Tag: 5

june 28/RUN

5 miles
bottom franklin hill and back
68 degrees
humidity: 87%

It felt warm and humid today. Difficult. I managed to stick to 9/1 for the first 30 minutes, then I was less consistent as my heart rate stayed elevated. Still, I had some small victories: 1. I ran up most of the franklin hill — more than I thought I would/could; 2. I made it through 3 9/1 circuits when I thought I could only do 2; 3. I ran up a hill and kept running until the end of edmund instead of giving up early.

10 Things

  1. a runner’s bright orange shorts
  2. another runner’s sturdy and strong form running up the hill
  3. the water in the flats: rough, textured, corrugated
  4. 3 roller skiers climbing a hill — the first faster, ahead of the 2 others who were good-naturedly complaining about how fast he was
  5. 5 or 6 runners — part of a team — shirtless and fast
  6. strange construction noises coming from above me on the I-94 bridge
  7. Mr. Morning!
  8. no sign of the tree that fell in the tunnel of trees on Thursday evening
  9. evidence of last night’s rain: a few puddles, wet branches
  10. a very short stretch of deep, muddy tire tracks through the grass between the road and the path

5

humid
today
stick
first
heart
small

would
could
until
early
ahead
still

night
muddy
track
grass
above
noise

Humid today; I was sticky. My heart at first felt small, tight.
If I could, I would not have waited until it was light. I would have left when it was still early, ahead of the sun.
Last night, rain. Now a track of muddy grass. Climbing up, above the gorge, my heart grows, opens, makes a joyful noise.

a thought: not sure how this 5 experiment is working so far. Not that inspiring yet. I’ll give it a few more days.

later, in the evening: I’ve been watching Western States 100 off and on all day. I wanted to make note of an expression they’ve been using. Referring to course records and past splits for runners, the commentators described current competitors as chasing the ghost of the record holder. The lead male runner is trying to beat Jim Walmsley’s course record from 2019, so they keep saying, he’s chasing Jim’s ghost. I find this fascinating.


june 27/BIKESWIM

bike: 8.6 miles
lake nokomis and back
61/64 degrees

Cooler this morning. When I got up I briefly thought, I don’t need to go today; it’s too cold. Silenced that voice and went — a great bike ride! The gray made it harder to see, but I didn’t care. I don’t remember having a single scary moment. Encountered runners and walkers and other bikers, several surreys just past the park, one chill biker with a dog in the front, listening to music (I think it was jazz?) as he went. Heard the creek rushing, had to dismount when the new part of the path was covered with black sandbags, noticed a few people sitting in the grass on the stretch between lake hiawatha and lake nokomis.
My favorite part: rounding the curve, seeing the orange buoys in the water as I neared the beach. Open swim!

swim: 4 loops
lake nokomis open swim
62 degrees

4 loops today! 3 in a row, a bathroom break (out of the water!), then back in for another loop. The water was warmer than the air and clear near the shore. Starting my last loop, I swam through the swimming area and was able to see the bottom the entire way — only “unnatural” thing I saw was a bright colored pair of goggles.

The first buoy was far away from the big beach. The second buoy kept moving — and not just because of wind, I watched as the lifeguard tugged it to a different spot during one loop, then dragged it to the third orange buoy during the 3rd loop — why?

Today there was a sailboat out in the water. Not menacing — it hugged the edge of the shore, staying far from the course.

Most of the bubbles looked like scooby-doo bubbles — translucent and outlined (for clip/discussion, see 2 aug 2024), but the one at the bottom end of visual field kept looking like a glob of snot — gross!

The water was a darkish green-blue. The milfoil was orange-green. The sky, pale blue.

Someone parked in the parking lot had their headlights on and before I realized that, I was using it to sight, thinking it was the far green buoy. Nope.

It was a great morning for a swim. What a loss it would have been if I had skipped it, what a gift to have gone!

overheard, at 11:15 (open swim ends at 11:00): one swimmer talking to another — I kept making excuses until I finally said to myself, you have to go! stop doing the dishes!

birds

On mornings when the birds singing — which is most days, but not today — I’d like to remember and chant these lines from the end of “Birdsong of Shaker Way” by Ann-Margaret Lim:

one more day, filled with birds—
brightened, lightened, trilled by birds:

precious, diamond-throated
sweet song, miracle-toting birds
the-gift-of-day-is-here birds.

