Cooler! It makes such a difference for my running when it’s cooler outside. Easier, more relaxed. I’m looking forward to more fall and winter running! Running north I listened to the wind, the birds, a strange sound — a kid crying out? a dog barking? — coming out of a neighbor’s house. Running south I put in my “It’s Windy” playlist. Windy has stormy eyes/that flash at the sound of lies.
2 strange ensembles:
a biker stopped on the edge of the path, his back turned to me. I almost didn’t see him because he blended into the trees. I think he was wearing a camo jacket and shorts. Why would you do that?
a runner approaching me in a half-zipped shirt — or was it a bike kit? — and no socks or shoes. They were running barefoot. I’ve seen that before, but rarely. I thought that trend went away 7 or 8 years ago?
Early on, I chanted in triple berries: strawberry/raspberry/blueberry. Then, other triples: intellect/mystery/passing through/persistent/enduring. Persistent and enduring came as I passed by the big crack that they’ve tried to repair several times but just keeps coming back. I started thinking about my persistence and then stillness and deepening as steadiness, which led to thoughts of my core. I imagined my belly button was leading me. I thought in a triple: who needs eyes? Then I imagined seeing with my stomach or my shoulders or my feet. I focused on my center as balanced and stabilized and still as it moved through the windy bluff above the gorge. Finally, I thought about my belly button as the place that once tethered me directly to my mom. How long did these thoughts last? I’m not sure.
10 Things
roller skiers
someone wearing all black sitting at a bench
river surface, 1: rough, empty
river surface, 2: looking north it was flat, south a glitter path
a shorter runner passing me, holding a sweatshirt awkwardly
the big crack in the path, still blocked off
no more limestone slabs stacked and looking like a lounging person under the franklin bridge
a damaged fence: the top slat missing
returning south, the wind was at my back, enabling me to go faster
no stones stacked on the ancient boulder — too windy?
I thought about the wind and how I noticed it only as it encountered objects — trees, fences, rocks, me. Then I thought about what happens when it doesn’t encounter anything, which led me to wind tunnels and aerodynamic testing and then a line from Rita Dove’s poem, “Voice-over”:
because now you’re all throat, a tunnel skewered by air.
3.6 miles locks and dam #1 74 degrees humidity: 88% / dew point: 65
I’m trying to write this entry but I’m distracted by the little kids next door in the front yard — such cute voices. One of them was singing a song — take this grass. . .broken world. . . broken glass.
Refrain: hot, humid. Even so, a better run today than the last one I did. When was that? Tuesday (checked my log). Ran all the way to the bottom of the locks and dam #1 hill without stopping. Noticed the river. Such reflections! Clouds, trees, the bridge. Took a picture:
bridge / clouds / surface / sky
The water was smooth beneath the bridge and rippled (corrugated, as Anne Carson wrote) farther out.
Everything is still this morning, calm, quiet. Partly inspired by my 21 aug 2024 entry, I thought about being still. Not as not moving, but as a calm, steadiness. Stillness as the space between beats, when both of my feet are off the ground. Or, stillness as my strong core that floats through that space — suspended as held up in the air, not as stopped.
10 Bridge Things
at the top of the hill, in-between the top and bottom of the bridge, a family was sitting on a bench
the gate near the columns of the bridge was unlatched and slight ajar
beyond it, hollowed out bricks with a strange pattern
empty benches all the way down
the reflection of the bridge on the water’s surface, upside down
a car nearing the bottom, voices — couldn’t hear what they were saying but imagined it was about whether or not the locks and dam was open
the echo of my footsteps under the bridge
the clicking of a bike’s gear across the service road
thought about what RJP told me yesterday: someone went over this locks and dam in a canoe (or was it a kayak?) yesterday
at the top of the hill again, a man read the sign to a little kid who started jumping and asked him to join — by the time I reached them, they were both jumping and laughing and making goofy noises
the deepening and quieting of the spirit among the flux of happenings
still
I thought about being quiet and calm and the opposite of restless and anxious. Then I thought about my core — literally and figuratively. Core = my core muscles, strong back, a straight spine. Core = enduring values, character. I felt the stillness within my self and my body even as the world blurred and floated and drifted around me. Then, Mary Oliver’s “deepening and quieting of the spirit” popped into my head — amongst the flux of happenings. Yes! A stillness of the spirit, where stillness is being satisfied and balanced and present in the moment, not needing to do more or feel guilt or regret for what was or wasn’t done.
