  6. rowers below — heard the coxswain’s voice
  7. only a few leaves fluttering to the ground
  8. empty benches
  9. the sound of plastic wheels — no chance to look, what was it? A crappy stroller? roller skates?
  10. the smell of pine needles

oct 24/RUN

3.1 miles
duluth lake front
55 degrees

Took a quick drip to Duluth with Scott and FWA. Lots of walking and talking and being by the lake. Great weather! Peak color. Wore shorts and a sweatshirt on our morning run. Ran north (I think?) by the lake, past Leif Erickson park. Lots of short, steep hills. Just before the turn around, I realized that we had had the wind at our backs. Uh-oh. The wind was in our face for the second half. which didn’t really matter because we were running mostly downhill. I said to Scott, can you imagine if the wind had been in our faces as we ran uphill?

The water was almost smooth with no waves. I could hear the rocks gently shivering when the water washed over them. Speaking of shivering, while we were shopping in a kitchen store, FWA and I both overheard an older woman exclaim, wow, it’s shivery in here. It was a little chilly, but shivery?

10 Things

  1. a tiny bird so small I thought it was a dragonfly — a hummingbird?
  2. cooing pigeons near the wall
  3. sparkling water — circles of light on the lake’s surface
  4. no clouds
  5. no big boats
  6. entire trees with orange leaves, a few bushes with slashes of red
  7. a machine across the way making a noise that reminded me of the sound the black monster in Lost made when it was hovering or hunting
  8. so many inviting benches on top of the hill, high above the water
  9. the constant buzz of the hospital helicopter, landing on the roof, then taking off again
  10. a little boy and his older sister on the path — come on, Whitley, it’s time to start our grand adventure!

oct 20/RUN

10.2 miles
downtown loop*
61 degrees / humidity: 70%

*river road trail, north — past the trestle, down franklin hill, in the flats, up the I-94 hill, past the Guthrie and Stone Arch, under Hennepin, over Plymouth, through Boom Island, up to the 3rd avenue Bridge, winding down to river road, heading south.

Warm this morning. Sun, sweat. Wore shorts and short-sleeved shirt. Ran with Scott; we’re running the Halloween Half next Saturday. My legs and lungs were fine, my gut not so much. Unfinished business at mile 6, then again at mile 9. Hopefully I can figure out a way to fix it soon. I remember that Scott talked a lot more than I did, but about what? Music — he subbed for a community jazz band and he’s hoping they ask him to join. I talked about shadows and afternoon moons and my admiration for fit runners and good form — so graceful and pleasing to watch!

We greeted Mr. Holiday — good morning! — and encountered a few roller skiers. We also encountered Vikings Fans between Stone Arch and Hennepin. Enjoying the nice weather before the game, I guess. I heard train bells and some biker calling out to the other bikers he was with: we’re going to whip down this hill. I sang to Scott, whip it good! The steps up from St. Anthony Main to the 3rd Avenue bridge were tough, but the view of downtown was amazing. I mentioned Spirit Island to Scott, which is the sacred Dakota Island that was quarried by white settler colonists, then removed by the Army Corps of Engineers, and we wondered where it had been exactly (south of the Locks and Dam).

Looking up where Spirit Island was in relation to Stone Arch and the 3rd avenue bridge, I found a brief article that mentioned how the island had bald eagles and spruce trees, In my poem, I say the trees are oaks — did I remember it wrong, or were there spruce and oaks? To be safe, I’ll change it in the poem:

Among eagled spruce,
rock by sacred rock
hauled off in horse-drawn
carts, few records of
where. Not gone, scattered,
displaced, their origin
as island erased.

11 Things

  1. the shadows of the railing on the Plymouth bridge — straight, sharp
  2. the bright, sparkling water at the edge of Boom Island
  3. the railing shadows at another spot on the bridge — the shadows they cast on the sidewalk made me think the sidewalk was broken
  4. the pattern of the shadows of a chain-link fence — sharp but soft, geometric
  5. 2 shirtless runners passing us, running past and fluidly, their feet bouncing up down up down, spending more time in the air than on the ground
  6. rowers, 1: the voice of a coxswain giving instructions
  7. rowers, 2: an 8-person shell on the river
  8. slashes of deep red leaves from the bushes beside the path
  9. the quick suggestion of an afternoon moon: a flash of white in the bright blue sky. Was it the moon or a cloud? I checked with Scott: the moon!
  10. a sour smell rising from below: sewer gas
  11. falling leaves! reds and yellows, fluttering in the wind — sharp, brittle, hitting my cap hard

Earlier this week, RJP and I took an overnight trip to Red Wing and stayed at the old/haunted hotel, the St. James. It was wonderful — the hotel more than the town. As part of it, we hiked up the bluff — He Mni Can-Barn Bluff. A great view of Red Wing and the river, and a good workout! 90 minutes of ascending and descending. We saw a Vikings cruise, 5 stories tall, docked at the river. RJP looked it up: an 18-day cruise from St. Paul to New Orleans, $12,000 per person. Wow. The next day, at a bakery getting doughnuts and coffee, we overheard a woman ask for a Trump cookie. Yes, they were selling cookies that spelled out Trump with icing. They also had Harris cookies. RJP said that there were more Harris cookies left. We were both disturbed by the idea that someone would want to buy a Trump cookie and that a bakery would be selling them.

oct 16/RUN

4 miles
minnehaha falls and back
39 degrees

Wonderful weather for running! Not too cold, but cold enough to not overheat. The color of the day: yellow. I’m sure there were orange and red leaves, but all I remember were the bright yellow ones. Another color I remember: glitter — on the water, among the fluttering leaves. Seeing the low water in the creek on Monday, I wondered if the falls would even be falling. They were, but no gushing or roaring.

10 Things

  1. laughing kids at Dowling Elementary
  2. the oak savanna is still mostly green
  3. a sidewalk covered in dry, yellowed pine needles
  4. a person taking a selfie with their dog by my favorite overlook at the falls
  5. the man who empties the parking kiosks — I’ve seen him several times before and wondered why he comes in a regular (unmarked) car and how many coins he collects
  6. the creek was higher than in past falls when bare rock was exposed
  7. instead of a rope blocking the steps down to the falls, which is easy to climb over, Minneapolis Parks has added a green metal gate
  8. the shadow of some leaves falling to the ground, looking like the shadows of birds
  9. those same falling leaves looking like brown snow
  10. the swinging shadow of my ponytail

pines and Basho

I ran over yellow pine needles covering the sidewalk at the start of my run and thought about Basho. So I looked up “basho pine” and found this line:

Learn about the pines from the pine, and about bamboo from the bamboo.
Don’t follow in the footsteps of the old poets, seek what they sought.

from Basho on Poetry

A poem I was working on yesterday (and submitted to a journal for consideration), starts this way:

It begins here: from
the ground up, feet first,
following.

The following I am referring to is not simple repetition, even as it literally is about following trails already made by past feet, but seeking what past feet sought: connection, contact, familiarity with the ground/land and how it has been shaped.

ghosts and zombies

My plan for this month was to focus on Zombies, but between a kid crisis, the marathon, and a poem that insisted on being reworked, I haven’t given much attention to them. Maybe two other reasons: I don’t really like zombies, and I’m still thinking about ghosts.

from Circle / Dana Knott 

human obits in the process
of being written
ghostly obits in the process
of being read

Here’s what I wrote on August 1, 2024 that got me thinking about zombies:

On Ghosts V. Zombies/ Suzanne Buffam

Soul without a body or body without a soul?
Like choosing between an empty lake
And the same empty lake. 

For the past few years, I’ve devoted a lot of attention to ghosts and haunts, but I’ve rarely thought about zombies. This poem is making me want to think about them now. So many directions to go with it — the relationship between the body and the soul or the body and the spirit or the body and the mind; how, because I can’t see people’s faces or make eye contact, they look soulless to me — I’m a ghost among zombies; Alice Oswald and the Homeric mind — our thoughts traveling outside of our bodies; Emily Dickinson and the soul that wanders; the fish in us escaping (Anne Sexton) or the bees released, returned to the hive/heaven (Eliot Weinberger). 

I clicked on the ED link and read my entry from march 19, 2024. There’s a lot of good stuff in it, including a reference to Homer, but not the poet, the cartoon character, Homer Simpson. It’s the clip where his brain escapes his body to avoid listening to Ned Flanders talking about the differences between apple juice and cider (if it’s clear and yella, you got juice there fella, if it’s tangy and brown, you’re in cider town). Wow.

taking it slow

Reading the “about this poem” for poets.org’s poem of the day, Dead Reckoning, I encountered this line:

This poem began as a long sequence but arrived at this stripped-down form after fifteen years of off-and-on revision.

Hyejung Kook

15 years of off-and-on revision! I’m only on year 3 of my Haunts revisions. I’m glad to know that other poets sit with some of their poems for a long time.

After finding this, I read an old entry from October 16, 2021, and found this:

“I am slow and need to think about things a long time, need to hold onto the trace on paper. Thinking is adventure. Does adventure need to be speedy? Perhaps revising is a way of refusing closure?…” 

Rosemarie Waldrop

This slow time reminds me of Lorine Niedecker and what she writes in a letter to her poet-mentor, Cid Corman, while working on her poem, “Lake Superior”:

Cid, no, I won’t be writing for awhile, and I need time, like an eon of limestone or gneiss, time like I used to have, with no thought of publishing. I’m very slow anyhow . . . . I’m going into a kind of retreat so far as time (going to be geologic time from now on!) is concerned . . . .

Lorine Niedecker

oct 10/RUN

5.1 miles
bottom of franklin hill
55 degrees

My first run after the marathon! I wasn’t sure how much I would do, but I felt good, so I ran to the bottom of franklin hill and back, and I did it without stopping to walk. I haven’t done that for several months. Almost perfect weather, calm and cool. Wore my bright orange sweatshirt and managed to take it off while running down the franklin hill. No roller skiers or rowers or Dave, the Daily Walker. But shadows and blue water and fluttering leaves.

As I ran, I chanted: I am flying/I am free/and I am where/ I want to be. I felt some soreness/tightness in my left hip, a slight pang in my right foot, but nothing in my knees.

I tried to think about my haunts poem and girls, ghosts, and gorges. I’m trying to put together a draft to submit for a journal that’s due on the 15th. Like in the past, I’m struggling — too many ideas and threads. I keep getting stuck and lost and in a rut of repetition. I started chanting, girl girl girl ghost ghost ghost gorge gorge gorge.

