Tag: afternoon

nov 10/SWIM!HIKE!RUN!

2600 yards / 1.5 loops
104 laps
ywca pool

Another swim. Hooray! It took some time to get my nose plug and goggles sorted — they were leaking — and my cap wasn’t ever quite on right, but it was a great swim. A solid 45+ minutes of moving through the water. I shared a lane with a woman who did some interesting sets. Lots of dolphin kick on her back. Some of the time she swam on her back, feet first — normally to move forward you swim head first. I don’t know if I’ve ever seen that before. She was doing a strange spread-finger paddle. She was already swimming when I started, and kept going after I finished. I wonder how long she swims for. I wasn’t trying to be competitive with her, but I probably was, in spite of my best attempts to be chill. Mostly, we were at opposite ends of the pool, but a few times I would catch up to her. Difficult to pass — was she trying to race me? Once our hands hit as we passed each other.

To focus my attention on something else, I looked down at the dancing shadows on the pool floor. Soft, not very distinct, like the floor was moving. It wasn’t that bright outside, so there were no big circles of light. Didn’t notice any pool friends — no fuzz.

hike: 30 minutes
with RJP
around the gorge
35 degrees

Hiked with RJP to some favorite spots that I’ve written about so she could take some pictures. She’s doing a series of colored pencil drawings inspired by GGG poems for her final project in her drawing class! Very cool!

We took the old stone steps to the river, then back up and over to the winchell trail and the oak savanna. RJP took a picture of the tree growing through the fence — I hope she’s able to draw it. She took lots of pictures of steps and rocks and trees. Oh — and the surface of the river.

run: 4 miles
wabun bluff / locks and dam no. 1 / river road
35 degrees

An afternoon run. Only 4:00 and it’s already getting dark. Chilly, but not too cold. The lack of wind helped. Lots of leaves on the trail, but not too many runners. A steady stream of cars, kids playing soccer over at the school — kick it higher! higher! Parents waiting to pick up kids at Dowling Elementary. Some voices down in the gorge. Could it be rowers? I couldn’t tell. The gate into the Locks and Dam no. 1 was closed. Is it closed for the season?

No turkeys or geese or fat tires or roller skiers. No music blasting from radios or droning leaf blowers. Plenty of squirrels, but none of them darted in front of me. Too busy rooting around in the dry leaves, making a racket.

cells remember

Found a great blog post on Poetry Foundation about cells:

symbiogenesis: we came about not only through competition but through acts of cooperation. We carry evidence of species merger in our cells, and of species relation in almost every structure we daily rely upon. Is there one piece of us that doesn’t also, in some form, belong to someone else? Your fingers ghosting chimp as they slender in the air. Lobe-finned fishes did protolungs, acorn worms might have done something like a heart. The more complex organs, like eyes, had to be developed many times, but jellyfish saw first, and not for us. Biology is remembering. Our cells remember ancient chemical interactions, pre-life, and our limbs remember salamanders. A poem remembers our past in language and posits a future in the simplest sense, like a to-do note, hoping that it will be read at some point hence, reminding us of something worth knowing. It can cast back between the “its” and the “octopus” in the second paragraph of this blog and remember the relation. In addition, it’s an ecosystem that, ideally, like any functioning ecosystem, deals with its own waste.

Like the octopus’s smart shadow, a poem’s shadow also always knows more than we do.

Mitosis, Meiosis, Poiesis

Biology remembers. Cells remember. Cells remember? Here’s some future reading: How a cell remembers

oct 29/RUN

4.5 miles
veterans home in reverse
49 degrees

Another beautiful late fall day. Sun, sparkling river, gushing falls, red and orange and yellow leaves. Parts of the run were easy, parts of it weren’t. Felt tired this late morning/early afternoon. Ran up the hill through Wabun to the veterans home, then over the bridge, past John Stevens’ house and to the falls. The bench above the edge of the world was empty but the Rachel Dow Memorial bench had two people sitting on it. ALL of the kids were outside on the Minnehaha Academy playground as I ran past it on the other side of the road. Two memorable things: 1. a teacher calling out to a student — no, no, we do not climb the fence. get down! and 2. I heard a trumpet playing Reveille. It sounded like a live trumpet and not a recording. Is that what they play to call kids in from recess?