/I still the clock by holding the pendulum coin still so that the mechanism stops and I can sleep without the consciousness of it.
to still the clock is a ritual of the demagnification of clocks.
/it is a kind of violence of fiction for the clock to not function as a clock while others click and breathe and blink.
the eyes blink more before they stop functioning as eyes.
/the rapid eye movement of dream frightening being pure pulse, pure frenetic zag force
/to watch a gold-painted platinum extravagant clock you’re an excess you’re a fire you’re in competition with the tiredness of time. /to hold in your satiny eyelids the still unstill pendulum of the gaudy machination you are in unison
with the aspirant expirations of the day.
still / holding / pending / stop sleep / not function / click / breathe / blink / dream / pulse / excess / rapid fire extravagance / tiredness / still unstill / aspire to expire
underwater the end (expiration) is the breath (expire) the end / forced above / evicted from below / no longer water but air
In this poem, to still is to stop, to end, the deep sleep
swim: 6 loops 110 minutes cedar lake open swim 82 degrees
The final open swim of the season. It goes so fast! Another great night for a swim. Warm, sunny. I liked that the wind made the water less smooth — not too rough, a gentle rocking. The course was set up strangely and even though I complained about it afterwards, I think I liked the challenge of it. One buoy was in the middle of the lake, the other was at the far left edge of hidden beach. At first I worried that this set-up would cause chaos with swimmers crossing over the path and running into to each other, but it was fine.
a risky moment: Because the course was so far to the left, I swam in water I haven’t before. Almost halfway across, I swam straight into a nest of vines — the biggest cluster of vines I’ve ever experienced. I didn’t panic and was able to swim out of it, but I could imagine a weaker swimmer struggling to free themselves and getting wrapped more tightly. As I swam away from it, I thought about the high school football player that drowned off of the little beach at lake nokomis about 10 years ago. That’s probably how it happened.
Some things irritated me: the swimmer that I tried to pass but sped up to prevent it, another swimmer stopped at the buoy, blocking the way, the unmoving lifeguard on his kayak too close in on the course, the bright sun making it almost impossible to see anything on the way back, the scratchy vines. But more things relaxed and delighted me: the gentle water, feeling strong and able to swim for so long, swimming past other swimmers like they were standing still, the faint clouds in the sky, the solitary orange buoy sitting on the surface of the water glowing, glimpsing other swimmers off in the distance — only inklings: the flash of a yellow or orange buoy, a bright pink cap, white foamy water.
overheard:
a mom with 2 kids, one who was around 4 or 5, the other a baby in her arms, to a lifeguard: Can he swim out to the orange pyramid? lifeguard: (thinking she meant the baby and not the kid) alone? mom: oh no, not the baby!
Later I heard her recounting the story to a friend. They were laughing about it.
At the end of the second to last loop, I stopped at the beach, stood in the shallow water and the sand, checked my watch, and decided to do one more loop. For the final loop, I felt Mary Oliver’s one day in August, everything calm and quiet. I thought about what a great season it has been, how grateful I am to have this time swimming, and how satisfied I am to have taken advantage of it. No open swims until next June. I thought about how no next season is guaranteed; a lot could happen between now and then. Then I remember the story of my great-grandmother Johanna standing out in the field at the farm near the end of the fall to behold the familiar view, wondering if she’d still be around the next fall.