10 Things

  1. red leaves on bushes — or are they young trees? — at the edge of trail, a red that burned dark and deep and seemed to yell out, I am RED!
  2. yellow leaves, like lemon sugar
  3. orange leaves, with a hint of pink
  4. the occasional dead leaf fluttering down
  5. the sound, somewhere above, of a nut being cracked open
  6. most of the leaves are still green
  7. a stinky, sewer smell above the ravine, a faint sourness
  8. a man on a bench — I think it was Daddy Long Legs — calling out, hello!
  9. a quick glimpse of something sitting under the franklin bridge — was it a person, sleeping? No. On the way back up the hill, I could see it better: stacked limestone blocks
  10. 2 black garbage bags, full, beside the trash can near the lake street bridge — did they come from the gorge?

26 Marathon Things: r-z

river. Crossing the Franklin bridge near 2 other runners, I heard one of them look at the river — a blue ribbon sparkling in the sun — and say something like, this marathon is hard, but we get to see this! And I thought, yes! this is the beautiful river I get to run beside almost every day!

strong. During the last 10 miles of the race, I regrouped. It was still difficult, but I ran more than I thought I could. And every time I ran, I felt strong. Several of the spectators called to me, you’re looking so strong! you’ve got this. Once when I stopped for a walk break, a kind runner passed me, gently touched my back, and said, I’ve been watching you and you look so strong. You can do this! Keep going!

t-rex. At least twice, I saw someone dressed in a t-rex costume by the side of the road. The first time, Scott pointed them out to me, but the second time I saw them on my own. What’s the deal with t-rexes? (I asked Scott and he said the t-rex has been a thing for several years).

unreadable. It didn’t bother me, because I’m used to it, but with my bad vision I couldn’t read any of the fun or encouraging or strange signs that people were holding up. When Scott laughed at one, I asked what it said. Run bitch!

vikings. In past years, I’ve enjoyed watching football, but recently I’ve lost my love for it, especially for the Vikings who always seem to disappoint. Even so, this year they are undefeated, and hearing spectators calling out the score as we ran, 10 – 0, 20 – 0, or listening to the game while they cheered, was fun and distracting and felt very Minnesotan. Scott’s dad, a big vikings fan, would have loved the season so far if he were still alive. Maybe that’s one of the reasons I enjoyed hearing the score; it reminded me of his dad.

walz. At mile 20, you run by gov. walz’s house. I thought I heard someone cheering there and imagined how cool it would be if it were gov walz. I don’t think he was there when I passed by but later Scott told me that he had been outside cheering on runners.

eXhilarated. At the beginning of the race, during the first 2 miles, Scott was so excited. He talked about running this race again and how pumped up he was. I was happy to be there, but couldn’t match his enthusiasm. I was not exhilarated, I was waiting for the moment when it got very hard.

you can do hard things. So much support from spectators. Most of it straightforward encouragement, you’ve got this, you can do hard things, you’re amazing. Some of it slanted: you’re crazy! or look at you out here running and look at me enjoying my bagel! The one sign I could actually read just said, Why?

zephyr*. While the wind wasn’t gentle, it was blowing from the west. In the first mile, it almost blew my hat off. Then it was at our backs. Then I forgot about it until we reached the east side of Lake Nokomis where it was really blowing. A woman’s signs, stacked on a table, blew off and into the road. I briefly thought about stopping to help her then remembered I was racing and should probably keep going.

*I was struggling to come up with a z. Thankfully Scott thought up zephyr, which means west wind

oct 3/RUN

5 miles
bottom franklin hill and back
50 degrees / humidity: 75%

In 4 days, I’ll be running the marathon! Today’s run was mostly fine; my left hip was a little tight, but I think it will be okay. Otherwise I was relaxed. It was cool, but humid, so I sweat a lot. For several of the miles I chanted in triple berries: strawberry / blueberry / raspberry. For the last mile, I put on my metronome, set to 175, and synched up my feet. So cool! When I lock in with the center of the beat, I know it. I become the beat, or my feet become the sound of the beat. I feel a soft buzz throughout my legs that spreads to the back of my head. I am running without effort — not floating, but bouncing off the ground. I wasn’t locked in the whole time. Sometimes I was ahead of it or behind because I got distracted by another runner, but when I locked in again, bzzzzzzz. I might try putting on the metronome during a later mile of the marathon, if I need some focusing and motivation to keep going.

10 Things

  1. rowers! running north, the coxswain’s voice seemed to be following me
  2. music coming from a bike — I think it was a song by Regina Spektor, but I’m not sure — I almost called out, hey! are you listening to Regina Spektor? I love Regina Spektor
  3. greeted Mr. Holiday — good morning!
  4. more red leaves, some yellow
  5. someone in running shorts standing beside the porta potty. Were they waiting — to use it, for a friend?
  6. a line-up cars — maybe 10 — behind a car turning left onto 32nd
  7. a biker zooming by — fast! — with a kid in a trailer
  8. under the franklin bridge, looking up at an opening above — not for the first time, I thought someone might be staying up there, but I can’t see well, so I could be wrong, and could anyone climb up to it — it’s 15-20 feet up?
  9. running through the dark tunnel of trees, looking ahead and seeing an opening: bright, white, glowing
  10. no sun or shadows or geese or goldenrod or acorns

Today’s Zombie poem:

To Live in the Zombie Apocalypse/ Burlee Vang

The moon will shine for God
knows how long.
As if it still matters. As if someone
is trying to recall a dream.
Believe the brain is a cage of light
& rage. When it shuts off,
something else switches on.
There’s no better reason than now
to lock the doors, the windows.
Turn off the sprinklers
& porch light. Save the books
for fire. In darkness,
we learn to read
what moves along the horizon,
across the periphery of a gun scope—
the flicker of shadows,
the rustling of trash in the body
of cities long emptied.
Not a soul lives
in this house &
this house & this
house. Go on, stiffen
the heart, quicken
the blood. To live
in a world of flesh
& teeth, you must
learn to kill
what you love,
& love what can die.

I want to think more about how darkness and light work in this poem, and the last line about killing what you love and loving what can die.

oct 1/RUN

3.1 miles
2 trails + extra
51 degrees

Finally, fall weather! Wore my bright orange sweatshirt today, which was too warm during the last mile. Ran above on the paved trail heading south, below on the Winchell trail heading north. Sunny, breezy, cool, dreamy. Tree shadows. My left hip was a little sore, but otherwise I felt strong and relaxed. I chanted Emily Dickinson for part of the run: life is but life/ and death but death/ bliss is but bliss/ and breath but breath then life is life/death is death/bliss is bliss/breath is breath then life life life life/death death death death/bliss bliss bliss bliss/breath breath breath breath.

Thought about the marathon and how long it’s been since I ran on the winchell trail and FWA and My Neighbor Totoro, which Scott and I watched last night. Also thought about zombies, which is my theme for October. Mostly I thought about bodies without minds and feeling like you’re trapped in a body and soul-less, indifferent, relentless bodies.

10 Things

  1. heading down to the Horace Cleveland Overlook, I was blinded by a circle of light on the river — so bright! impossible to see anything else
  2. the sharp crack of a squirrel opening an acorn
  3. kids on the playground — laughing, yelling
  4. water trickling out of the sewer pipe at 44th
  5. a few more slashes of red, a golden feeling*
  6. the surface of the winchell trail is in terrible condition — cracked, slanted, cratered
  7. bikers on a bench, taking a snack break
  8. a woman on the narrow winchell trail with a dog, off to the side and facing me, talking on a phone I couldn’t see, saying something about walking after 60
  9. someone sitting on the bench in a blue shirt near the overlook
  10. big trees on the ground, cut into sections and stacked beside the trail

*For the past few weeks, I’ve been seeing trees turning yellow everywhere, but when I mention it to Scott he says that they look perfectly green to him, not yellow at all. Since my color vision is questionable, I’ll take his word for it. I’ve decided to believe that I’m seeing the yellow that is coming, or the slightest idea — the inkling — of yellow that has arrived but only as a feeling or the whisper, yellow. This morning, as I stood at the kitchen counter, about to make my coffee, I noticed the reflection of my neighbor’s tree on the granite countertop. Yellow! Wow, I said to myself out loud, has that tree turned when I wasn’t looking? I looked out the window and checked the real tree: a golden feeling, but nothing more.

Another gold/en thing: Admiring the sun spilling through the treetops, feeling the crisper air, W.S. Merwin’s line from “To the Light of August” popped into my head: Still the high, familiar, endless summer, yet with a glint of bronze in chill mornings. I thought, not bronze, but gold.

some marathon experiments

During and after my run, I had 2 ideas for things to try while running 26.2 miles. First: pick 26 poems I’ve memorized to recite in my head as I run. One for each mile. The problem with this idea is not memorizing all the poems. I’ve already done that. The problem is remembering which poems I picked and for which mile! I imagined attempting to write a list on my arm, which seemed ridiculous and too unruly.

Second: for each mile, notice things that begin with one particular letter. Do this in alphabetical order. So, mile 1 = a, mile 2 = b, etc. I could also make a list of as many words that start with that letter as possible. This experiment might be fun, but it could also get tedious.

In addition to these experiments, I’ve been thinking that I need a mantra and/or a few lines from favorite poems to chant in difficult moments or when I want to be distracted. Yes! I’ll have to make a list today. Of course, ED’s life/death/bliss/breath is on this list!

zombies!

Today is the first day of Zombie month! I’m excited to explore this topic, which I don’t know that much about. Since the marathon is this Sunday and I’m also thinking a lot about that, I’ll ease into zombies this week.

When I think of zombies, I think: relentless, indifferent, hungry, mindless, brainless bodies. And this makes me think of Jaws as a relentless killing machine. Here’s a great poem I found on poetryfoundation:

Jaws/ Emma Hine

I don’t realize I’m starved
for the color until the blood

washes up on the beach.
I’m craving red but still

haven’t seen the creature,
just the quick whip and slither

of its tail in the wake
—and then there I am,

facing the skin side
of the animatronic shark.

The slick apertures of its eyes.
The mythic teeth.

The anvil nose beating
the deck, cracking windows.

The shark, like the moon, is
pockmarked, unstoppable,

never showing its hidden side.
Surely space is just another underwater,

the messages we send from satellites
a bleeding haze of infrared:

This is my blood type,
this is where I keep my body at night,

and I tell no one about the times
my body, taking over,

stands waist-deep in the surf,
some wild need inside me

ticking into place.