Scott sent me this poem. I’m posting it partly for its cleverness, partly for our shared dislike of licorice, and partly because I love the word It.

It/ Gertrude Sturdle

It is never
what it seems to be
unless it is licorice.
And then
sadly
it is.

the cells, cells, cells, cells, cells, cells, cells

Yesterday I mentioned using Poe’s “The Bells” as a template for my own poem about the cells: dying cone cells, strange rod cells, the uncontrolled growth of cancer cells, a narrowing of space (cell as room, place). I started working yesterday afternoon and am back at it this morning before my run. Fun!

version 1

EA Poe’s original first verse:

Hear the sledges with the bells—
Silver bells!
What a world of merriment their melody foretells!
How they tinkle, tinkle, tinkle,
In the icy air of night!
While the stars that oversprinkle
All the heavens, seem to twinkle
With a crystalline delight;
Keeping time, time, time,
In a sort of Runic rhyme,
To the tintinabulation that so musically wells
From the bells, bells, bells, bells,
Bells, bells, bells—
From the jingling and the tinkling of the bells.

My version

Feel the leaving of the cells —
the failed cells.

What a world of loneliness their abandonment foretells.

How they tumble, tumble, tumble,
In the fading of the light.

While the cones start to crumble
,
All the rods seem to rumble
in the loosening of her sight;
Then it’s grays, grays, grays,
and a veil of fuzzy haze.
With an undead half possession and the cast of haunting spells
On the cells, cells, cells, cells,

Cells, cells, cells—
On the slumbering and the stumbling cells.

type of bell: sleigh bells
bells / foretells / wells
merriment / melody

tinkle / oversprinkle / twinkle

a line about the night air
night / delight
time time time
time/rhyme
tintinabulation / musically
bells repeated 7 times
jingling / tinkling — slant rhyme

cells: dead cone cells

cells / foretells / spells

world — loneliness / abandonment
tumble / crumble / rumble
grays grays grays
grays / haze
undead half possession

oct 27/RUN

3.25 miles
trestle turn around
59 degrees

A late afternoon run. Nice! I might try doing more of these later workouts this winter — but not outside, in the dark! I like the light at this time (around 5) — softer, longer, winding down, golden. I only stopped once — to take off my sweatshirt. I considered taking it off while I was running, but thought better of it. I felt strong and confident that I could keep running.

10 Things

  1. bright yellow leaves
  2. a roller skier
  3. laughing voices below me in the ravine
  4. bright yellow t-shirts and vest on some of the walkers
  5. still green below the sliding bench
  6. a long line of cars stopped on the river road whenever there was a stop sign
  7. someone speeding by on a scooter
  8. in the tunnel of trees the path was covered in bright red leaves
  9. a loud honk ahead of me, on the lake street bridge
  10. no geese or turkeys or rowers

vision study

I went in for my second vision test appointment at the U. Colin, a post-doc in the psychology of vision department tested me on a fancy machine that takes 300 pictures of my eyes a second to track what and where I’m looking.

First, a calibration. I put my chin on the chin rest, didn’t move my head, and moved my eyes to track a dot as it traveled from the upper left corner and around the lower right. When I saw it, the dot would explode in confetti. Nice!

Second, a reading test. I was given a sentence to read that kept getting smaller. I struggled to read it when the text was big, but it got easier, and I got faster as it got smaller. I could read sentences that were even too small for my tester to read. When that was finished a screen popped up: 390 trials. Colin said, oh boy. What? The screen said I needed to take 390 of the “trials” to determine if my vision/eyes would work for this study. I asked, what’s the average number of tests? Colin: 100. Of course, my weird eyes would require more testing and of course, this delighted me.

