Tag: a moment of sound

jan 4/RUN

5K
43rd ave, north/32nd st, east/edmund, south/edmund, north
28 degrees
75% slushy, soft, uneven snow/ 25% bare pavement

More wonderful winter running! Warmer today. The path wasn’t clear–sidewalks, roads, the trail–but I didn’t care. Had to run closer than 6 feet to 2 walkers while I was running on the trail, which bothered me, but I ran by so fast and it was outside so I didn’t care. It’s difficult in the winter because it’s hard to move off of the trail with all the snow piled up on the side. Guess I won’t get too many river views this winter–or at least until it gets colder and keeps more people inside.

Things I Remember

  1. Two people by Dowling Elementary, shoveling snow and breaking up the thick slabs of ice on the road, right in front of the school. I wondered, were they volunteers? Were they preparing for kids to come back to school? Are Minneapolis elementary school kids going to return for in-person school soon?
  2. Turning around at 42nd, I noticed a few snowflakes. I hadn’t expected it to snow so I thought I was imagining it or there was stuff coming off of a branch above me. Soon, it started to snow a lot, covering the ground with a thin, mushy blanket of wet sludge. Falling, the flakes were hard and small, like little bullets or missiles aimed at my mouth. I choked slightly at least twice when I swallowed them. A few years ago I did some research on snow so I used to know the different types of flakes. I’ll have to find my notes. As I type this entry now, it is sunny and clear and there is no more snow.
  3. Several times I heard some interesting sounds and I thought about stopping to record my moment of sound, but I didn’t want to stop. I wanted to keep running, so I waited until I was done and recorded the moment by my garage. 2 of the places: 1. on edmund, in a sheltered spot, in front of some fancy houses, near my favorite little stand of trees, the cottonwood three, I wanted to stop and record the chirping birds. 2. Again on edmund, close to 42nd, running past a van with its radio on, hearing some rock song mixing with a few power tools, a plane overhead, and the snow hitting the pavement.
  4. Caught a glimpse of the river through the trees before turning off the trail to avoid a pack of walkers. I think I saw more big chunks of ice on the surface.

a moment of sound

I recorded this moment of sound after I finished my run. I thought that it might be quieter and more shielded from the city noise and wind back by my garage, behind the house, in the alley. Not sure if it was. The hum of the city is so loud! My main focus for this sound was the little pellets of snow falling on my vest–that’s what the soft crunching noise is–but I also captured some kid losing her shit down the block and some awesomely wet footsteps in the snow at the end.

Jan 4, 2021

In honor of the surprise snow shower this morning, I’d like to memorize some snow poems for the next few days. Here are a few I might consider:

update, a few hours later: I looked back in my notes from February 2018 (also, my log posts from February 2018) and figured out what the little hard pellets are called: graupels.

jan 3/RUN

5K
2 school loop
18/feels like 8
95% snow covered

Winter running is the best! I’m not sure how to express the joy I feel during and after I finish a run when it’s cold–but not arctic hellscape cold–and snowy–but not too snowy or icy–and I get to be outside breathing in fresh air and moving with warm fingers and toes. I love running over the snow, hearing it crunch, feeling it propel me forward–a bit of slide but not a slip. I love the sense of accomplishment I feel for just getting out the door–there’s no pressure to be fast or run for a long time because it’s enough to be there, resisting the urge to stay inside and be warm and protected (from the elements, from too many people, from hidden ice that might make me slip).

Things I Remember

  1. As I was tying my laces, just about to go outside, I heard a black capped chickadee calling. I like imagining them singing to me: “Sara. Join us. Be brave, find joy.”
  2. Several cawing crows–not a murder of crows because they weren’t flocked together.
  3. Smelled smoke at the usual spot, on Edmund Boulevard. Still don’t know, does it come from a house or the gorge?
  4. Saw my shadow and felt the warm sun on my face.
  5. Running north on 43rd, I smelled the too flowery, too fake scent of dryer sheets. Must be laundry day on this block!
  6. Never got close enough to see the river or hear it.
  7. Heard a crow and a train having a conversation–first a caw, quickly followed by a “beep beep”–and I think an airplane joined in, roaring from high above.
  8. Ran under the bushy fir tree with the limb that arches over the sidewalk on 43rd and thought about how it was covered with snow way back in November.

a moment of sound

While running around Hiawatha School, I got trapped: another pedestrian approaching, a knee-high wall of snow on the curb preventing my quick escape onto the street. I decided to try running in the deeper snow in the baseball field. When that didn’t work, I stopped for a minute to record my moment of sound. The sun was too bright for me to tell when the recording had reached a minute, but that’ okay because this is moment of sound, which is less precise than a minute.

Jan 3, 2021

Listening back to this recording, I’m struck by how loud the planes are. I didn’t even notice that there were planes when I was standing in the field. The next thing: if you listen close and you know what you’re listening for, you can hear the sprinkling of water. That’s someone watering the ice rink at the park. Every year the field, that can fit at least one soccer field and 3 baseball fields, is turned into a huge ice rink, with a large open section from just skating and a closed-in section for hockey. I love this about Minnesota. When I was a kid, I adored ice skating, but living in the South, I rarely skated–only when we went to the big mall in Charlotte with the indoor ice rink. My 8 year old self wouldn’t have imagined that now, at age 46, I live within a mile of 2 big outdoor rinks and 1 indoor one. Last year, I didn’t skate even once. Will I this year?