4 loops (8 cedar loops) 95 minutes cedar lake open swim 69 degrees
Would it rain? Would they cancel the swim? It seemed uncertain when I woke up to gloom, but the storm stayed south and the water was great. Smooth, mostly calm, not too crowded, easy to see. The first 3 and a half loops felt so easy and fast. I stopped at hidden beach for a quick break and a chance to see the lake from above the water for more than a brief flash every 5 strokes. The beach was quiet, empty. I could hear wind in the trees, then some bugs. I think I saw a few people getting ready to do open swim. They were up in the grass putting on wetsuits. Started swimming again and did another 3 loops before taking a minute or two break at hidden beach again. swam 1.5 more loops before deciding I was done — my legs decided for us. Nearing the first buoy, my legs felt like they were about to cramp, so I stopped kicking and dragged myself in for the last 50 feet or so.
strange vision
Several times, something strange happened with my color vision. Looking up quickly to sight, I noticed the lifeguard’s kayak. Instead of red in looked white and (almost) robin’s egg blue. Later, getting closer to more than one swimmer, their swim cap was white and the same blue instead of bright pink. Both with the kayak and the caps, when I got closer they returned to normal — red and pink.
10+ Things
white sky — sometimes I could see the sun through the clouds, but it never emerged
a swirl of vines, passing over my head, shoulders, torso, lingering near my ankles
the swimming area at hidden beach was wide and long and almost empty — at least one other open swimmer was standing in the shallow water
for the first 4 loops, the water was all smooth, during loop 5 it was much choppier heading to hidden beach
a bird in the air — was it big or small? I couldn’t quite tell. I’m thinking small
opaque water
a scratchy vine, pricking my arm
noticing the surface above the water from my vantage point: submerged, only my eyes out of the water, like an alligator
stopping at the little beach: a dog barking, a collar clanging
making note of the procession of swimmers on the other side of the course, heading to hidden beach when I was heading from it — a slow and steady line of swimmer
after the swim, walking past a big puddle on the dirt/gravel road, its surface had scales on it from the wind
I never got completely lost in the swim, although I had moments where I wasn’t thinking about my stroke or breathing or sighting.
Thinking about time, last night I started reading Endi Bogue Hartigan’s on orchid o’clock. Here’s the opening poem, which I think will be a great inspiration for me in playing around with “one day in august.”
I’m talking about the rotation/ Endi Bogue Hartigan
—The predictable commencement of annual flooding of the Nile River is said to have formed the foundation of the ancient Egyptian calendar. Calculations were made using nilometers, vertical water-measurement devices, influencing taxation, crop planning, and more.
I’m talking about the black cows in the pasture along the highway between here and the office: some days the black cows’ snouts are pointed in the same direction in the morning and the opposite direction in the evening, all 200-300 or so, parallel dipping their snouts: some days they are helter-skelter; some days the shadows are crisp some days the shadows are swallowed but they have shadows on all days; and the wet eyes of the cows have an angle with which they lean into the wet grass, so they are a kind of dials to themselves and their light, visible to themselves or not. I might be comforted driving by saying cow shadow o’clock, saying east black cow o’clock, I might be comforted by talking about their rotation.
/it is child eyelash o’clock /it is having to look o’clock it is Nile flood o’clock /it is percolate o’clock
/it is morning birds plus socket sound of car closing / 21st century pastoral o’clock it is flashflood fear o’clock /it is TV van at the shooting site rim
/it is miscount of the dead o’clock /it is remember to call remember to call find a corner to make a call o’clock
/it is the blue jay screech o’clock /it is having to look o’clock /it is innocent eyelash o’clock /it is the clock continuing despite
o’clock /people emptying from their eyes /it is yesterday’s rose-dew o’clock
/it is tearing the work blouse off its hanger o’clock/ it is tearing and not /it is that blouse again that headline again it is
everything I forgot creeping up in tides /it is people split and swelled
confiding overflow o’clock /it is the shadow of a gun / the shadow of the cow o’clock /it is what is allowed in the shadow
/it is the president’s turned up o’clock it is America’s deadliness and dailiness o’clock /it is glued to the headline o’clock
it is lunchhour-beeline o’clock /it is it’s only Tuesday o’clock another curbside memorial o’clock another caterpillar miracle o’clock another
people emptying from their lives o’clock or into their lives o’clock the Nile floods every hotspell in this week
/it is child-wake, it is flood of what’s at stake o’clock, /it is the morning rupture the American rupture that
shadow-bleeds and swells /it is the felling of the shadow o’clock /I’m talking about the black cows.