Third, the real test. I had to stare between two dots and try to identify the 3 letters that flashed. At first, the text was too big for me, and I couldn’t see any of the letters. Then Colin decided to try and make the letters a lot smaller — way smaller than anyone had ever done, or even that the program could handle. He thought it was very cool and I could tell he was excited. When I asked him why, he said that he had never seen anyone’s vision work this way. Yes! Even among people with strange sight, my sight is strange! I knew it.

It was fun to do the study and talk with someone about my vision. Will I qualify for continuing? Not sure yet. My vision might be too strange, and too much for this program. They’ll let me know sometime in the future. Whatever happens, it was fun and I got more verification that I’m unusual!

This afternoon, I submitted 5 of my Girl Ghost Gorge poems to a journal, and my chapbook, “I Empty My Mind, I Stuff it with Color” to a contest.

oct 23/RUN

3.5 miles
locks and dam no. 1*
49 degrees

*ran south to the locks and dam no. 1, then halfway down the hill and over to another hill that climbs up beside the underbelly of the ford bridge and to the bluff and wabun park. Turned around and headed down to the bottom of the locks, then back up it again.

Ran in the late afternoon. The gorge has very different energy in the almost evening. Cars rushing to get home, kids walking home from school, the light longer, lower. Noticed some amazing golden-avocado-orange leaves on a tall tree and some small bright red leaves on a low bush. Twice I ran past a bush/mini-tree with green leaves that yelled out to me, BLUE! What? I stopped the second time to figure out how I was seeing/hearing blue, but couldn’t.

Geese! I haven’t seen as many geese this year. Today, half a dozen of them were floating in the water under the ford bridge. I don’t think I heard them, but I saw one of them spread their wings wide and then flap them furiously.

Turkeys! Running above the winchell trail between the 44th and 42nd street ravines, I saw them across the parkway. 4 or 5 big turkeys rooting through the grass. At least one car slowed way down to witness their awesomeness for a minute.

Anything else? Oh — I heard music coming from a bike speaker. Just the opening chords — I’m 90% sure it was “Just What I Needed” by The Cars. Excellent!

I felt strong and fast and bouncy. Wore the yellow shoes, which were mostly great, although they did hurt my feet a little.

For most of the day, I’ve been working on a poem that is less about form and more about the process of creating it — almost 9 full years of noticing and writing about what I noticed in this RUN! log AND sitting down today and recounting those things from memory. The poem is 2 pages wide. In the upper left corner, loosely representing a gorge wall, are the words, She goes to/the gorge/to notice, and in the bottom right corner, every/thing. The rest of the page is filled with what I have noticed, written across the page with the noticed things separated by slashes. It’s fun! I am about three quarters of the way finished with the first draft. I imagine I’ll want to tweak it a little. The last thing I added before leaving for my run: port-a-potty, clean / port-a-potty, dirty / port-a-potty, tipped / port-a-potty removed to discourage encampments below. Will I keep these? Not sure.

oct 22/RUN

3.1 miles
2 trails
44 degrees

Blustery, cool, full of color. Reds and oranges and yellows. Everything wet from yesterday’s rain. The winchell trail was covered in leaves, some wet, some dry, most of them rusty red. I greeted a guy I passed with a good morning, then realized it wasn’t morning, but afternoon. Oops. He said morning back. I wonder if he realized the mistake. Thanked several other walkers for moving over to let me pass. Heard some kids yelling at the playground and one guy yell out to someone else, that’s Ben. Ben is here. A woman stood at the top of the old stone steps, studying something below. Was she deciding whether or not to take them down? Wondering what was down there, or whether or not the steps were too slick?

Every so often, I thought about a line that I haven’t quite found a home for in GGG: Each loop adds substance, tightens the tether, but never enough to stop the looping.