The slick apertures of its eyes. Yes — Jaws’ eyes are the worst: huge, empty, black. Is much made of zombies’ eyes? Anything distinctive, or do they just look dead and empty?

sept 29/RUN

10 miles
downtown and back
57 degrees

The last long run before the marathon next Sunday. Just one more week and then I’ve made it to the start line! Not easy, but not hard either. My first time running this far into downtown — past the Stone Arch Bridge — in years. Already crowded at 9 am on a Sunday morning. Sunny, warm. Lots of sweat.

Listened to an audio book, The Marlow Murder Club, so I was distracted. Can I remember 10 things I noticed?

10 Things

  1. near the seep/spring in the flats, the road was all wet
  2. rowers! heard: coxswain’s voice
  3. some more red leaves higher in the trees
  4. the St. Thomas bells chiming at least 2 different times
  5. roller skiers: a pair + a few individual skiers
  6. running straight into the sun — difficult to see anything
  7. the soft sand on the dirt path near the Hennepin Bridge
  8. a single, brown leaf fluttering to the ground in front of me
  9. thin foam on the surface of the river
  10. blue, cloud-free sky

No music blasting from bikes, no Doppler effect, no sirens, no stinky trash or sewer smells, no geese, no darting squirrels, no turkeys, no Dave the Daily Walker. No chafing (my old running bra was scratchy me up — lots of small cuts and little scars, but no bleeding), no unfinished business, no bathroom or water stops. No thoughts, no lines of poetry popping into my head, no epiphanies, no problems solved. No yelling, no getting irritated, no sliding kneecaps. No goldenrod, no swarming gnats, nobody calling out encouragement. Just me and legs and lungs and hips and river.

sept 26/RUN

10k
flats and back
59 degrees

Warmer than I thought this morning. Lots of sweat. Sun. Shadows. Sparkling water. Ran past the road closed on Oct 6 (that’s for the marathon!) and smiled. Not long now. I felt fine. My big toe on my right foot stung a little. My right foot is a bit of a mess: an in-grown big toenail, a blackish-purplish second toe, another possible in-grown toenail on the fourth toe. I think it will all be fine — nothing’s infected and it doesn’t hurt that much.

10 Things

  1. a coxswain’s voice, calling out instructions
  2. a motorboat’s wake, leaving soft ripples on the surface of the river, moving upstream and contrasting with the motion of the water heading downstream
  3. ahead of me, under the 1-94 bridge, the river sparking silver
  4. water seeping out of the limestone below the U of M’s west bank, wanting to be a waterfall
  5. my shadow, running ahead of me: sharp and solid
  6. several of the benches were occupied — one person at each
  7. a few more red leaves — a bright, fiery red
  8. the rhythmic snap of a fast runner’s striking feet
  9. cracks in the asphalt just north of the trestle — they just patched these in late spring and the entire stretch was redone 2 or 3 years ago — in 10 years will you even able to run on this section, or will it have slid into the gorge?
  10. someone left the lid of the trashcan below the lake street bridge open — wow, it stinks!

Here’s a poem I read yesterday that I liked to add to my collection of shadow poems — I might also add it to my growing group of moment poems too:

On a Walk/ Heather Christle

My child is upset that they cannot jump over their shadow.
They want me to help them. They want me to teach them
how it’s done. The best I can do is an invitation

to jump over each other’s shadows instead. This satisfies them
for a moment and then the moment is gone. In sunlight
my shadow loves to give me a little dose of sorrow,

the beams having traveled so far only for the lump of me
to get between them and the ground. They came so close.
If I were the earth I would resent me too. My child

has gone into the next moment. I have to catch up. They say
they are riding a horse. They point and it drags them away.

I read this wonderful quote from Hanif Abdurraqib the other day in one of my favorite former grad student’s newsletter. It’s about the ekphrasis form and is helpful for thinking about my “How to See” project:

Many of us live in an ekphrasis mindset. We are often executing ekphrasis storytelling…creating a story based off of that witnessing. I don’t ever want to move beyond that desire to say, I saw something and I know that you were not there to see it. But I can build the world wherein you felt like you have witnessed it alongside me.

via rachael anne jolie

I want to build a world about how I see with my dead-coned eyes in my poems, partly to feel less alone and isolated and partly to invite people to think more what it means to see (and to not see).

Last night, Scott and I were watching “Escape to the Country” and one of the escapees (Carol from Hertfordshire) was registered blind. She sometimes used a white cane and had some help from her husband in navigating, but she could make eye contact and see some of what was going on. When the host (Jules) asked her to explain her vision, she said she could see about 20% of what he could, enough to get a sense of the space, but not clearly. I appreciated that Jules had asked her to explain her vision (and impressed with the positive, non-tragic way they depicted her throughout the episode), but I wanted more. I wished she (and/or the show) had had an ekphrasis mindset and offered additional details about what seeing/not seeing is for her. The host, Jules, suggests, “Fundamentally, understanding how she sees the world is going to be crucial to finding properties that will absolutely deliver.” Even a sentence or two more might have helped in that understanding.

I wondered what someone who had never thought about the process of seeing or the spectrum of no-sight to full-sight made of her description and how she (fairly) easily/”naturally” moved through the world. After my run, I decided to google the episode and see if I could find more information about the woman, like what her condition was, etc. I was disappointed to discover headlines describing her blindness as “heartbreaking” or that she told of it, “with tears in her eyes.” That’s not how I perceived it. Admittedly, I can’t see faces clearly enough to grasp slight facial expressions, but this woman did not seem heartbroken and if she had any tears in her eyes, it was because she was looking into the sun. This was not a tragic episode; she and her husband were excited to move. These headlines seem to be typical examples of writers projecting their own fears and negative understandings of blindness onto blind people (or people with low vision, or people who see differently). Blind = tragic = heartbreaking = pity.

Scott and I watched the brief, 10 second clip that this “heartbreaking” description is based on, and he agreed that she wasn’t upset or crying. Her description was neutral and matter-of-fact. Sigh.

At the beginning of my run, I thought more about the ekphrastic mindset and asked myself, what is art? I didn’t come up with an answer — a task for another run!

one more thing to add: Talking with RJP about my various projects, she introduced me to a new phrase for describing the dirt trails that walkers/runners make in the grass: desire paths. That should be a title for one of my gorge poems, for sure!

sept 24/RUN

3 miles
trestle turn around
54 degrees
13 days until the marathon!

Overcast, cool. A steady stream of cars. I was planning to greet the Welcoming Oaks, but I forgot. Encountered many runners, walkers, someone (I think) was heading to the rowing club, and at least one roller skier. I noticed a few streaks of red and yellow, but mostly everything is still green.

Since I ran 20 miles on Sunday, today I only did 3 miles. My legs were slightly sore, but not too bad. I’m pleased with my recovery. I was especially pleased that I pushed through the moments when it felt a little harder. To keep my heart rate below 170, I chanted in triple berries in mile 3: strawberry/blueberry/raspberry.

10 Things

  1. in the first mile, encountered a woman’s cross country team — a core group of 12? then pairs of slower runners trailing behind, one final runner at the very back — as I passed them I could hear their labored breathing — they were all running fast!
  2. happy, excited voices rising up from the rowing club
  3. a car pulling out right in front of another one at the top of the lake street hill — the second car honked once, but no yelling or repeated honks or crash sounds
  4. click clack click clack — a roller skier’s poles
  5. in the third mile, encountered the team again — still fast, still jagged breaths
  6. no sparkle on the water, flat featureless blue
  7. running south, I could feel the faintest outline of my shadow — was I imagining it?
  8. more spray paint on the path — bright green and orange, looking sloppy
  9. the sharp crack of an acorn hitting the asphalt
  10. above the ravine, at the wooden fence — all thick green, no view, one of the fence slats had been pushed away from the others by a leaning tree

Before and after my run I listened to a recording I did this morning of myself reading 4 of my water poems. I’m proud of them.

Watched a short video with Hanif Abdurraqib while I at my breakfast (peanut butter toast). I love this definition of writing:

I think about writing as being in the pursuit of beautiful language to extract or shake out a curiosity that’s been long haunting me in a pleasurable way. And I’ll do as much as it takes and seek out as much language as it takes to get there.

Windham Campbell Prize, 2024, Hanif Abdurraqib

I want to remember an idea I encountered in an explanation of yesterday’s poem of the day on poets.org. The poem was “Villany” in LA by Gabrielle Civil. Here’s their explanation:

About this Poem

“More than just rendering something in another language, the Oxford Learner’s Dictionaries remind us that translation is ‘the process of moving something from one place to another.’ What better way to signal that than a poem about public transit? In their book Villainy, Andrea Abi-Karam moves love and grief for those who died in the 2016 Ghost Ship [warehouse] fire in Oakland to me [as I’m] riding the train in Los Angeles. As with most translations, I move my reading into something else: this time, a new poem, which receives the original and carries it like a holy relic into a different city.”

Gabrielle Civil

I’d like to think more about translation and this movement and how I might play with it in my writing about running and swimming and my running/swimming-as-writing.

sept 22/RUN

20 miles
bde maka ska and back*
52 degrees

*river road, south/minnehaha falls/minnehaha creek path — past lake hiawatha, lade nokomos, the bunny/lake harriet/william berry parkway/bde maka ska and back

20 miles! The first half of it was fine, then I had some unfinished business and no porta potty for miles. I had to wait 3, or was it 4?, miles before I reached one at lake harriet. Then I went to another one at bde maka ska. I should have returned to the lake harriet one again before heading out into the porta potty dead zone, but I didn’t. Soon, it was difficult to run, so I did more walking than running for the rest of the time. Finally at the lake nokomis pickleball courts, another porta potty! As I waited to use it, I appreciated how lively and crowded it was: packed pickleball courts and playground. It’s great to see people using the park so much. In terms of the unfinished business, why is it such a problem? It is the cliff blocks I’m taking every 3 miles?

I listened to a cozy murder mystery — The Marlow Murder Club — which seems like a pale imitation of the Thursday Murder Club, but was a good distraction. I took out my headphones between the bunny and lake harriet and listened to the creek and a wailing kid.