Bird, bird, bird. Hello bird.
You lift me up bird.
You sing the day beautiful, bird.

finds from my On This Day practice

1

Reading my past entries from 27 june, I reunited with some favorite lines from the wonderful poet, Tomas Tranströmer in his poem, “Under Pressure.” I decided to fit them into my breathing form:

You can see
beauty

only from
the side,

hastily,
Dense grain

on the field,
colours

in a yellow
stream. Rest-

less shadows
in my head

are drawn there.
They want

to creep in
to grain

and turn gold.

2

From 27 june 2023, definitions of about:

about: reasonably close to; almost; on the verge of; on all sides; around the outside; in many different directions — here and there; near; concerning . . . out and about (oot and a boot — Minnesota style)

3

From 27 june 2024, blessing the boats/ lucille clifton

As I read this poem, I thought about how I often imagine myself as a boat in the water. Not a fish deep in the lake, but a boat, on the line between surfaced and submerged, half of me underwater, half always exposed to the air.

5

today
voice
curve
water
beach
clear
shore
think
third
green
sight

great
scary
chill
biker
front
music
heard
creek
black
grass
would

today: great — a chill felt on the curve
I heard music: a grass voice a water voice a green voice a shore voice a creek voice — all here today, singing together
here in the water, would clear sight make anything less scary?
a chill in the water

update, 28 june, 2025: This morning, reading through past entries, I remembered a few more things about the swim yesterday. First, breathing. I did my usual 1 2 3 4 5 breathe, but also 1 2 3 and 1 2 3 4 5 breathe right 1 2 3 4 breathe right 1 2 3 4 5 breathe left. Then I tried 1 2 3 breathe right 1 2 breathe right 1 2 3 breathe left 1 2 breathe left. I’ve been trying out how it feels to stroke less between breaths. I also was conscious of how my sighting fit into all of this — 1 2 3 4 5 breathe right 1 2 3 sight 4 5 breathe left. I never breathe when I sight; I just lift my forehead out of the water. Why does this matter? Beyond its impact on the biomechanics of my stroke and on my ability to keep straight and moving towards the buoy even when I can’t see it, stroke/sight/breath is fascinates me in terms of the spaces/moments it creates above and below the surface, in water and air, as fish and human, boat body and mind. Which of these spaces is more real, which less? If both are real, what reality do they offer?

When I’m swimming, how much time do I spend with my head and half my body submerged versus above the water? That is, how long do I get to inhabit my water world?

Second, planes. Lake Nokomis is near the airport, so there are often planes high above — circling like sharks, I like to imagine. During the swim I noticed several places that seemed to be sped up. It looked like they were moving extra fast? Where they? Or was I just seeing them strangely?

june 26/RUN

3 miles
river road, south/north
66 degrees
light rain

Thunderstorms possible, so no open swim. Boo. Oh well, I’ll swim tomorrow morning; maybe I’ll try to do an extra loop to make up for today? Since I couldn’t swim, I decided to run instead. Ran in the rain, and even though it was only 66 degrees, it felt warm. Even so, it was a good run. I can feel my ability to push through difficult moments strengthening.

10 Things

  1. for most of the time, no one else was out on the trail. only near the end did I see a walker, a biker, an adult and 2 kids running up the hill and out of the tunnel of trees
  2. midway down the hill a big tree had fallen and was blocking the trail
  3. there’s a thin branch that sticks out near the bench above the edge of the world. It has almost poked me in the eye several times this year. today, it made it in my eye but didn’t scratch anything. yikes — I need to try and remember that it is there
  4. looking through the fence railing, I could see the paved part of the winchell trail below — but only fleetingly, soon it was swallowed by green again
  5. the usual puddles to avoid in the neighborhood
  6. the sewer pipe in the ravine was gushing
  7. a walker with 2 dogs. the walker was in boots and a hooded raincoat
  8. near the end of the run, the rain stopped and there was almost sun
  9. flashes of orange in trees — once, orange spray paint on a tree trunk, marking it for taking down, more than once, rusted leaves
  10. several soaked branches stretched across the trail — mostly I avoided them, one time I couldn’t and my face got soaked