Began chanting: looping and/looping and/looping again

After I finished running, as I walked back, I had 2 ideas for fun experiments with the lines.

first: switch up the order of the words — mimicking of swirling water falling from a limestone ledge? or, take part of it and create an anagram?

second: do a variation on the golden shovel form by taking the tether/never/looping sentence and ending each line of a new poem with the words from it, in order, so that it spells out the sentence. Or, to mimic the rock walls of the gorge, start each line of the new poem with the first half of the sentence, then end each line with the second half. Too contrived? Future Sara will let me know.

Found a wonderfully wandering poem this morning, “Reading Virginia Woolf in a Women in Literature Class at Bergen Community College.” It’s long, so I’ll just an excerpt:

excerpt from Reading Virginia Woolf in a Women in Literature Class at Bergen Community College/ Carlie Hoffman

when my sister asked if I’d ever
kissed anyone. I was just beginning
freshman year, working to get my time
down for swim team where I’d spent summer
ditching birthdays & the ice cream
truck’s persuasive tune to practice
the butterfly & freestyle & learning to dive
less crooked, which was going as well
as expected until Andrew
sat next to me on the bus
ride home from the pool during tryouts,
his chlorine-dried hand on my shoulder
a little too long without asking when he asked
my name & he has a crush on you
said my friend Becca while faking
a gagging sound in her throat. I said yes
even though I hadn’t kissed anyone & maybe
this was my first true poem, lying
to my sister in support of love, stealing imagery
from the books I’d read in the library
to avoid the cafeteria

I love her definition of a poem: lying to someone in support of love, stealing imagery from other poets

Richard Siken!!

I love Richard Siken’s new book that I picked up from Moon Palace Books Monday night. Read this poem while Scott was rehearsing with the community jazz band:

The List/ Richard Siken

I tried to say something nice to the nurse. I introduced myself. She said we had already met. I thought she was moody until I realized she was several nurses, each working their own shift. To them I was Hamlet in a long line of Hamlets. My problems were unimpressive and not unique. I had a grief counselor, like everyone, and a suicide counselor, because I had said the wrong thing. I wrote in my notebook. I made a list, a working glossary. My handwriting was big and crooked. Meat. Blood. Floor. Thunder. I tried to understand what these things were and how I was related to them. Doorknob. Cardboard. Thermostat. Agriculture. I understood North but I struggled with left. Describing the world was easier than finding a place in it. The suicide counselor said the people who hadn’t shown up weren’t going to show up, that the ones that had stopped coming would not be coming back. She had seen it before, she saw it every day. The person they knew was gone. To them, I had broken the contract: I had left first and they were already grieving. I started a second notebook, for venom and hard feelings—things that would leak into the list if I let them. It was harsh and ugly. It was true and harsh and ugly and it made me feel sick. What do I know? What do I know for sure? I built up meaning with a double set of books. —A doorknob is a rock for the hand. It opens a hole in the wall. —A doorknob is your stupid head. You will not survive this.

I remember reading the line, Describing the world was easier than finding a place in it, as part of “About this Poem” explanation of “Real Estate.” I loved the line so much I turned it into a form fitter — my name for the lines that I shaped into my breathing rhythm of 3/2 syllables. I always thought it belonged in a poem, and here it is. Wow!

Describing 
worlds is

easier 
than find

ing your place 
in them

OR

Describing
worlds is

easy. Find
ing your

place in them
is hard.

oct 21/RUN

3.1 miles
trestle turn around
44 degrees / rain

Brrr. Rainy and chilly today. Time to find my gloves — my hands were going a little numb by the end. Ran north to the trestle. A few other walkers and runners joined me — we didn’t move together, just in the same place (above the gorge), at the same time (early afternoon). Tried to run relaxed and not too fast. The relaxed part happened, but not the not too fast part. The path was wet and leaf-covered and slightly slippery. The sprawling oak by the ancient boulder and at the entrance to the tunnel of trees was a metallic — frosted gold and silver. Wow! The floodplain forest below the tunnel of trees was glowing pear and butter. Double wow! I never looked at the river or heard a bird, but I did smell hot chocolate, burnt coffee, and pipe smoke.