20 Things

  1. sparkling river water through the trees
  2. heard, not seen — laughing kids across the creek — joyful exuberance
  3. minnehaha creek — first calm and flat, then bubbling, then gushing
  4. the path by nokomis, which was closed for the summer, has reopened — no more running on sharp gravel!
  5. early, around 8:30, the pickleball court was already filled
  6. a few barks from a dog, then a strange, terrible whining noise that I think (hope) was a machine and not an animal
  7. a hopping squirrel — so graceful and fast, moving across the shaded grass
  8. 2 adults, an upset kid, and a stroller under the bridge
  9. more slashes of red, but not much color anywhere else
  10. heard, not seen — more laughin exuberant kids playing at the creek at the spot where the tall, pedestrian bridge crosses over to the other side of the creek
  11. lake harriet was crowded — difficult to dodge walkers with dogs coming both ways
  12. a beach with no buoys, an empty lifeguard’s chair
  13. a woman adjusting her hiking poles, almost whacking me with them
  14. taking william berry parkway to reach bde make ska, running down a steep hill
  15. a striking contrast: waving blue water with bright green grass
  16. images of butterflies imprinted in the sidewalk
  17. a honking noise, sounding like a big ship — what was that?
  18. a flotilla of sailboats, all with white sails
  19. a real bunny hopping through the grass / a bronze bunny beside the creek path trail
  20. a single, small leaf, floating under the duck bridge as I crossed it

20 miles was difficult and uncomfortable, but not terrible. I can definitely go farther in 2 weeks. During the last mile, I kept smiling, proud of myself for what I was accomplishing and how far I’ve come since getting injured during marathon training in 2017.

sept 20/RUN

10 miles
confluence loop
65 degrees

Such a beautiful morning! I marveled at it with a woman we passed on the stairs down to the east river road. Sunny and still with sharp, satisfying shadows. The first 5 miles were, as I said to Scott, not hard but not easy either. Just one foot in front of the other, moving forward. I had some unfinished business (which is my euphemism for needing to poop) that I had tried to finish before the run started, but couldn’t. Around 5 miles, we stopped at a porta potty — the last one for several miles — but it was locked and it didn’t seem like anyone was coming out anytime soon. I’m not even sure anyone was in there. So I kept going and it got a lot harder. Some stomach cramps and muscle clenching made the run more of a struggle, mentally and physically. But I did it and I don’t feel terrible now that I’m done.

10 Things

  1. flat, still, blue water with dozens of single leaves sitting on the surface
  2. clear, sharp shadows on the bridge — the railing slat shadows were a series of thin parallel lines
  3. the sun reflecting off of the water and through the railing slats was very bright and trippy — so many flashes of light as the shine shot through the slats in a steady rhythm
  4. at first we couldn’t hear shadow falls, but as we neared the monument, I heard the tiniest trickle
  5. pleasing contrast — the bright blue of the sky against the green leaves of a maple tree
  6. slashes of red and orange in the bushes at knee-level
  7. running across the highway 5 bridge, the cars were loud but a speeding motorcycle was louder
  8. more leaping grasshoppers, landing on our legs and feet
  9. a group of people standing in a circle near coldwater springs
  10. a screaming bluejay

Scott and I didn’t talk as much on this run. With my unfinished business, I was trying to focus on moving and didn’t have much to say. Mostly I talked about that or the condition of the path — I rolled my ankle twice (mildly, I hope). Scott talked about where we were (distance/time) in terms of the marathon and how he needs to practice for his gig on Saturday night. I also talked about how the Minneapolis Parks have very specific guidelines for the paved paths along the river — how level they must be, how much distance is required from the road. Scott said that that doesn’t seem to be the case in St. Paul and that he prefers to run on Minneapolis trails.

liquid looking

I’ve started writing around the idea, from Alice Oswald, of liquid looking. I need to gather the different definitions in one space (a job for later today?), but for now I want to mention what I was writing yesterday. It’s about the fish in me escaping (from Anne Sexton), a school of minnows at my feet as I entered the water, and imagining those fish as the insects, the spirits of sight, that Dante describes and that Alice Oswald understands as the light that travels and returns, making it possible for us to see. Here are a few lines from AO (Nobody):

There are said to be microscopic insects in the eye
who speak greek and these invisible
ambassadors of vision never see themselves
but fly at flat surfaces and back again

In my version, the ambassadors of vision are little fish, and they speak in bubbles, not Greek, and they bubble-whisper the colors of things, like the water. I need to work on bringing in just a little bit more of the origin — Dante’s/Oswald’s idea of light spirits/insects — so that it makes sense for the reader. Here’s another passage from an interview with AO that might help:

I was just thinking an awful lot about light and vision and the way … well, light as an insect, really, which is not just Homer, it’s also Dante. I always loved this part of Dante where he talks about the spiriti visivi, I think they’re called. And this idea that when you look at things, what’s happening is these kind of, you know, these creatures are sort of moving out from your eye to the world and moving from the world back into your eye. I was trying to sort of slow down my senses while I wrote this poem and imagine even a sort of passage between myself and the world was a creature, living creature of some kind . . . .

A Conversation with Kit Fan and Alice Oswald

Here’s what I wrote yesterday:

I enter water

and the fish in me

escape — a school of
minnows who dart past
lunging kids before
disappearing in-
to the murk beyond
the buoys. I won’t
see them again but
they are there flashing
below returning
to speak in bubble-
whisper all the names
of water’s colors
silver pewter bronze
copper’s weathered green
reddish-purple rust

Reading this again, I’m thinking about the next line from Anne Sexton’s poem, “The Nude Swim”: The real fish did not mind. I’m really interested in this distinction between the real fish and my fish escaping and what it means and I think I’d like to bring that in here. It fits with something Scott was saying about the poem last night when I read it to him — something about beyond metaphor. I can’t remember, but I think it speaks to what real might mean here.

I enter water
and the fish in me
escape — perhaps they
will join that school of
minnows who dart past
lunging kids before
disappearing in-

OR

I enter water
and the fish in me
escape. The minnows
do not mind as they
dart past lunging kids
on their way to what’s
beyond the buoys.
I won’t see my fish
again but they’re there.

I could also end the poem with an altered version of AO’s, There are said to be microscopic. . . There are said to be tiny fish in the eye/who speak Bubbles . . .

sept 18/YARDWORK

30 minutes
cutting back moldy peonies
78 degrees

Every late spring, the peonies return. First shoots that look like asparagus to me, and which I try (and usually fail) to wrangle into wire hoops before they get too unruly. Then big bulbs. Then ants crawling on the big bulbs. Then red, pink, and white blooms that last only a few days — and less when it rains. Then ugly brown clumps that I eventually prune. Then white-ish, gray-ish mold on the leaves. When they get to the mold stage, I usually cut them down; the mold could be the reason Delia-the-dog itches in the summer. A few days ago I noticed mold, so this late morning I cut down the last of the peonies. Winter is coming.

7 Things

  1. some bug has been feasting on the hosta leaves, so many ragged holes!
  2. our crab apple tree seems to be dying — withered leaves, bare branches too soon — is it the ants?
  3. stepping around the yard, trying to find Delia’s poop, the ground was riddled with craters and divots and soft spots — is it the ants?
  4. often they hydrangea leaves are dropping and sprawled and tangled — this year at least two stalks are standing up straight and nearing the top of the fence — are they trying to avoid the ants?
  5. no matter how hard I try, I can’t ever see wasps flying in or out of the giant, papery nest they’ve built at the top of the crab apple tree — Scott does and it always stresses him out
  6. a greeting from a neighbor — hello! hi!
  7. there is a daycare next door and almost every day this spring and summer, 2 little kids have had recess, which involves shouting and non-stop running back and forth across the neighbor’s front yard and our side yard. It is strange and a bit haunting to see these short figures dart across my vision — sometimes I feel almost, but not quite, like I’m watching a horror movie

I was listening to a podcast (Nobody Asked Us), so 7 things was all I could remember.

Still Water/ Patricia Fargnoli

“What times are these when a poem about trees is almost a crime because it contains silence against so many outrages.” – Brecht

And why not silence?
Ahead of me, Goose Pond parts pale water
and my canoe slides through into June sun, cathedral quiet,

      soft plums of cloud.

A thin gauze of rain stalls over Mt. Monadnock.

This is the way I drift

from each skirmish with the world
to the diplomacy of light
as it flares off the water,

  flickers among the flute-notes

of birds hidden in the leaning birches.

Would you condemn me?

I’ve already held the old bodies of grief
long past morning; leave them
to the ministrations

  of the dirt-borers

who work what is finished back into the earth.

Some atrocities are beyond redemption–

you know them already–
the world will be the world no matter.
I want the blinding silver of this small pond

      to stun my eyes,

the palaver of leaves to stop my ears.

sept 17/RUN

5 miles
bottom of franklin turn around
70 degrees / dew point: 63

So much sweat! The bill of my cap, the end of my ponytail, the tip of my nose dripping before I finished the first mile. Ran 3 without stopping, then walked until my heart rate was down to 135. Started running again to the metronome at 175 and finished with my winter playlist — time for a new playlist!

I liked running to the metronome (through my headphones, from the metronome/tuner app on my phone). I was able to match my foot strikes with the beat fairly quickly, but it took a few minutes for it to lock in. When that happened, I could feel the transformation from the edge of the beat (just before or after it) to the deep center of it. My foot strike seemed different, more solid and strong. The beat sounded different, less generic and more connected to a physical source (my foot). And I felt different, inside the beat, no longer a body but that steady clicking sound. Very cool.

It’s not quite the same, but I’m thinking of myself as Annie Dillard’s bell being struck. Also, Emily Dickinson and these lines:

As all the Heavens were a Bell,
And Being, but an Ear,
And I, and Silence, some strange Race,
Wrecked, solitary, here –

10 Things

  1. slashes of red in the bushes
  2. a pinkish-orangish clump of leaves
  3. almost all green in the floodplain forest
  4. a shimmering circle of light: the sun on the river through a gap in the trees
  5. a steady stream of commuting cars
  6. mostly overcast, with occasional sun, enough sun for me to see my shadow as I walked home
  7. at the beginning of my run, a for sale sign in a front yard, by the end of my run, it was gone
  8. running down franklin, the trees were a yellowish green
  9. at least one roller skier — maybe 2, unless it was the same skier
  10. the bright, generous smile of a woman walking past me

Yesterday, I came across this cool poetry project, The BardCode Project:

In the BardCode Project Gregory Betts has analysed and mapped the rhyme patterns within Shakespeare’s 154 sonnets. Shakespeare built his famous sonnets by a unique sound pattern of rhymes in the final syllable, the tenth column, of each line. Betts asks, and answers, the question: What was Shakespeare doing in the rest of the sonnet?