4 loops (8 cedar loops) 100 minutes cedar lake open swim 77 degrees
A great swim. I think I’ve only ever swum at cedar lake in the morning one other time, in august of 2019 when lake nokomis was closed for the rest of the season because a few kids pooped near the big beach and the e-coli was crazy high. I liked it, although it took some adjusting. In the late afternoon, the sun is always in my eyes on the back half of the loop. This time, in the morning, it was in my eyes during the front half. The first loop felt great, the second a little harder as I worked on my stroke and breathing properly, but by the third loop I had locked into a steady rhythm. I wasn’t paying attention to my stroke or breath, I was just moving through the water.
10 Things
an orange glow on the water just below the orange buoy
orange at the edge of my vision as I swam
something big and white through the trees and on the shore. When I was swimming, it just looked white, but when I stopped to study it, I realized it was a house
a vine landed on my shoulder and I was able to whip it off with my hand mid-stroke
a small bird flying fast above me
someone with a bright pink safety buoy, swimming wide around the course
the surface of the water: blue with soft ripples
only a few clouds
lifeguard as landmark: on the edge of the course
lifeguard as obstacle: too close to the orange buoy
In the later loops, I started reciting the Alice Oswald lines I’d memorized last month. Struggled a little, but managed to remember most of them. Even as I struggled with the lines, the act of reciting them distracted me — or, did it focus me? — and I entered the flow –everything water and motion. In my head, as I stroked 1 2 3 4 5 breathe left 1 2 3 a slight head lift to sight 4 5 breathe right, I linked this flow state with some sentences from Anne Carson’s “1=1”:
And then the (she searches for the right word) instruction of balancing along in the water, the ten thousand adjustments of vivid action, the staining together of mind and time so that she is no longer miles and miles apart from her life, watching it differently unfold, but in it, as it, it. Not at all like meditation—an analogy often thoughtlessly adduced—but, rather, almost forensic, as an application of attention, while at the same time, to some degree, autonomic.
Oh yes, for much of that 100 minute swim, I was in it, in the water, in my life, in motion, where motion = the ten thousand adjustments of vivid action.
Speaking of motion, I found this from Susan Tichy this afternoon:
All I wanted for the poem was openness, a merging of muscle-memory with the skittering of words down the page, to know as a process of motion.
Does muscle-memory = those ten thousand adjustments? In the early loops, my adjustments — of my head for better breathing, elbows for better power, hips for more buoyancy — were conscious and took me out of myself, but in the later loops, I didn’t think about how I was stroking or breathing and sighting, I just did it.
In her mention of skittering of words down the page, Tichy is talking about her efforts to write about mountains. How to describe it in terms of today’s lake water? Bobbing on the page? Gliding across the page, directed by currents, re-routed by waves or lifeguards or other swimmers?
bike: 8.6 miles lake nokomis and back 68 degrees / 73 degrees
Ahhh! What a morning! A relaxed ride. Again, no worries about what I could and couldn’t see. On the way there, I thought about metaphors (inspired by the lines below). An idea, which is not new, but is good to remind myself of: in poetry, it’s not all about meaning with words, but the movement and shifting they create. Thoughts, experiences, ideas flow freely until they bump into words. Words direct the movement (from encounter to revelation or understanding).
The most memorable thing on the bike back. Climbing the hill near the rec center and where bikes cross the parkway, I heard — HEY ASSHOLE WATCH OUT! — a car and a biker stopped in the road, the biker yelling at the driver for not stopping, the driver apologizing. Then — you’re a Minnesota driver, that’s what YOU are! I didn’t really see what happened, but I know it’s hard to see all the bikers when you’re driving. I also know that drivers don’t always look. The driver’s apology seemed sincere; the biker’s yelling was very loud and aggressive. And what’s up with insulting Minnesotans?
earlier today
Heard from an open window, a woman talking to someone, presumably a young kid: it‘s actually a t — saTurday
Returning to some lines from a poem I posted a few days ago, Difference/ Mark Doty:
nothing but something forming itself into figures then refiguring,
sheer ectoplasm recognizable only as the stuff of metaphor.
swim: 2 loops (8 mini loops) 50 minutes lake nokomis main beach 73 degrees
Wow wow wow! What a swim. This might be one of the top swims of the summer, and the one that fits best with Mary Oliver’s words in Swimming, One Day in August:
it is time now, I said, for the deepening and quieting of the spirit among the flux of happenings.