5

river
south
north
light
extra
today
since
trail
adult
bench
above
world
there
fence
could
below
green
avoid
spray
paint
trunk

a trunk, a fence, a bench: the world above the river
avoid green spray today
above fence below green
extra green today, low light

june 25/RUN

2.5 miles
neighborhood / lake street bridge / tunnel of trees
69 degrees
on and off drizzle

It’s supposed to rain all day today but when I woke up it hadn’t started yet, so I went for a quick run. A drizzle was already happening when I left the house, but I went anyway. I thought the rain might make it cooler. It did not. So hot! There was a lot of traffic on lake street and cars backed up on the bridge. The run was good: I felt strong and relaxed, then overheated and tired, then strong again. I stopped at the top of the hill that starts under the bridge to admire one of my favorite views of the river: always open and wide, even in the thick of summer — no leaves blocking; all the trees are below.

1

Admiring the view, a sudden sense of silver sparkling. A bird leaving a tree? I looked to the side and saw a dark wing out of the corner of my eye.

2

Running over the lake street bridge, I looked down at the water. A rower, and another rower, and another! All in single shells, parting the water and leaving lines on the surface. I had to stop and admire them for a few seconds.

3

Near the end, I descended to the tunnel of trees. Suddenly enveloped in a pleasing dark green.

Other things: a biker’s bright yellow jacket; the buzz of kids arriving at a daycare; the faint clicking of ski poles; greeting Mr. Holiday (I think); a walker’s peachy-orange shirt; the honk from a impatient car; a speck of something in the water far below — a stone?; a mixture of moistures — sweat and rain; making note of the tree cover by which parts of the path were getting wet and which were not

5

today
quick
house
might
there
again
under
river
thick
sense
water
sweat
which

rower
shell
green
other
biker
faint
think
peach
shirt
speck
below
cover
stone

under peach cover OR under cover peach
quick! under there
below: water, stone, a river thick with think
today, a shell sense: under cover
might there be an other sense, below stone, under water?
today I sweat in thick green
under green, a faint sense of a stone house that holds water
under think, below sense: river
which biker might sweat water? which, peach stone?

What other fruit might want to go under cover as a peach?* An apple? a plum? My favorite today: a river thick with think

*I mentioned the under cover peach to Scott and he said, like a private investigator, which got me going: Peach is a PI. Because she lived in Georgia for a spell, her former partner when she was a cop affectionately named her Peach. This partner died on duty and under suspicious circumstances (was it another cop? the chief of police? the mayor?). Devastated, Peach quit the force and opened up shop as a private investigator. Each week, she goes under cover to solve a new case. Somehow these cases keep revealing more clues — they thicken the plot — about what happened to her beloved partner, which puts Peach in danger. Someone doesn’t want her to find out what happened. Will Peach figure it out in time, or will she be silenced like her old partner? This hour long drama would be part of our imaginary Saturday night line-up, along with Cruise Ship Detective (you can never have too many detective shows, right?) and Stunt Bus. Read this to Scott and he suggested that Under Cover Peach be on Sunday nights. He also read me the list we created of other shows:

Hollywood Knights (like Hollywood Squares, but chess)
Doggy Hauser, DVM
Sing or Swim (a singing competition with a dunk tank)
Phantasm Island
Breakfast Club (a new detention crew with Bender each week)

ice dippers

Last night after open swim, Scott and I went over to Painted Turtle for a beer and state-fair quality cheese curds (yum!). Another couple invited us to share a table since it was so crowded. They lived by lake harriet and after learning that I was a swimmer, asked if I’ve ever swum in the winter in one of the ice holes at lake harriet? What? I was not aware that such things existed! I looked it up, and I might have to try it this year! Minneapolis Ice Holes: New Dippers

Did some more sleuthing and found out that there’s a club at lake nokomis too: Nokomis Bifrost. The hole is located north of the little beach. This upcoming winter, I’m doing it! I’m hoping FWA will try it with me — he loves the cold.