The BardCode project maps out the full sound pattern of rhymes in all ten columns across all of Shakespeare’s sonnets. Colour coding these sound-codes results in a visual text rich with the sonic patterns of the poems. Suddenly, for the first time, you can see the BardCode.

BardCode Projects

sept 15/RUN

14 miles
randolph to the river / crosby farms / confluence
75 degrees / dew point: 68

And now it seems you are still summer. Still the high, familiar, endless summer. . . A warm September day. We started later than we should (9:30), but Scott and I both wanted to sleep in. Sun, some shade, an occasional breeze.

We took a new route: south on the west river road, over the ford bridge, north on the east river road, west on randolph — past st. kate’s, a walgreens, trader joes, a cool coffee place, a-side public house — to shepherd road and the river. Through crosby farms and past 2 lakes — crosby lake and ? lake, up a STEEP hill to the confluence, above hidden falls, over ford bridge again, and finishing north on the west river road. Wow, such different terrain. Randolph is a very cool avenue. Near 7th street, there are some great restaurants and quirky houses, their yards stuffed with flowers and sculptures and other whimsical thing.

It was hot! An hour in, we were both soaked. So much sweat! Tough conditions.

Mostly we were quiet, conserving eneergy, but we talked about the hills and the heat. Scott sang the song from his favorite childhood movie, Midnight Madness. Then he mentioned how he wanted to study its composition and explore what chords make a song a disco song. I recited W.S. Merwin’s “To the Light of September” at one point. I also talked about wanting to check out Phillip’s Aquatic Center with RJP this fall.

update, 17 sept: Reading a past entry (from 17 sept, 2023), I remembered that Scott talked about an article he read about how they (St. Paul? Minneapolis?) has been handling the ongoing problem of people stealing wires out of street lamps for copper. They’ve replaced the copper with aluminum and put signs on the posts that say something like, these wires contain aluminum and have no value. Scott added that aluminum isn’t as efficient as copper, but it’s helping with the theft problem. Typing this up, I also remember a random thought I had about street lamps vs. street lights. I was suggesting to Scott that we should start running again at the streetlight ahead of us in the parking lot. I thought, why did I call this a street light and not a street lamp? Is it because it’s much taller? A boring thought, I know, but I could imagine using it in a poem.

update, 21 sept 2024: I also forgot about the surrey! Finishing up the last miles of our run, entering the pedestrian side of the double bridge, we witnessed a surrey biking through the narrow bike part of the path. I have always wondered what happens when surreys (which aren’t supposed to travel this far from the park) reached the double bridge. How could they make it through? It was tight, but they did it. Not nearly as dramatic as I had imagined.

14 Things

  1. some poop smeared on the sidewalk — someone must have stepped in it and then dragged it for several feet
  2. passing by, but not stopping to read, several st. paul sidewalk poems near st. kate’s
  3. the patio at carbone’s pizza place, looking very inviting with its chair in the shades and its planters creating some space from the road (mentioned this to Scott and he said there was also a sign that read, caution pizza crossing)
  4. the loud beeping of a crosswalk sign (scott said it sounded more like the rapid fire of a machine gun, and I agree)
  5. up and down and up and down — so many hills on randolph!
  6. a few small leaves fluttering in front of me as we ran on the trail next to shepherd road
  7. a woman on the ground, stretching, her bike nearby. as we ran by, she called out, way to go runners! you can do it!
  8. the cool shade of the cracked trail in crosby farms
  9. overheard: a walker to another walker — tomorrow we’re going to tum rup thai. they moved locations into a bigger space. I said to scott, where did they move? I want to go! just looked it up, and I can’t find the new location anywhere
  10. the delightful knocking of a woodpecker on dead wood, echoing in the quiet forest
  11. a group of high school cross country runners taking over the trail by the confluence. one kid was swinging his leg out onto the path
  12. lots of bikers calling out, on your left
  13. crossing the ford bridge again, looking down at the water, noticing the bumpy texture created by small waves
  14. a guy (a dad?) on a bike blasting some music, two little kids sitting behind him in a safety seat

sept 10/RUN

5 miles
bottom franklin hill and back
68 degrees

A relaxed run. Warm, windy. Thought about wild as the (not quite) opposite of still. At the beginning of my walk, an idea: wild is not only a place, but a feeling — movement, untamed, uncontrolled, frantic frenzied jittery non-stop, restless. Stillness is controlled, steady, a nothing that is something, the core, a straight spine. Then I started thinking about my diseased eyes as wild — uncontrollable — which led to the idea that my eyes aren’t wild but undergoing a re-wilding. The aftermath of a catastrophe — a forest fire — where new (and different) growth occurs. Here I’m thinking about fungi and how they grow in places that have been destroyed, especially how Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing describes them in Mushrooms at the End of the World: On the Possibility of LIfe in Capitalist Ruins.

For the last mile and a half of my run, I put in my headphones and synched up my steps to a metronome set at 175 bpm. It took a minute to settle into the stillness at the center of the beat. At first, I was on the edge, my foot striking slightly before or just after the beat. Then I locked in and it felt like my feet were making the clicking noise. click click click click. No effort, no thinking, no doubting, just moving and being and breathing and singing a steady song.

10 Things

  1. screaming bluejays
  2. chirping crickets
  3. a tweeting bird, repeating tweet tweet tweet tweet
  4. buzzing cicadas
  5. 2 shirtless runners — runner 1: I need to stop at the porta potty
  6. chalked on the trail, honor the river
  7. goldenrod on the edge
  8. water, seen but not studied — did it sparkle? was it blue? empty? moving? I didn’t notice
  9. a few slashes of red and orange in the bushes
  10. voices below — rowers? hikers?

I was inspired to think about the wild because of a recent book I just finished reading, Lauren Groff’s The Vaster Wilds. So good! Here are a few passages I marked to remember. I checked this ebook out from the library, but I’m wondering if I want to buy it — so many good passages.

what seems to be scattered by nature was not

She wondered why she could see the beautiful rise of old trees all the way up and down the hills, and why there was no bramble or brush to grab at her and tear holes in her clothing. But she could not find an answer.

For nothing in her ken would allow her to imagine that it was the piscataway, the people of these parts, who so carefully burned the small brush away, and the saplings, too, to better see their game through the trees. She did not know that many of the trees around her were hickory and chestnut and hazelnut and walnut, and that, should she dig below the leaf litter, she would find ample nuts to sustain her even in these hungry times after the winter and before the full bursting-forth of spring. And that these trees, too, had been planted by the gardeners of this place. For here understanding of gardeners was limited to the ones of the city, and the ones of the city loved a straight line and a neat border, and looking out upon the trees seeming scattered there by the hand of nature itself, she did not recognize the human genius and planning in the wild abundance.

The Vaster Wilds/ Lauren Groff

the slow movement of stones

And the stones, with their lives so slow that to all impatient moving creatures of animated life they did appear unmoving, but even the stones she understood now did meet and mate, did erupt and splinter, did rub to powder stone upon stone and stone upon water and stone upon air, so that in the long scale of their lives the stones saw within themselves incredible vitality.

The Vaster Wilds/ Lauren Groff

Back to stillness, especially as nothing. Yesterday the poem of the day on poets.org was by a friend and amazing poet, Carolina Ebeid. Here’s a fitting excerpt from it:

No, nothing, no thing, no where—  
the o of no blinks open 

Assume the Role of Cassandra, Wearing a Mask, Speaking into the Camera/ Carolina Ebeid

The o of no blinks open. The openness of no — not a closing off but an opening into. Into what? This line was in my head at the end of my run and I thought, the gorge. No rock, just open air space a place filled with birds and bugs and possibilities and that shapes my stories of running outside and noticing.

Here’s another line that I love:

Can you hear the low pulse tree-growth consuming the fence?

Assume the Role of Cassandra, Wearing a Mask, Speaking into the Camera/ Carolina Ebeid

More than leaves or vines, I imagine this tree-growth as the trunk, rings thickening, growing through the chain-link fence on the Winchell Trail. I love the idea of becoming still enough to hear the pulse of this growth, to dwell in a time scale impossible for us restless humans. What is the rate of a tree’s heartbeat? Not in beats per minute, but beats per day or month or year?

This line also reminds me of a favorite poem that I memorized a few years ago, Push the button, hear the sound/ HELEN MORT:

Can you hear the call of the mynah bird?
Can you hear the flamingos in the water?
Can you hear your small heart next to mine
and the house breathing as it holds us?
Can you hear the chainsaw start, the bones
of our neighbor’s eucalyptus breaking?

excerpt from Push the Button/ Helen Mort

sept 6/RUN

10 miles
confluence loop*
57 degrees

*lake street bridge / east river road to confluence / highway 5 bridge / fort snelling / past minnehaha dog park / minnehaha falls / west river road

Ran with Scott on a loop I’ve wanted to do ever since we tried part of it last November. Because there are several isolated stretches, I’ve never wanted to do this run by myself. I’m glad Scott could come with me today. It’s a great loop.

Near the beginning of the run, I recited the poem I just memorized, “To the Light of September” and we talked about blue plums and whether we’ve ever eaten them (no). Scott wondered where Merwin was writing about — the landscape seemed familiar. I know Merwin ended up in Hawaii, but I thought he might have taught at Iowa or on the east coast. Looked it up and he was born in NYC and lived there — and in Spain and France too — in his early adult years. In the 70s, he moved to Hawaii.

10 Things

  1. the fee bee of a black capped chickadee
  2. bright red leaves in the low bushes
  3. all the yellow leaves on a the tree near Marshall last week are gone this week
  4. the shshshsh of the sandy dirt with every foot strike
  5. what a view of the mississippi from high above as it rounds the bend!
  6. crossing the highway 5 bridge, admiring my shadow down below, running over the treetops
  7. the disorienting effect of the sun coming through the railing slats as we ran
  8. a cloud of grasshoppers at fort snelling — jumping out of the way just before we reached them
  9. a man walking above the falls in BRIGHT yellowish-orange shorts
  10. a cloud of dust, which I thought was smoke at first, stirred up by construction work at the site of a new house

During mile 6, we ran up a long hill that wasn’t too steep but was in the sun and faced the wind and seemed to stretch on forever. At the start of it I thought I wouldn’t be able to keep going, but I put one foot in front of the other and didn’t stop, and I made it. At the top there was shade and I called out, Victory!