Was reminded of a poetic form that I tried 4 years ago (yikes, here it is), when I first rediscovered poetry: the triolet. It’s 8 lines with line 1 being repeated as line 4 and line 7, and line 2 being repeated as line 8. Here’s the rhyme scheme (with the capitals representing the repeated lines): ABaAabAB

Here’s the poem that made me think of the form again:

Triolet on a Line Apocryphally Attributed to Martin Luther/ A.E. STALLINGS

Why should the Devil get all the good tunes,
The booze and the neon and Saturday night,
The swaying in darkness, the lovers like spoons?
Why should the Devil get all the good tunes?
Does he hum them to while away sad afternoons
And the long, lonesome Sundays? Or sing them for spite?
Why should the Devil get all the good tunes,
The booze and the neon and Saturday night?

I love this poem. Right now I especially love it because of its rhythm and how successful it is in inhabiting this form without making it cheesy or awkward or obvious–that is hard to do.

jan 2/BIKERUN

bike: 24 minutes
run: 1.5 miles
basement

Took a walk with Scott and Delia this morning. Cold. It always feel colder when I’m walking than when I’m running. Frozen fingers but no frozen face with my mask on. Nice. Heard some black-capped chickadees and crows and many other birds that I couldn’t identify. Also heard the dog that moans–the one that I heard this summer and told Scott about but that we’ve never been able to hear again until now. Yes! I wanted to record the sound but I found restarted–too cold? not enough charge? I was hoping to make that my moment of sound, but I couldn’t. Instead, I stood outside on my deck, a few minutes later, and recorded the neighborhood noises. A “chickadeedeedee,” a “caw caw”–I remember, but I can’t quite make it out on the recording, a feebee call at the end. Someone dropping down the lid of their garbage can. The low, steady hum of the city underneath it all.

jan 2, 2021

I am hoping to keep this habit up of recording about a minute of sound every day this month–or this year? I’m tagging them, a moment of sound

jan 1/RUN

5K
turkey hollow
14 degrees
95% snow covered

Happy New Year! Of course I had to get outside and run on the first day of the year. 14 degrees didn’t seem too cold to me with all of my layers: green shirt, blue hooded shirt, orange sweatshirt, black vest, 2 pairs of running tights, headband covering my ears, baseball cap, hood, 2 pairs of gloves, 1 pair of socks, yak trax. Not too much wind. Ran south on the river road trail. Encountered a few others runners or walkers but we stayed close to our opposite sides, which I think was about 6 or 7 feet apart. Yelled at the one biker I encountered who was biking in the middle of the trail–at least I thought he was. My depth perception is not the greatest. Saw 2 or 3 cross country skiers! One was crossing the river road, their skis scraping on the bare pavement.

birds!

No turkeys in turkey hollow, but as I ran on the river road trail, above the oak savanna, I heard the drumming of a woodpecker on a tree. The noise was deep and metallic. Was the tree dead inside? I read a poem or an essay that described how a tree can be dead and you can’t tell until you cut it down; it could be dying inside for years. Where did I read that? I almost stopped running for a minute to try and locate the woodpecker but I didn’t–I doubt I would have been able to see it anyway. I also heard some male black-capped chickadees and their feebee call. A three note call this time with a 2 note response. Nice! Such a good omen for the year, hearing my favorite bird, running close to the river!

the river!

Running south on the trail above the oak savanna, at first all I could see were trees, a hill, snow. Suddenly, the gorge sloped down near 38th and the river appeared. Wow! Shining in the soft spots that weren’t yet sharpened by cold . I love the visual effect of sparkling, glittering water–sometime soon I want to read this article about glittering patterns. Talking with Scott, I thought I remembered that the effect was called glint, but looking it up again, it’s glitter. Glint is a flash of light, not to be confused with glisk which is a gleam of light through a cloud. As I described the image to Scott, we also discussed whether the river had sheets of ice or, as I delightfully suggested, floes. Scott thought floes were only in the ocean. Looking it up, Wikipedia says that a floe is defined by it’s size–big!

“An ice floe is a large pack of floating ice often defined as a flat piece at least 20 m across at its widest point, and up to more than 10 km across.[1]Drift ice is a floating field of sea ice composed of several ice floes.”

Maybe I like using the term because it’s big and grand and makes the river–which is fairly big, but nothing compared to an ocean or a sea, at least where I see it–seem bigger and grander and my images more magical or fantastical or epic?

Another word encountered: brash ice. “Brash ice is an accumulation of floating ice made up of fragments not more than 2m across. It is the wreckage of other forms of ice.” Cool.

After I finished my run, I could hear so many birds. I decided to stop and record a minute of it–I might try to do this every day this month or this year.

jan 1, 2021

In addition to the feebee call, I hear the “chickadeedeedee” and some other chirping I can’t identify. Some dudes laughing, me still breathing hard after my run (and then adding in a gross sniff), and the delightfully irritating crunching snow! I love hearing the biomechanics of my feet walking–listen to the different types of crunches as one foot lifts off and the other sinks down.

Winter Poem/ Donika Kelly

We climb the stalk of early winter
into the sky. Below: the car, the road,
the gray branch. The sun, a mirage, multiplies
in the earth. The light beetles, makes of our
bodies a mirror. We are fallow
as the land beneath us. We climb, though our
arms tire and our legs burn, a gesture
of absolution–we forget,
are forgotten. We are fire or
the image of fire, the day, or
the breaking of it. We disappear, chaff
of myth, what held the story of a season’s end.

This poem! It’s from her collection, Bestiary. How did I miss it when I read that book this summer? I love beetles as a verb–the light beetles. Does she mean “to scurry” (like a beetle) or “project/jut”?

So many great words in this entry! brash, beetle, glint, glitter, glisk. I want to use some of them in a poem.