update: I asked FWA and he wasn’t too enthusiastic — I like the cold, but not cold water, he said. When I mentioned it to RJP, she was intrigued. I think she might try it with me!

june 24/RUNSWIM

4.75
veterans home
64 degrees

The heat broke. Yes! Still overheated by the end, but much easier to run in the 60s than the 80s. Did my 9/1 again. About 2 minutes into the third segment of running, nearing a steep hill, I briefly contemplated taking another walk break. Then I remembered that I took an extra walk break around the same time yesterday. This might become a habit, I thought, so I decided to keep going. Make it to the top of the hill. Make it to the parking lot. Make it to the bench above the edge of the world. Then I was at 9 minutes. Victory!

Before I went out for my run, I revisited CAConrad’s TL;DR and their advice for listening:

listen to the most immediate sounds in the building. Let the layers reveal themselves, shifting to what you hear further away, then further.

When you feel you have heard everything, wait. Sit there a little longer, listening for the faintest of traffic in the sky or a faraway rumble.

As I ran, I listened for the the layers. Running above the falls, on the other side of the creek, I tried to listen to what was beyond the soft rushing of the water over limestone. Cars, a train horn, birds, my foot steps. I tried to listen for voices at the overlook. Did I hear any? I don’t think so.

10 Sounds

  1. a car, whooshing by me on the street
  2. a few pebbles crunching under the wheel
  3. the soft knocking of a woodpecker
  4. kids laughing on the playground
  5. the creek, tumbling over rocks
  6. the soft rush of the falls
  7. scraping — someone working on the new trail below me
  8. the clicking of a roller skier’s poles across the road
  9. the sharp clanging of a dog collar
  10. the shifting of a bike gear

what is a tree?

Yesterday, walking on the gravel road that leads to the cedar lake beach, I noticed the husk of a tree — a sad-looking trunk with no top and no branches. When I pointed it out to Scott he said, that’s not a tree. Trees have branches. Even little trees have branches. Running today, I suddenly wondered about a tree’s root system and what was underground. Can that define a tree? Looked it up, and according to several sources, there is no universal or official scientific definition of a tree. The generally accepted idea is that it has a single, thick trunk, branches, a root system.

run 5

broke
still
again
about
third
steep
world
cedar

below
heard
water
think
wheel
creek
trail
beach

skier
break
might
extra
habit
bench
sharp
thick

I have a third wheel habit.
again, water, my break below.
a beach bench thick with habit
trail-think, creek-think, beach-think: one is still, one sharp, one thick
world — break what broke again
steep bench habit
beyond the linear layer, a wheel world could be heard

floating again

I returned to Anne Carson’s Float today and found many delightful things in her pair of lectures, “Uncle Falling,” including this:

Uncle Falling / Anne Carson

I like to write lectures. My favorite part is connect-
ing the ideas. The best connections are the ones
that draw attention to their own frailty so that at
first you think: what a poor lecture this is–the
ideas go all over the place and then later you think
but still, what a terrifically perilous activity it is,
this activity of linking together all the threads of
human sin that go into making what we call sense,
what we call reasoning, an argument, a conversa-
tion. how light, how loose, how unprepared and
unpreparable is the web of connections between
any thought and any thought.

CHORUS 1:
Here’s a thought

CHORUS 2, 3:
Here’s another

CHORUS 1, 2, 3, 4:
How about getting from here to there

CHORUS 4:How about spending some time in mid-air

CHORUS 3:
Much depends upon the fact

CHORUS 2:
that one falls

CHORUS 1:
or one does not fall

swim: 3 loops
open swim lake nokomis
80 degrees

A wonderful night for a swim! Warm water, hardly any chop, no glaring sun. So many sparkle friends and bubbles and muscles being worked. And, a ferret on the loose? The lifeguards caught a ferret and kept asking if anyone was missing a ferret. I felt strong and fast and free — no worries about getting off course. Who cares? A great swim.

june 23/RUNWALKSWIM

run: 4.05 miles
minnehaha falls and back
71 degrees
dew point: 66

It felt warmer than 71, the air thicker than a 66 dew point. Had to remind myself a few times that I could stick to my 9/1 plan. And I did — at least through the first 3 cycles. Had to do an extra minute of walking at 32 or 33 minutes in, but then I got right back on track. A victory!

overheard: Just starting my run, I overheard one woman say to the other: that was the first time I ever saw a spider biting me! As opposed to waking up with spider bites, not knowing when you got them, I suppose.