…
I went down in the afternoon to the sea which held me, until I grew easy.
I think I swam 8 loops. I stopped a lot to tread water and listen to the silence. So quiet! I was all alone, but not. So relaxing. I felt completely at ease, which is not a feeling I have that often. No wind, no waves, the surface flat and still except for the bubbles I was creating that popped on the surface. A few seagulls perched on the white buoys — hello friends! A few clouds in the blue sky. My fingers frequently got caught on milfoil reaching up from the bottom, but it was almost like we were high-fiving or greeting each other — nothing menacing about the vines today. There were 2 metal detector dudes chatting and detecting. I couldn’t hear what they were saying, so no idea about what they found. Neither of them yelled out excitedly, I got it!
10 Things
seagulls — in the sky, on the buoy
water like velvet
a thin skin of something on the surface in the swimming area
the contrast between the sloshing as I swam freestyle and the silence as I tread water and bobbed
the only thing I could see under water were bubbles
the surface: almost a mirror, flat, blue
the roar of one plane overhead
workers fixing the picnic tables — they pulled off the tops and the seats earlier in the week — having fun and listening to country music
standing in the swimming area, facing the sun, closing my eyes and still seeing the reflection of the light on the surface
thinking it was almost too silent — why was there no noise? — then hearing the pounding of a hammer from the workers near Painted Turtle
NOOOOOOOOO!! Got an email this afternoon that both beaches at Lake Nokois are closed immediately due to blue-green algae. They test the water every Monday and, as I just learned, the results for e-coli come in on Tuesday, but blue-green algae comes in on Wednesday. It might clear up before next week, but they won’t test again until Monday, and won’t have the results until Wednesday. So the earliest they can open up the lake is next Wednesday. I’ll miss 4 open swims. Then Thursday will be the last open swim of the season. Such a bummer, but at least I got my magical morning, and I didn’t encounter any algae. I saw it on Monday, but I think it’s already cleared up.
swim: 3 loops (6 mini loops) 65 minutes cedar lake open swim 79 degrees
Other than the abundance of scratchy, clingy vines, the water was perfect. Calm, smooth, not too cold (or too warm). So relaxing! The water was a little greener than usual, but no algae blooms. Hopefully it will stay that way. There were a few pockets of very cold water near the far buoy. The sun was making the water sparkle. I stopped a few times to enjoy the silence out in the middle of the lake. Encountered a kayak and a paddle boarder who seemed extra tall standing straight up and above me. A strange sight — a giant walking on water.
Only 2 more cedar lake swims this season and no swimming at all until next Monday. Boo.
Hot! As usual, I should have gone out before 9:30, but I slept in. When I was in the shade, it wasn’t too bad. Wore my bright yellow shoes. They were fun for the first 3 minutes — very bouncy — but I started to feel both of my calves cramping up. I stopped to avoid anything worse and walked for a few minutes before starting up again. Is it the shoes? Possibly. My calves have been fine and then I started wearing these shoes again and now my calves are cramping occasionally. Last week, I woke up early in the morning to a charley horse just starting to happen. Was able to stop it before it turned into a knot. Whew.
Even though it was hot, I’m glad I got out by the gorge. Beautiful. Fall is coming. Leaves drifting down in the soft wind. Half-crushed acorns all over the sidewalk. A deep green everywhere. The winchell trail was cooler in the shade. Tricking water near the ravines (3 — 44th, 42nd, and 36th). Decided for the first time in a long time to take the dirt path past the 38th street steps and visit the oak savanna. It was dark and overgrown. Branches reaching across the trail, the dirt path that leads to the ravine narrowing to almost nothing.