For the first 8 miles, Scott and I ran for 9 minutes, then walked for 1. Our pace was at least a minute faster than when I’m running on my own. Nice! I’ll have to do more 9/1 on my 18 mile run on Sunday.

added a few hours later: I almost forgot about the gnats! So many gnats swarming us as we ran from Fort Snelling to the falls. Scott was particularly bugged by them. Mostly I didn’t care, but at least one or two flew into my mouth. Thankfully, not down my throat!

I love anagrams and the spell they cast on words, and I love this poem, which was the poem of the day on the poetry foundation site:

Anagrammer/ Peter Pereria

If you believe in the magic of language,
then Elvis really Lives

and Princess Diana foretold I end as car spin.
If you believe the letters themselves

contain a power within them,
then you understand

what makes outside tedious,
how desperation becomes a rope ends it.

The circular logic that allows senator to become treason,
and treason to become atoners.

That eleven plus two is twelve plus one,
and an admirer is also married.

That if you could just rearrange things the right way
you’d find your true life,

the right path, the answer to your questions:
you’d understand how the Titanic

turns into that ice tin,
and debit card becomes bad credit.

How listen is the same as silent,
and not one letter separates stained from sainted.

sept 5/WALK

35 minutes
neighborhood, with Delia the dog
68 degrees

Today, I convinced an anxiety-ridden dog to go for a walk. What a beautiful, late summer/early fall morning! Wow. Our pace was slow, with Delia stopping to “read the news” at every tree, but I didn’t mind. I tried to stand straight and felt the calm in my core — a stillness so sweet it almost buzzed or hummed. Speaking of buzz, Delia stopped to smell some pink zinias and right next to her nose a bumble bee hovered. Only for a moment, then it flew off to the next blossom.

10 Things

  1. a city pick-up truck with a yellow arrow flashing on the bumper as it drove by
  2. a thick and long root sticking out of some boulevard dirt where the grass had been removed
  3. an shaded balcony on the second floor of a house across from 7 Oaks
  4. a chattering squirrel
  5. the steady, relaxed rhythm of a shirtless runner with a baseball cap on backwards
  6. big, bright pinkish-red blooms, emerging from a bush
  7. soft shadows cast across a big boulder
  8. a shaggy, scruffy tree, needing a shave, leaves covering the trunk and whole branches
  9. a steel planter on a boulevard filled with carrot greens, looking to my untrained eye like they were ready to be picked
  10. a neighbor across the alley dumping some cans in his recycling bin — hello! / hi!

Found this poem the other day, Painblank/ Daniel Borzutsky. So good! Instead of posting the entire poem, here’s the author’s helpful description:

About this Poem

I have said Emily Dickinson’s line ‘Pain has an element of blank’ in my head thousands of times…. I don’t know how many times I have tried to make sense of something only to conclude that the best poetic solution available is to say that it’s blank—the blank in the blank of my blank, the blankest of times, the blankness into which we all digress. Perhaps the thing about Dickinson’s poem is the way in which pain is enveloped so completely by, well, pain itself. But also, the problem of pain’s untranslatability, its blankness, resides in the sounds and symmetry of the words. What I’m suggesting in this translation of Dickinson’s Pain-Blank relationship is a reading and writing practice that believes in two things: that repetition is never repetition and that poetry, like pain and blankness, resides in the body. Perhaps poetry has the ability—definitely for the writer and perhaps for the reader—to assimilate into the body, to become inseparable from it, to become a language that is ingested through sonic relationships that have an effect beyond time, logic, and comprehension.

Daniel Borzutzky

And here’s the Emily Dickinson poem that inspired Borzutsky:

Pain–has an Element of Blank–/Emily Dickinson

Pain—has an Element of Blank— 
It cannot recollect 
When it begun—or if there were 
A time when it was not— 

It has no Future—but itself— 
Its Infinite Contain 
Its Past—enlightened to perceive 
New Periods—of Pain.

sept 2/RUN

16 miles
lake nokomis — 2 loops / minnehaha park / ford bridge
60 degrees

16 miles! My longest run ever, I was slow, it was difficult, I walked a lot, but I did it. Ran over to Lake Nokomis and around it twice, then took minnehaha creek path to the falls park all the way to the fort snelling trail. Turned around, ran over to the Veterans home, through Waibun, over the ford bridge, up to the overlook, then back over ford.

For the first hour, I listened to the gorge, the creek, the lake, and people I encountered. For the rest of it, I listened to an audiobook — Anthony Horowitz’s Close to Death. One of the characters in it is named Andrew Pennington and it took me several miles to pay enough attention to process that and realize that it was a reference to “Uncle Andrew” — Andrew Pennington in Agatha Christie’s Death on the Nile.

16 Things

  1. at one spot, the creek was bubbling, burbling, gurgling
  2. at another spot, it was rushing and gushing
  3. and at a third spot, it was glittering in the sunlight
  4. a small yippy dog across the creek — heard, not seen, so I guess it could have been big but it sounded small (and annoying) — losing its shit for a minute — yip yip yip yip yip
  5. a fishy smell at the lake that was surprisingly pleasant — smelled like summer or vacation
  6. the lake water was blue and flat and empty
  7. encountering another runner with her dog on the creek path — she called it, What are you training for? me: the marathon her: good luck!
  8. the pickle ball court was full — thwack! thwack! thwack!
  9. from the cedar bridge the water was smooth with just one bright spot from the sun
  10. one kayak gliding across
  11. a group with fishing poles, kindly waiting for me to pass before crossing the path
  12. crossing the parkway under the mustache bridge, avoiding where the asphalt had erupted — huge, ankle-twisting craters
  13. the flowers at Longfellow Gardens! Orange, pink, yellow, red, soft green! Wow
  14. Waibun park was full of Labor Day visitors — at picnic tables, the splash pad, on the playground
  15. heading down the short hill between ford and the locks and dam no. 1 — the few patches of light were glowing . . . pink — 14 miles into my run, was I hallucinating? No — the light must have been filtering through some reddening leaves
  16. 2 women with dogs, stopping and kindly waiting for me to pass before crossing the narrow duck bridge

It was crowded on the trails, but I only remember how kind people were. Waiting for me to pass, not hogging the path, calling out encouragement.

Like I mentioned above, my pace was slow — over 12 minutes/mile, but that’s fine with me. The marathon is not about time, but pushing through and proving I can keep going when it seems too tough.

Recently read:

I feel like poetry is going on all the time inside, an underground stream.

John Ashbery

I’d like to do something with this idea of the underground stream, especially in relation to daylighting — the process of bringing streams buried in concrete and under city infrastructure back into the light.

added, 3 sept 2024: I forgot until today something else I’d like to remember — seeing steam coming off of my face, looking like my breath, the combination of sun, humidity, a warm body, and cool air (I think)

aug 31/RUN

4 miles
marshall-loon loop*
70 degrees

*north through the neighborhood, over to lake street, up the marshall hill, turn right at prior, then right at Summit, down to the river, back over the bridge, stop at Loons for coffee

Ran with Scott this late morning. We talked mostly about our son and how to help him as he tries to figure out what he can do with his music major after he graduates next year. Scott pointed out the signs on the huge and fancy houses on Summit opposing the new hockey arena at St. Thomas. I pointed out the one streetlamp that is still lit on the St. Paul side.

10 Things

  1. pink and orange zinnias in a yard
  2. a shrieking (or hissing?) squirrel in a tree
  3. a blue river, emptied of boats
  4. a bright yellow chair outside of a salon
  5. a dead black-capped chickadee on the sidewalk
  6. a biker slowing then calling out, on your right, before passing us on our left
  7. people sitting outside, laughing and enjoying their coffee at Loons
  8. a friendly barista*
  9. the bathroom for the building, which has always been open now has a keypad on it**
  10. not seen, but described by Scott — being blinded by the sun reflecting off of the flat, metal surface of a stupid cybertruck***

*I’m realizing as I write this that I couldn’t see this barista very clearly and I’m wondering if my vision has gotten worse and I’m so used to it that I hardly notice.

**Customers at Loons and Longfellow Grill now have to punch in a code to use the bathroom. I think the bathrooms should be open. I was wondering if they were having too many people coming up from the river just to use the bathroom. Up until last fall, there has always been a porta potty under the lake street bridge for runners, walkers, rowers, and people living in the gorge. They should bring it back — everyone should have access to a bathroom!

***I’m not sure I’ve ever seen one of these abominations, but Scott HATES them. They sound terrible.

Mountains/ Alice Oswald

Something is in the line and air along edges,
Which is in woods when the leaf changes
And in the leaf-pattern’s gives and gauges,
The water’s tension upon ledges.
Something is taken up with entrances,
Which turns the issue under bridges.
The moon is between paces.
An outlet fills the space between two horses.
 
Look through a holey stone. Now put it down.
Something is twice as different. Something gone
Accumulates a queerness. Be alone.
Something is side by side with anyone.
 
And certain evenings, something in the balance
Falls to the dewpoint where our minds condense
And then inslides itself between moments
And spills the heart from its circumference;
And this is when the moon matchlessly opens
And you can feel by instinct in the distance
The bigger mountains hidden by the mountains,
Like intentions among suggestions.

I think this poem fits in with my study of the in-between moments. So many great lines in the last stanza: falls to the dewpoint where our minds condense; spills the heart from its circumference — I like this idea of a leaky heart that breaks open/out of its borders; intentions among suggestions.

aug 26/RUN

3.1 miles
river road, south/north
77 degrees / dew point: 75

Heat advisory. Today is one of those days that makes me glad that fall is coming, especially since I can’t swim anymore. I’m looking forward to cooler runs — please come soon. I heard a pro runner say once that humidity is a poor man’s altitude. I wonder, since my body doesn’t tolerate humidity well, would it be the same with altitude? Probably.

Today is RJP’s first day of college classes. It has worked out for her to regroup and not stay in the dorms until she’s ready because her dorm doesn’t have air conditioning. Even if she was enjoying the dorm, she probably would have come home until the heat breaks anyway.