10 Things

  1. one of the recently re-mulched trails that leads down into the oak savanna looked dark and deep and mysterious — partly due to a late June abundance of green leaves blocking out the light, partly the sun behind the clouds
  2. a smattering of young runners in small groups — a high school cross-country team already in training?
  3. empty benches
  4. the steady hum of some construction equipment
  5. a sour smell coming from a trash can
  6. a packed shopping cart parked on the lowest part of the trail that dips below the road
  7. the flash of a very small bird — a hummingbird? — flying past me
  8. an over-the-shoulder sideways glance at the falls: all white foam
  9. 2 people waiting to pay for parking at the falls
  10. mostly overcast with a few stretches of pale sun

A good run. A low average heart rate. A steady pace. A chance to be above the gorge and the river. And, interesting thoughts. Earlier this morning, I was reminded of some ideas about movement and death and the Homeric mind, and they fluttered like loose threads behind and beside me as I ran.

thread 1: entangled, murky, thick-layered

As I ran on the Winchell Trail through the thick green, I thought that when I’m running by the gorge, I think of it in broad, basic ways: tree, rock, bluff, bird, water. Then my mind wandered, and I wondered: (Why) do we need more specific, “technical” names in order to connect with the land? I thought about the importance of names and the violence of occupying and renaming, the value of knowing the history of a place, understanding how it works scientifically, and placing it in a larger context (space, time). Then, as I ran up the short, steep hill by Folwell, I thought about how important it is to learn to think on all of these levels at once, or at least be able to switch back and forth between them. I can experience the gorge as water, rock, tree, bird, wind, or as stolen land occupied and used, abused, restored, protected, ignored, exploited. As a geological wonder, slowly–but not really slowly in geological time, 4 feet per year–carved out by the river eroding the soft St. Peter sandstone. As both wild/natural and cultivated/managed–the site of erosion due to water, and erosion due to the introduction of invasive species, industry, too many hikers, bikers, houses nearby. There isn’t an easy way to reconcile these different understandings and their impacts.

23 june 2021

thread 2: moving as death rearranged

from To chlorophyll, refineries, coal, furnaces beneath early skyscrapers, fossils/ Caroline Kenworthy

Life’s long inhale of nutrients, and longer, hotter exhalation in decay. Packed, still, silent.

Hard to remember that matter hums constantly.
These cars and highways— how much of moving is death rearranged.

I kept thinking about this idea of death rearranged. At point, I thought, of course — recycling, decomposing, rebirth = rearranging. I like this word choice — rearranging.

thread 3: Homeric mind

this physical thing that moves. So, if you imagine a place over the sea, your mind actually has to get there. So, even though it may be as fast as the light, it is physical movement.

 A Conversation with Kit Fan and Alice Oswald

The mind as moving — not just through associations, but literally moving, traveling.

As I thought about movement and connection, and death rearranged on my walk back after the run, I passed by a painted rock at the edge of neighbor’s side garden that read, We are our ancestors with an arrow pointing to plants. Yes. No one is gone, just rearranged, reconfigured. And, we are connected deeply to the green.

walk: 3 miles
east lake library and back
78 degrees

Walked to the library to pick up Anne Carson’s Float. I’ve checked it out once or twice before but I’m thinking this time I might be more interested in it. (2 hours and several naps later: nope. Still don’t understand it or why it’s called float, but I found a review of it and Mary Ruefle’s My Private Property that might help.) It was fun walking through the neighborhood, looking at how different neighbors deal with their slanting lawn. FWA is interested in re-doing ours for us. Wood, rock, stone, mulch, hostas, ornamental grass. My favorite flowers: the vines with the bright purple flowers — clematis, I think, and the dozens of cacti with beautiful yellow blooms. Saw a lime green door, like mine, on a bright blue garage. A perfect blue for the green, but maybe too much for a whole house. And, it clashed with the purple fence. Heard some loud christian rock blasting from a backyard and a 2 story tall skeleton wearing a green t-shirt in a front yard. Kids on scooters, yelling from inside houses, lounging by the pool at longfellow park.