10 Things
at least 2 or 3 benches occupied, including the one near folwell
a runner accompanied by a biker discussing how much mileage someone else was doing — marathon training?
the river: sparkling, blue, empty
a bird — cheeseburger cheeseburger
another bird: me me me
the fallen tree on winchell: still there, still blocking 2/3 of the path, still holding browned leaves
squeak squeak a swing across the road at minnehaha academy
movement — a bird? a squirrel? the wind moving a single leaf
loud noises in the bushes — a bird? a squirrel?
the worn wooden steps leading to the ravine — still cracked on a few boards — noticed that the steps are rectangular boards placed on the slope with a handrail, and some sort of wedge at the top
swim: 6 loops 90 minutes lake nokomis open swim 78 degrees
Wonderful! The water was a little rough, but nothing too bad. No waves crashing into me. The course the lifeguards set up with how they positioned the buoys was off today. It didn’t fit with any of my strategies for sighting. The lifeguards were too close to the buoys heading out to the little beach, and the fourth buoy was much farther south than it usually is. The final buoy was too close to the orange buoy and too far from the beach. No triangle today. Not sure what shape it was. I’m almost positive I swam 6 loops, but the distance was so much shorter that it seemed more like 5. I’ll still count it as 6.
Lots of vines. Setting sun. Bubbles. Menacing swans and sailboats. Strange flashes underwater. Seeing orange. A roaring plane. Thin shafts of light. Not as many sparkle friends.
bike: 8.6 miles lake nokomis and back 69 degrees (there) / 72 (back)
I’m getting serious about my 24 hours of swimming in a month this week. Decided to bike over the lake for a short morning swim. The bike ride was great. I only had to pass one person! I didn’t have any moments of panic when everything seemed a little fuzzy. As usual, the bike ride back was easier and seemed to go by much faster. Biking down the hill between Lake Nokomis and Lake Hiawatha, I noticed another redone path leading down to the dock. Someday I’ll run over here and check it out.
5 Bike Things
a group of kids congregating at the bike safety course that used to be a tennis court
creek water rushing by near the spot where kids like to swim
some sort of rock music that I couldn’t identify coming from a bike
the marsh area near my favorite part of the creek path didn’t have any water, just mud
passing my the wooden bridge at lake nokomis — an intensely sour rotten fishy smell — yuck!
swim: 6 mini loops / 1.5 lake nokomis loops 35 minutes main beach lake nokomis 70 degrees
A wonderful morning for a swim. Calm, empty water. There were a few kayaks and swan boats, but otherwise, I was the only human in the water, at least near the bench. Plenty of vines and fish below me, ducks nearby, planes and seagulls above. I’m swimming again tonight, so I didn’t want to do too much this morning.
5 Swim Things
a plane flying directly overhead, looking like a shark
swooping seagulls
a kayak crossing in front of me
ghost vines reaching up
thin strips of light extending below, diagonally
I recited Mary Oliver’s “Swimming, One Day in August” and felt the deepening and quieting of my body. Had to give myself a little pep talk during loop 2 — no, there are NOT any giant turtles or things with sharp teeth lurking below, waiting to dart up and drag me down. I rarely have these fears, and they don’t make me panic, but occasionally when I’m swimming alone, off of the main beach, a what-if thought creeps in. What if there is something down there waiting for me?
The lake was great. After I finished, I stood in the swimming area and took it all in. At the edge of the shore, I noticed the water was a bright green — uh-oh, hope there aren’t algae blooms!
swim: 3.5 loops 70 minutes cedar lake open swim 79 degrees
Double swims today. The water at cedar was choppy. Mostly, I loved it. The only parts I didn’t like: having to breathe on only one side more often and the stretch where the water seemed to be pulling me down. It was harder to stroke. Otherwise, it was great. Oh — except for all of the vines. Lots of full body scans today, with a vine traveling down my body as I swam over it.
5 Cedar Things
a young kid hiding in the buoy near point beach
a lifeguard in a kayak near hidden beach, close to the far buoy — part red blur, part dark silhouette
the idea of orange in the distance as I tried to sight — only a tiny orange dot
cloudless sky
2 girls laughing and swimming at the beach
added the next morning: Just remembered something I really didn’t want to forget about last night’s swim. Standing in the shallow water, preparing to start my swim, I overheard parents with their 2 young boys — 5 or 6 or 7? They were trying to get them back into their kayaks.
mom: we talked about this. we can’t take the kayaks unless you paddle all the way back. get in the kayak.
kid 1: I’ll get in the kayak if you buy me a nintendo. kid 2: yeah, a nintendo.