10 Things

  1. exposed roots everywhere on the dirt trail, difficult to navigate
  2. one short stretch of the trail had loose, sandy dirt that my feet sunk into
  3. forecast predicted partly cloudy, but the sky was cloudless and burned a bright blue
  4. car after car after car on the river road — this is often the case at 8, which is when I started my run
  5. loud waves of cicada buzz
  6. noisy bullfrogs and crickets in the marshy meadow just past the ford bridge
  7. more bikes than walkers or runners
  8. the dirt path into the small wood by the ford bridge: a deep, cool green
  9. a flushed, sweaty face
  10. a woman in a big straw hat and a pink something — I can’t remember if it was her shoes or pants or a shirt; I just remember pink — sitting on a bench, her back to the gorge

today’s view from my window

On august 26, 2023, I wrote about a big spider outside of my window. She’s back. She’s huge. And she’s just hanging there in mid-air. I know there’s a web, but I can’t see it, so I like imaging she’s levitating. I was going to write that she’s not moving, but then the wind stirred her, and then I noticed a small fly caught in her web. Soon, she crawled to it and now she’s doing whatever spiders do to their prey. If it didn’t hurt my head to stare and try to see what is happening, I could watch her for hours.

I looked for a Mary Oliver poem about spiders, but instead found a blog post talking about spiders and their patience and referencing a poem by MO that I haven’t read before:

The Messenger/ Mary Oliver

My work is loving the world.
Here the sunflowers, there the hummingbird—
     equal seekers of sweetness.
Here the quickening yeast; there the blue plums.
Here the clam deep in the speckled sand. 

Are my boots old? Is my coat torn?
Am I no longer young, and still half-perfect? Let me
     keep my mind on what matters,
which is my work, 

which is mostly standing still and learning to be
     astonished.
The phoebe, the delphinium.
The sheep in the pasture, and the pasture.
Which is mostly rejoicing, since all the ingredients are here, 

which is gratitude, to be given a mind and a heart
     and these body-clothes,
a mouth with which to give shouts of joy
     to the moth and the wren, to the sleepy dug-up clam,
telling them all, over and over, how it is
     that we live forever.

aug 24/RUN

14 miles
franklin – ford- hidden falls – confluence
66 degrees / humidity: 82%

Whew, that was hard, and I was slow, but I did it! Those last couple miles, I had to dig deep. During mile 13, my calf kept almost cramping up when I ran for more than a minute or too, so I mostly walked. But by the last mile, I could mostly run. Sitting on my deck to write this, the cicadas are so LOUD! I wonder what the decibel level of their vibrating thoraxes is? I’m proud of my run — that I kept going, that I don’t care how slow I am, that I could be outside and moving for almost 3 hours.

14 Things

  1. cool, green shade on the west side of the river
  2. a male coxswain to his rowers, 1 minute and 26
  3. music blasting from a bike speaker: “Mr. Blue Sky”
  4. a group of runners joking around — male runner 1: so what’s next for you? male runner 2: umm. . . mr1: Are you doing the city of lakes? mr2: oh, of course — you don’t want to know about my personal life, just my running
  5. a lean, fast runner, running barefoot (I saw him last week too, but forgot to write about it)
  6. passing a woman in pink shoes, she called out, good work. I called back, you too!
  7. Mr. Morning! — morning! / good morning!
  8. the interior of a porta potty — so much colorful (and well-done) graffiti — very cool
  9. east river view, on the way to the confluence — beautiful blue water, open, gently curving way below me
  10. too many leaves to get a view of the mississippi and the minnesota at the confluence
  11. music blasting from another bike speaker: Katy Perry’s “Firework”
  12. view from the ford bridge: a white boat, alongside a rowing shell
  13. someone running with a dog, her shirt tucked into the straps on the back of her running bra
  14. 2 runners ahead of me, both in trail running vests, one wearing bright orange shorts

For years, I’ve wanted to run the stretch of trail between Hidden Falls and the Confluence. Today I did, and it was longer and hillier than I expected. Also, beautiful.

water fountains where I refilled my bottle: 3
porta potties stopped at: 1
bridges crossed: 3
cliff blocks consumed: 6
shirtless runners encountered: at least 4
coxswain’s overheard: 2
roller skiers passed: 1

I almost forgot: near the monument, I was thinking of stopping at the porta potty in the parking lot, but just as I reached it, I heard a shirtless runner call out to his group of runners — hey, I gotta poop. He stopped and heading towards the bright blue porta potty. Guess I won’t be stopping — bummer.

Yesterday Scott and I move RJP into her college dorm. She was overwhelmed — too overwhelmed. It’s exhausting and heartbreaking, but I think we’ve come up with a plan for her that will keep her on track (I hope). She will start her classes and gradually get used to stuff, and then start living at the dorm in a week or so.

aug 22/RUNSWIM

3.7 miles
marshall loop
61 degrees / humidity: 80%

Cooler, but thicker air. Did the Marshall loop for the first time in months. Running up the Marshall hill wasn’t too bad. I don’t remember what I thought about, except briefly hearing my steady foot strikes and imagining them to be a stillness in contrast with the traffic and the wind and the noises everywhere around me.

10 Things

  1. running up the hill, I felt the presence of orange — pinkish orange light. Was it from a wildfire sun? an orange sign?
  2. zinnias! more orange and pink
  3. running past Black coffee, noticing a man sitting at the counter, facing the window — I think he was reading the paper
  4. running past a walker on the hill, breathing as hard walking as I was running
  5. messed up slats on blinds in the window of the garage that is up against the sidewalk — blinds in a garage?
  6. steady traffic on the east river road
  7. overheard, a runner talking to 2 other runners: and when you got injured, and you got covid, I realized, ok they’re human too
  8. the river, running towards the marshall bridge — slate blue, empty
  9. yellow leaves on one of the earliest trees to change color
  10. an unusual stone stacking! 3 different stacks precariously placed on the slanted part of the boulder

Running on Cretin, I saw (but didn’t stop to read it) another poem from the St. Paul poetry project. I checked the map and maybe it was this one?

Untitled/ Pat Owens (2010)

A dog on a walk,
is like a person in love – You can’t tell them
it’s the same old world.

Saw this quote from Louise Glück and wanted to remember it:

I tell my students who believe passionately in explaining the work they’re sharing, “You know, when you’re dead, you can’t go around explaining this thing–it has to be right there on the page.”

Interview with Paris Review/ Louise Glück

Continuing to think about still and its many meanings.

still (def.)

  1. a static photograph, movie still
  2. an apparatus used for the distillation of liquids
  3. inactive, motionless, static
  4. silent, soundless
  5. placed, quiet, unruffled, tranquil, smooth
  6. noneffervescent, not sparkling
  7. free from noticable current
  8. calm down, quiet, lull, tranquilize
  9. hush, silence, shut up
  10. allay, relieve, ease
  11. without change, interruption, or cessation
  12. however, yet, all the same, even so, nonetheless

swim: 5 nokomis loops
cedar lake open swim
74 degrees

Since Lake Nokomis is closed due to the sewer break, the final open swim was at Cedar Lake. It was windy and felt much cooler, both in and out of the water, than mid 70s. Brrr! Even before I got in the water, I had goosebumps. The water was very choppy — lots of breathing on my right side, some breathing every 2 strokes. I’m glad I didn’t really need to sight because it was difficult to see anything in the choppy water.

10+ Things

  1. sailboat with a white sail — have I ever seen a sailboat at cedar?
  2. a tall person, upright, on a paddle board with a dog
  3. scratchy vine, stuck on my googles
  4. scratchy vine, wrapped around my shoulders
  5. scratching vine, feeling almost like a full body scan as I crossed over it
  6. vine, reaching up from the bottom, clinging to my foot
  7. faint feelings of red and orange in the trees
  8. following behind a swimmer with a pink buoy, always just ahead, sometimes getting lost in the waves
  9. the soft, fading light as the sun dipped lower
  10. pale blue sky with feathery clouds
  11. a seagull span soaring above the water, looking for fish?

The last open swim of the season. As I swam my final loop, tired out from the waves and cold, I tried to take the moment in. Such a wonderful season. I leveled up — swimming much longer and for more loops. I felt strong and confident and not afraid when I couldn’t see anything but water and sky and Tree. Part of me wishes open swim would never end, but the rest of me knows that 10 weeks of swimming this much, especially outside in a lake, is enough. In January and February, I’ll remember the first orange buoy looking like the moon in an afternoon sky or the glow of orange when the light hits the buoy just right or the gentle rocking of the waves or that satisfied feeling after 90 minutes in the water.

aug 19/RUNSWIM

4 miles
minnehaha falls and back
68 degrees

A late start (9:45 am). Warm, but lots of shade. Ran all 4 miles without stopping. Progress! I think I’ve figured out, after 8 years of trying, how to run slower. On my warm-up walk before I started a woman with a dog called out to me, I love your hat! It’s so bright and cheery! A wonderful start to the run. I was wearing a pinky-purply-swirly cap that I found in Scott’s mom’s drawer — with the tag still on — after she died. As I walked, I thought about color and how I see it and caring, kind gestures, and then a really BRIGHT hat that I’ve considered wearing before: a twins baseball cap, girls (because my had is that small!), with neon pink and orange and yellow that we bought for RJP and that she never wore. Maybe that will be my next hat when this one is worn out?!

10 Things

  1. acorn shells covering a neighbor’s driveway
  2. 2 runners ahead of me, one dressed just like me with black shorts and a teal tank top, illuminated by the light, glowing like ghosts
  3. a dirt trail near the ford bridge leading into a cool, mysterious wood
  4. a sidewalk above the creek half-covered in dirt, washed up from so many rains this summer
  5. no bike surreys lined up by the kiosk today
  6. the sweet smell of tall grass — a hint of cilantro
  7. trickling sewer pipe
  8. a slash of blue water through the trees — not sparkling or inviting but hot and harsh
  9. an animated conversation between 2 women walkers with laughter and hand gestures
  10. a for sale sign on a house near edmund — the house that had new owners a few years ago who moved a drain pipe so that it spills onto the sidewalk, creating puddles in the summer, ice in the winter. Will new owners move the drain?!

Before the run, reading old posts from 19 august, I re-discovered a wonderful poem about the wild girl the narrator used to be, Girl in the Woods / Alice Wright. I tried to think about the last lines as I ran:

Whever I think I’ve got hold of her, 
she kicks my shin and wriggles from my grasp, 
runs for the trees, calls back, Try and catch me —

I wanted to imagine that my wild girl, Sara age 8, was my shadow ahead of me, but it was difficult because I didn’t see my shadow that often. Maybe she was there, but hiding from me, daring me to try and find her?

uh oh

Just received an email from Open Swim:

Due to a sanitary sewer backup near Lake Nokomis this morning, August 19, all beaches at the lake are closed until further notice. The overflow has been stopped and cleanup has occurred. The MPRB will sample lake water at the beach locations and provide further updates when they are available.