Speaking of kids, we live next to a daycare. It’s never been a problem because the kids usually stay inside so I never hear them. A few months ago, Sheila (our neighbor and owner of the daycare) began letting 2 little girls play outside in their front yard and our side yard. They are very loud and like to scream a lot. And they are right outside of my windows so I hear them and see them flitting and darting out of the corner of my eye. Thankfully they haven’t opened our gate . . . yet. It doesn’t seem like they are being supervised. Today Scott noticed that one of them had picked up a giant branch — taller than them — and was waving it around — through the air, at the other little girl. No adults stopped them until about 15 minutes later when they were scolded. Yikes.

5

point
could
stick
least
first
extra
right
track
other
green
light
cloud
empty
group
cross
smell
front
never
being
story

trash
trail
below
heart
above
loose
thick
gorge
think
basic
bluff
water
order
value
place
short
steep
giant
adult
until

forth
abuse
carve
house
death
early
decay
still
there
about
after
arrow
plant
check
twice
might
later
stone
mulch
hosta

empty group smell
basic bluff order
thick heart track
cloud water light
green house plant
extra loose trash
never think twice

swim: 5 cedar loops (2.5 lake nokomis)
cedar lake open swim
80 degrees

First open swim of the season at Cedar Lake. Wonderful conditions. Warm-enough water and no chop. I felt strong and fast and smooth. I didn’t stray too far to the center. They have a new lifeguard who was actually telling people dogs weren’t allowed in the water and requiring people to have swim caps. Is Cedar Lake going to lose some of its chill vibes?

The water was olive green, but more yellow than the blue of lake nokomis. I didn’t see any fish or get wrapped in vines. No canoes crossed my path, either. Not too many clouds in the sky. No planes or birds.

A great early evening for a swim!

june 22/RUNBIKESWIM

run: 2 miles
2 trails
81 degrees
dew point: 73

Before biking over for a swim, I decided to run a few miles in the heat. 7 am and already 81. Ugh. Even with the heat, it was nice to get out by the gorge. Was able to greet Mr. Morning. I know I looked at the river, but I don’t remember what I saw. Was it blue? Probably. Was it shimmering? Possibly. Didn’t hear any rowers or roller skiers. A few bikes on the trail, 4 bikes on the road, out for a serious ride, hugging the curb to let cars go by. I heard sprinklers and dripping water and scattered voices.

image: walking up the 38th street steps from the winchell trail to the river road trail, the undersides of the steps had a faint colorful glow — one step was purple, another pink, orange, green, red, yellow. Was it the light? No someone had used chalk to color the steps. For Pride month, I’m assuming. Very cool.

The Alchemist/ Louise Bogan

I burned my life, that I might find 
A passion wholly of the mind, 
Thought divorced from eye and bone, 
Ecstasy come to breath alone. 
I broke my life, to seek relief 
From the flawed light of love and grief.

With mounting beat the utter fire 
Charred existence and desire. 
It died low, ceased its sudden thresh.
I found unmysterious flesh—
Not the mind’s avid substance—still
Passionate beyond the will.

mind/body split described as thought divorced from the eye and bone, and breath alone

unmysterious flesh — not pure mind but something passionate beyond mind and will

I like the rhyme here; it doesn’t feel forced

bike: 8.6 miles
lake nokomis and back
84 degrees (there) / 88 (back)

So windy and hot! Difficult, especially on the way there. I seemed to be always biking straight into the wind and out of the shade. Other than the heat and the wind and the bright sun, it was great. I’m feeling comfortable on my bike this year.