Damn. . . .I didn’t stick around to see what happened, but I’m betting the mom wasn’t falling for this shit.
Another great swim, even if my goggles kept leaking. I had to stop several times to fix them. The water was not too rough but wasn’t still either. It offered a gentle rocking. My sparkle friends were abundant today and coming at me, like swimming through stars or light like it looks in a time lapse video. Mostly it was cloudy, but sometimes the sun came out and the surface of the water sparkled. From a bird’s view above, I imagine they were able to watch it turn from pewter to silver to pewter again.
The buoys near the main beach were in close, which I like. It means the course is longer. Was it? I’ll compare these different days, all swimming 4 loops:
8 aug: 2010 strokes / 1.78 miles 22 july: 2347 / 2.29 miles 17 july: 2660 / 2.64 miles 11 july: 2020 / 1.89 miles
Okay. I was wrong. Today’s four loops was the shortest 4 loops out of this sample of 4 4 loop swims.
10 Things
a sloshing sound of water — was it my arms piercing the water that made this sound, or my head turning to breathe or my torso being rocked by the water?
a plane
opaque water
bubbles around my hands
my feet feeling like rudders
the sky, white and thick with clouds
later the sky, split open, the sun peeking through
sparkles on the water
the far off dot of the green buoy not looking green but white
the area around the white buoys thick with milfoil
Took a screen shot of my path today. The off-course lines are when I went to the swimming area at the big beach to fix my googles.
4 loops at lake nokomis / 8 aug 2025
A scalene triangle, almost an isosceles.
Today I’m working on adding to my inklings (inkling poems / 5 line, 5 syllable small poems that spread rumors, drop hints, whisper, are approximate/vague/rough in their descriptions). Today’s inklings are about sketching different points on the course. One of the inklings, which serves as an intro to the larger goal of describing my course is title, “Plotting the course.” As I swam, I realized that this has a double meaning. Plotting as in identifying/marking points on the course and plotting as in create a story/plot for my experience swimming around the course. With that in mind, I’d like to write more about the story/stories I want to tell. Of course, plotting also means secret planning to do something/hatching a scheme. Will that meaning factor in too?
Humid. It rained last night — everything is wet — but there must been wind, too, because small branches and leaves were scattered over parts of the path. No big trees.
10 Sounds
Bird
the coxswains speaking through their bullhorns
a faint radio with someone singing, some vibrato
the steady trickle out of the sewer pipe near 42nd
good morning, excuse me / morning! no, excuse me (passing a walker)
morning! a greeting from Mr. Morning!
good morning / good morning (greeted by an older runner)
the whirr of a motor on an e-bike zooming by
another runner’s music coming from her phone as she ran by — some poppy upbeat song that I can’t remember
who run the world? girls! Beyoncé from my headphones and my mood: Energy playlist
Listened to the poem I wrote yesterday before I headed out for my run. This is my tentative ending:
tethers us to each other — swimmer and vision, buoy and body, to sight and to rarely see
swim: 3 loops (6 cedar loops) 60 minutes cedar lake open swim 81 degrees
Choppy today. Sometimes hard to stay high on the water. Lots of vines. Saw some planes and birds above, no fish below. The surface looked silvery. Sometimes the sun was out, sometimes it was behind a cloud. Once a big, hulking cloud, looking like something other than a cloud from my perspective half-submerged in the water — a monster, like godzilla?
Forgot to recite Mary Oliver or think about the deepening and quieting of the spirit, but I felt it. Relaxed, happy, strong. Swimming for an hour wasn’t difficult.
Found this description of how we are both part of and separate from water saved on my reading list:
Nature—the non-built environment, creatures—is a realm of supreme “otherness” with which we are already always in strange relation. We plead for communion with this nature; it cannot answer us; so we project that onto it, that feeling of harmony and oneness at a shore or a vista. We are both a part of that natural sphere and stand distinctly apart within it, in our creaturely and industrial/technological dominance over it. You are both part of that sphere, and stand painfully apart, with your consciousness, language, cumbersome car and computer.