We have to cancel Tuesday August 20th’s swim at Lake Nokomis. Thursday’s swim is TBD. Communication will be sent as soon as updated test results are known.

Cedar Lake is still happening on Monday and Wednesday, but open swim at Lake Nokomis might be over. It’s sad, but I’m okay. I have had a great season, swimming more loops than I ever have before! I should be able to get in some solo swims around the white buoys before the beach is completely closed.

Sanitary sewer backup? Yuck!

Sadly, many people are afraid of Minneapolis lakes and think they’re dirty and dangerous. While the lakes can have elevated E-coli levels and occasional sewer back-up issues, mostly they are fine to swim in. I’ve been swimming in Lake Nokomis for over 10 years, 3-4 times a week, and I’ve never gotten sick. Anecdotal, I know, but there’s also data to support my experience and management plans and daily/weekly work to ensure the water is safe to be in. Here’s a great resource I just found that I’d like to dig into — to learn more and get some poetry inspiration. It’s a white paper from 2019 called Lake Nokomis Area Groundwater and Surface Water Evaluation.
Another resource: Minneapolis Parks Lake Resources

swim: 4 nokomis loops
open swim cedar lake
80 degrees

Wonderful conditions! Buoyant, calm water. Hardly any wind. Strong legs and shoulders and lungs.

10 Things

  1. the light on the trees, giving off a hint of red, almost as if the leaves were whispering, fall is coming
  2. the light, lower in the sky, making everyone/everything give off a soft glow
  3. the surface of the water — smooth, sometimes blue, something army green, sometimes reflecting the fading light
  4. a paddle boarder moving through the course, standing straight on his board, looking very tall and upright — I think it was a lifeguard
  5. 2 swimmers treading water in the middle of the lake, chatting and catching each other up on their lives
  6. scratchy, insistent vines, wrapping around me each time I rounded the far buoy near hidden beach
  7. bubbles! barely seen in the opaque water
  8. mostly warm water with brief pockets of COLD
  9. talking with another swimmer after finishing, lamenting the nokomis closure and the end of another season — I said, we didn’t even get to say good-bye
  10. the lifeguards on kayaks were way out on the sides of the course, making the course much wider. I kept trying to go out farther to reach them but the lake kept wanting me to swim closer in — is it a current?

aug 18/SWIM

4 loops
lake nokomis open swim
70 degrees

Wow! Almost perfect conditions for a swim. Warm air, cool but not cold water, calm. Bright. Nearly impossible to sight the orange buoys, which no longer bothers me. From shore, I was never able to sight the third buoy and it took me until the fourth loop to swim to it without having to sharply adjust my course. I was determined to “crack the code” of this course and I did that last loop.

The course was long, which I like. Part of the reason I couldn’t sight the third orange buoy was because it was so much closer to shore and the little beach than it has been all summer. The green buoys were far out and closer to the boats and the cedar bridge. A fun challenge, trying to see them.

10 Things

  1. bubbles below the surface from my hands
  2. bubbles on the surface from other swimmers’ hands? bugs? fish?
  3. a plane flying high and parallel to the water
  4. nets of vines floating, getting stuck on my shoulders, trailing down my leg
  5. pale greenish yellow water
  6. some shiny thing, distant, near the little beach — a new lifeguard boat? a car?
  7. a seagull’s white wingspan high above
  8. the bright sun illuminating the orange buoy, unseen until I was almost next to it
  9. a paddle boarder crossing my path
  10. stopping mid-lake, hearing the rhythm of other swimmers’ stroke

bodies and zombies: Right now, I’m reading the third book in a horror trilogy by the awesome writer, Stephen Graham Jones: The Angel on Indian Lake. The badass main character is a final girl, Jade, and the story takes place on Indian Lake. Yesterday I was reading a section that involves zombies surfacing in the lake, then marching out of it. As I swam in lake nokomis I thought about dead bodies and who/what could be down beneath me in this opaque water. My thoughts were mostly abstract and disconnected from anything real, but I did occasionally think about the high school football player who drowned near the little beach almost a decade ago, and the young girl who drowned near the white buoys off of the big beach 2 or 3 years ago.

bubbles and bugs: During the first loop, swimming into the sun, I noticed bubbles on the otherwise smooth surface of the water. Were they bugs? I suddenly was reminded of Lorine Niedecker’s line in “Paean to Place”:

He could not
–like water bugs–
stride surface tension

The final Sunday open swim. What a wonderful season! I’ve averaged 80 minutes for my swims. 80 minutes in the middle of lake, never stopping to touch shore. So much time pretending to be a fish or trying to be a boat!

aug 16/SWIM

3 loops
lake nokomis open swim
66 degrees / drizzle / mist

Open swim is open through drizzle and rain — as long as it’s not thundering or pouring. I’m glad because I enjoy swimming in the rain. Today there was a soft, steady drizzle. Much of the world was gray — a grayish white sky, gray-green-blue water — but some of it was glowing orange (3 buoys), yellow (lifeguard boat/jacket), and green (2 sighting buoys, a swimmer’s safety buoy).

image: Nearing the orange buoy — an equilateral triangle, glowing ORANGE! Everything else gray, washed out, smudged.

The water was cold and buoyant and, after the first loop, choppy. I felt strong and fast and like a machine — a boat cutting through the water, heading straight for the buoy. 1 2 3 4 5 breathe right 1 2 3 4 5 breathe left. Between the green buoys, when the water was washing over me on my left side, I breathed only to my right. 1 2 3 4 breathe right 1 2 3 4 breathe right 1 2 3 4 breathe right. Breathing only to one side seems strange, unbalanced, intense.

image: Heading to shore at the end of my third loop, watching a swimmer ahead of me. All I could see was the green dot of their cylindrical safety buoy, bobbing brightly in the gray water.

10 Things

  1. a thick mist just above the surface of the water
  2. getting briefly tangled in a floating vine mid-lake
  3. flinging a leaf stuck on my arm mid-stroke
  4. waves off to my side looking like swimmers
  5. a big splash in the water but no swimmer around to have made it — was it a fish jumping out of the water?
  6. orange buoys in a straight line
  7. a dozen other swimmers with yellow, pink, and green safety buoys
  8. sweet solitude, stroking through the mist
  9. one swimmer doing backstroke
  10. another swimmer using their safety boat as a float, turning their face up to receive the rain

I stopped a few times in the middle of the lake to adjust my googles or sight the buoys or take in the solitude and silence. So quiet and empty. Heard a few sloshes but otherwise, nothing or Nothing. Wow.

As we were driving back, I told Scott that another great thing about open swim was the hot shower afterwards. Ah! It’s the only time I take a long shower. I love standing there, rinsing off the muck, feeling the heat of the water on my warm muscles.

This was the last Friday swim of the season. Next Thursday, open swim ends. On Friday RJP moves into her dorm. FWA returns of campus on Sept 2. Then, Scott and I are empty-nesters.

aug 15/SWIM

4 loops
lake nokomis open swim
78 degrees

There was a chance of scattered thunderstorms tonight so I wondered if open swim would happen, but the weather shifted and I was able to swim 4 choppy loops, some of it even with sun.

10 Things

  1. cold. water
  2. fluffy clouds
  3. translucent bubbles
  4. a duck crossing my path near the big beach
  5. the orange buoy looking like a moon, faint and far off
  6. choppy water — breathing only to my right for long stretches
  7. lake water with a soft green glow
  8. a few vines floating by
  9. swans and sailboats
  10. the most popular color for safety buoys tethered to torsos today: bright pink

I can’t remember if I posted this bit from Nobody before, but I’m posting it again as something to think about while I swim:

if only my eyes could sink under the surface
and join those mackerel shoals in their matching suits
whose shivering inner selves all inter-mirrored
all in agreement with water
wear the same

wings

I’m thinking about how opaque the lake water is, how I’ve only seen a few fish, and never a group of them shivering or shimmering, how my eyes are hardly involved in lake swimming. Okay, they’re involved, but to a much lesser extent than one would expect.

question: do I want to be in agreement with water?

With all of the swells and choppy water, I was not in agreement with it today. Or was I? I didn’t mind swimming into walls of water, unable to see, stroking harder, lifting my head higher. I don’t want the water to be this rough all of the time, but sometimes it’s fun, like today.

aug 10/RUN

10 miles
lake nokomis and back
61 degrees

10 miles! It’s been some time since I ran 10 miles. I can’t run it as fast or as effortlessly as I did back in 2017 or 2018, but I did it, and it wasn’t bad, and I don’t feel terrible. Each week, I’m getting a little better and mentally tougher.

Sunny, cool, calm. I liked the moments when I was able to run on the soft dirt, on the boulevard or beside the paved path — the feel of fine grit under my feet, the sound of it shushing — sh sh sh, it is time, now, for the deepening and quieting of the spirit.

Heard a coxswain’s voice, below in the gorge. I just realized that I usually write, “heard the rowers,” but I hardly ever hear the boats or rowers talking or oars cutting through the water unless I’m down in the gorge, next to the river. What I hear is the coxswain’s voice and I think, Rowers!

I don’t remember seeing the river, but I did admire the beautiful blue of the lake. So blue! So inviting! The lake was crowded — some people walking, running, sitting, other people preparing to set up the course for tomorrow’s ywca tri. Halfway around the lake, I started hearing sirens, more and more of them. A few minutes later, I saw them parked on the road, lights flashing. I’m not sure what happened, but I hope everyone’s okay.

On my way back from the lake, I passed by a coffee shop where we used to get coffee when we lived over here. The outdoor seating was full of people. I liked listening to the buzz of conversations — no intelligible words, just the pleasant, relaxed sound of a Saturday morning in the summer.

10 More Things

  1. a roller skier’s wheels — squeaking, sounding old or rusted or rickety
  2. a fine mist above the falls
  3. a runner blasting some music as he ran by — can’t remember what he was listening to
  4. a view of the water from the bridge: a stretch of sparkles
  5. ducks, taking over the water at the little beach
  6. a little kid to his dad at the beach, can I throw a rock in the water? dad: since no one else is here, you can
  7. turkeys! 4 of them by the overlook, a kid calling out to his dad, turkeys! turkeys!
  8. a few seconds later, a dog barking at the turkeys
  9. a group of runners listening to “treasure” by bruno mars
  10. Mr. Walker-Sitter! sitting on his walker next to the fence on the edge of the trail