5 Bike Things / 5 Swim Things

  1. bike: a big bird — eagle? turkey vulture? — soaring above the falls parking lot
  2. bike: another biker far ahead, looking small and just in the center of my vision, reminding me of the far off barn in the vision test
  3. bike: so many e-bikes on the trail, which I think is good and not good — it’s complicated
  4. bike: more kids splashing and swimming and yelling in the creek — didn’t see them, but heard them and saw an inner tube on the side of the trail
  5. bike: the stand of trees to the right of the bike trail in the stretch between lake hiawatha and lake nokomis looked deep green and cool and inviting
  6. swim: minnows and small 6 inch fish near the shore
  7. swim: the underwater plants looked orange or greenish brown and they didn’t look like plumes or feathers, but like christmas tree branches. did they have an attitude of a plume? what would that be — ornamental? showy? preening? Nope, these plants had an attitude of a fungus or rash or disease — spreading, taking over, menacing
  8. the light underwater: I can see them as bars, a series of them, slanted and spread out from one central point
  9. sparkling water above, sparkle friends below
  10. so choppy from the wind, rocking me — not gentle but not rough either

swim: 3 loops
lake nokomis open swim
86 degrees

It was so windy and choppy that they couldn’t put the green buoys in. Just 3 orange buoys today and out and back. I thought maybe I would only do 2 loops, but I felt good enough to do a third. Nice work! The choppy water was difficult — especially breathing — but I liked it. I thought about a poem I wrote that has yet to find a home about stroking straight into waves. Not fighting the lake but taking up its challenge.

The water is still fairly clear and I enjoyed looking at the vegetation and the lake floor as I approached the shore. Much easier to tell when it’s shallow enough to stand up!

During one loop, noticing the sparkle on the water, I suddenly felt happy and grateful and content. What a life! I love swimming in this water.

Just remembered something else: stroking roughly through the water, being buffeted by waves, I felt like a boat moving across choppy water, half-submerged. Yesterday, I was talking to FWA about how I imagine myself less of a fish, more of a boat.

more from Anne Carson and “An Essay on Swimming”:

Saturday 6:30 a.m. Swimming.

the motion of the strange white hands. Gold rungs slide past beneath. Red water plants waver up from the bottom in an attitude of plumes. How slow is the slow trance of wisdom, which the swimmer swims into.

Are my hands white when I swim, or is it just the legs and feet of other swimmers?
Not shafts of light but gold rungs?
The water plants are orange or green, but never red, right? (I’ll check tomorrow).
Plumes is a better description than feathers.
The slow trance of wisdom. Swimming for over an hour in lake nokomis puts me in a trance, for sure.

Friday 8 a.m. Swimming.

On the surface the water is navy blue and
corrugated by wind. Spots of white foam crowd hectically up
and down the waves. there is an urgency to it as if a telephone
were ringing in the house. But there is no telephone in the house.

I don’t know if I’ve ever seen the lake surface navy blue, but I have seen it corrugated. I like that word as a description for a rough surface.

urgency like a telephone ringing in a house, but there is no house. Is there a name for experiencing the same feeling but in a different context. I don’t think this is just metaphor, or is it?

Wednesday 8:30 a.m. Swimming.

the swimmer inserts himself into the dark green glass.

Wednesday 5:45 p.m. Swimming.

The lake is cool and rippled by an inattentive wind. The swimmer moves heavily through an oblique greenish gloom of underwater sunset

from an earlier essay in The Anthropology of Water: “The Wishing Jewel: Introduction to Water Margins:

My brother once showed me a piece of quartz that contained, he said, some trapped water older than all the seas in our world. This line reminds me of a poem I re-encountered yesterday during my “on this day” reading practice:

from Conversation with a Pebble/Alyson Hallett

I kiss the pebble,
Watch the moisture from my lips sink in.

That’s what I’m hiding,
It says. Water. The tiniest Rivers, lakes, seas.

Ideas of what water
Can be. Yes, pebble says,
I am hiding all the world’s memory.