Now I’m thinking about Anne Carson and her definition of anthropology (as in, “Anthropology of Water”). I wrote about it on 13 july:
encounter with that which you cannot contain, control, that is not You — the not-I.
added on 8 aug 2025: I forgot to mention a delightful thing that happened on the way over to cedar lake: a vee of geese — 20? — flying low over Bde Maka Ska then just above us — and, lucky me, I had the moon roof open to watch! — then heading towards Lake Harriet.
The wild fire smoke is still here. Mostly it didn’t bother me, but it did make running a little harder. The worst smoke moment was when I came off the lake street bridge and turned onto the river road — not hard to breathe so much as hazy. There weren’t too many runners out there, some walkers, a few bikers, a family of hikers and shadow falls.
10 Things
graffiti on the lake street bridge steps: STOP HATE
a fancy water fountain, bubbling, in the grand yard of the U of M President’s house that Gov. Walz rented while his mansion was being renovated
someone asleep on a hard stone bench by the Monument — in the hot sun, wearing long pants, a long-sleeved shirt, and a stocking cap
the bells of St. Thomas — ding dong ding dong / ding dong ding dong / ding dong ding dong / — the time, 10:45
an orange flash on the sidewalk — the smoky light or spray paint?
a boat speeding up the river, leaving streaks on the water’s surface
no kids outside at the church preschool — were they staying inside because of the smoke, or was it not recess?
the graceful curve of the bridge’s arch — I checked if anyone was climbing on it (nope) — my daughter told me about how kids do that (her included, but only once and only halfway across)
the soft trickle of water near Shadow Falls
a stone wall above the ravine, leaning — it had a sign on it that I couldn’t read, so I took a picture of it to study later
Furnished to the city of St. Paul by the Kettle River Co.
I could mostly read it when I looked at the photograph, but I had to doublecheck with Scott.
I wish the lake was open so I could have gone to open swim for the first day of my “Swimming One Day in August” project, but at least I was able to run. I am almost didn’t go out because of the smoke. Glad I decided to!
The smoke doesn’t seem that bad so, for the first time in weeks, we have the windows open! I like the relief that air conditioning brings, but I hate how it makes me feel trapped in the house. As I sit at my desk writing this, I just heard the feebee call of the black-capped chickadee through the open window!
Today I’m working on more swimming sonnets and Inklings. Some subjects: water quality, blue-green algae, milfoil, water as the medium, loops at lake nokomis are actually triangles, the color of the water, Alice Oswald seeing self in water, again and more darkly, Mary Oliver and the deepening and quieting of the spirit
a little later: I almost forgot about the mushrooms! Walking north before my run, I saw some HUGE mushrooms in a neighbor’s yard. The first one I noticed had lost its cap and I thought it was a newly cut tree trunk. I think there were a cluster of 4 or 5 mushrooms. I started reciting Sylvia Plath’s Mushrooms in my head. I thought about mushrooms as the fruit of fungi and little explosions and expressions of the self (like through poetry) as emerging like mushrooms. For the rest of the run I checked the grass for more mushrooms, but don’t recall seeing any more.
a lot later: RJP checked out a book for me, Mary Oliver’s Blue Pastures, so I could read some of Oliver’s sand dabs and the chapter, “Pen and Paper and Breath of Air.” I’m on the second page and I already needed to stop and archive some of her ideas:
First, in describing her practice of keeping a notebook, she writes that she doesn’t write in it from front to back, but just opens a page and writes anywhere and everywhere. She uses “private shorthand” to record phrases and feelings.
The words do not take me to the reason I made the entry, but back to the felt experience, whatever it was. this is important. I can, then, think forward again to the idea—that is, the significance of the event—rather than back upon it. It is the instant I try to catch in the notebooks, not the comment, not the thought. And, of course, this is so often what I am aiming to do in the finished poems themselves.
“Pen and Paper and Breath of Air” in Blue Pastures/ Mary Oliver
And here’s one of the phrases she put in a notebook:
A fact: one picks it up and reads it, and puts it down, and there is an end to it. But an idea! That one may pick up, and reflect upon, and oppose, and expand, and so pass a delightful afternoon altogether.
“Pen and Paper and Breath of Air” in Blue Pastures/ Mary Oliver