5

I’ve probably missed some, but here are the five letter words (minus plurals) that I found in this entry:

gorge
greet
river
trail
heard
water
voice
street
trail
faint
green
light
chalk
color
pride
month
split
alone
rhyme
windy
shade
great
eagle
above
ahead
small
think
creek
inner
stand
right
brownplume
point
below
rough
today
maybe
third
still
clear
floor
shore
happy
being
about
white
slide
waver
trance
other
never
check

rough windy rhyme
stand still today
below color trance
waver above water
faint floor shore
above gorge being
think inner creek
never point alone
happy water slide
great white check

This is fun!

june 20/BIKESWIM

bike: 8.6 miles
lake nokomis
83 degrees (there) / 75 degrees (back)

Windy. As I biked along the river road, the wind whistling past my ears, I wondered what it would be like at the lake. More people on the trail — biking and walking and running — than yesterday. Only once did I have a moment of, wow, I didn’t see that guy!, but I had plenty of time to correct my course, so no worries. Lots of ebikes zooming past me, also lots of on your lefts, which I really appreciate. One biker ahead of me liked to pedal hard then coast, his derailer? drive train? humming loudly. I’m not great with identifying bike parts. As I neared the beach, the wind seemed even stronger. Uh oh — how hard will this swim be?

swim: 3 loops
lake nokomis
79 degrees

Dropping my bag down at the lifeguard stand, another swimmer said, it’s windy today! then, good thing I can breathe on both sides. I agreed, yes, that’s a good skill to have. She was right, it did help. Heading towards the little beach, I breathed mostly on my left side, heading back to the main beach, my right.

I struggled with my nose plug for a minute or two; it didn’t want to stay put and kept sliding. It continued to do that as I swam, making a squeaking noise underwater.

In the first two loops, the current kept pushing me out and far from the buoys. Since I couldn’t see the buoys, this made it more challenging. I was not panicked or unsettled, only sorry that I severely routed another swimmer and motivated. In lap 3, I would crack this code and stay close to the buoys. And I did! Boom — I swam right by that second orange buoy, the one that had been so far away in loops 1 and 2. Swam right by the third orange buoy too. I really couldn’t see that one until I was right on top of it.

10 Things

  1. minnows! not a huge group, but at least a dozen in the shallow water
  2. today the milfoil looked green, not orange. as I swam over it, I stared down, looking for fish hanging out in its feathery branches — none seen
  3. an orange glow on the surface of the water from the orange buoy
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 breathe right 1 2 3 4 5 breathe left 1 2 3 4 breathe right 1 2 3 4 breathe right
  5. the sky started blue but my loop 2 it was white and covered with clouds — I bet that’s the cause of the temperature drop from bike 1 (83) to bike 2 (75)
  6. a plane above me, heading to the airport
  7. more shafts of light
  8. a sparkle on the surface of the water guiding me — another swimmer far ahead piercing the water with their hand
  9. more pale, kicking legs underwater
  10. a rough ride around the second green buoy

Another 3 loops. I wasn’t sure if I would do the third loop because of the chop, but I was motivated to figure out the course, so I did it, and I was fine. In fact, I had more energy in the last loop.

Returning to my bag and towel, a woman called out, did you see any fish? / no / good, that’s all I care about. This is my first time doing open swim / oh, good luck!

an experiment to try

In june 2023, I turned my wordle guesses into poems. I called it my wordle challenge. I haven’t played wordle since then, but this morning, encountering my entry from 20 june 2023, I was inspired by a poem I wrote using my wordle guesses: water / inert / frost:

Water is never inert
always falling searching
for somewhere else to be
even in rest 
as frost on winter’s window
it watches waits wants 
to find the floor

Make a list of as many five letters words I can think of in 5 minutes, then pick 3 (how, not sure about that yet), and turn them into a poem about stone, then water, or just stone, or just water. A variation: Use my log entry for today’s swim. Find all of the five letter words in it. Pick out some of them and turn them into a poem about stone or water or both.

update, 22 june 2025: Over the past two days, I made a list of all of the five letter words in the entry, then I started playing around with putting them into 3 word phrases.

night
would
early
thanks
might
today
dizzy
street
extra
worth
quiet
light
green
right
south
north
boost
small
white
river
slope
grass
water
bright
think
heavy
final
flash
sound
nudge
flail
camel
wrong
which

quiet green light
extra white river
slope grass sound
dizzy think boost
final camel flail
small water nudge
south street wrong
would today flash?
early night right

I think I’ll tag these with “five,” or should it be 5? 5.