Thought about revisions to my latest poem and the refrain I put at the end of it, created to chant while running. I played around with different rhythms. First, the words:

no after / only here / Remember / Remember / reMember /

Actually, the original, un-tested-out-by-the-gorge-version was: there is no after/there is only here / remember / remember / remember. But as soon as I tried to chant it, I could tell it wouldn’t work — too many words for my running rhythms.

no After
no After
no After
only here

only here
only here
here here here
here here here

Remember
Remember
reMember

Remember
here
reMember
here
here here here

Re Mem Ber
here here here

The lines inspiring these chants are: There is no after. There is only here and a moving away from and returning to it.

Also thinking about my What time is it? (2020) poem that involves a list of o’clocks. I’m thinking maybe I should be brave (a word RJP and I are using a lot these days), and include something about George Floyd. It’s an important part of what I wrote about in May/June of 2020 in this log. What do I mean by brave here? I’m going to think about that some more.

oct 12/RUN

1.75 miles
neighborhood to old stone steps to winchell
69 degrees
wind: 33 mph gusts

Overcast, windy, a few drops of rain. A fall afternoon. Everything slowly turning golden. Wow! I needed to run less than a mile today to reach my 20 miles per week goal. I decided to mix it up and add in a few detours. Ran through the neighborhood over to 32nd then down to the river road trail. Stopped to walk down the old stone steps and stand on the shore at longfellow flats. The forest was all green and thick. The flats were not flat but a steep ridge. Guess it’s time for the parks department to do some more dredging and dumping here. I stared at a yellowed maple leaf bobbing on the surface of the water. Encountered 2 people on the steps. I said, it’s a beautiful day, because I thought it was, but I wonder if they thought I was strange describing wind gusts and lack of sun and intermittent drizzle as beautiful. When I got to the top of the steps, I started running again and kept going past the welcoming oaks and the ravine to the entrance to the Winchell Trail. I went down the worn wooden steps and hiked in the ravine, above the two ledges. I studied the rip rap at the bottom of one. Some of the stone are wedged vertically, but more of them are horizontal. Should my riprap poems mimic this shape and spread out across the page?

Yesterday’s Ironman Championships was crazy. 80% humidity, a feels like temp of 96. Dangerous conditions. Both of my favorites — Lucy Charles Barclay and Taylor Knibb had to drop out during the run. Taylor Knibb was in first and had less than 2 miles (out of 26.2, 15 minutes out of 8 1/2 hour race) left to run, but she was completely empty. She wobbled and wandered then sat down in the middle of the road on asphalt that had to be more than 100 degrees. It’s scary and a little inspiring (but more scary), to see how deep these athletes can dig. I haven’t heard any interview with her, but I imagine she’ll be a bit disappointed, but also satisfied with her effort; she tried as hard as she possibly could and left everything out there on the melting road.

GGG

I’m working on a looping poem and trying to write some lines that echo these:

Each loop adds substance,
tightens the tether,
but never enough
to stop the looping.

Here’s what I’ve come up with, inspired by the riprap and how they shore up a slope:

Each chant offers a
memory, a way
back to the other
shore, but never more
than a trace of
something witnessed and
found familiar.

Or, should it be made familiar? I like how found sounds, but I like the idea of making it familiar through the looping.

sept 24/RUN

2.5 miles
2 trails
70 degrees
humidity: 67%

Tried an experiment today. Instead of running early when it was much cooler, but very high humidity (97%), I waited and ran when it was much warmer, but with lower humidity. The hypothesis: the humidity is more of a problem than the temperature. Observations: fatigue, abundant sweat, slow legs, needing to walk sooner and for longer, not much fun. Tentative conclusion: heat affects me more than humidity. Of course, other factors to consider include: a different time of day, direct sun. My scientific method here might be half-baked, but I’m accepting the conclusion. No waiting until later to run! When in doubt, go earlier.

As (almost) always, I’m glad I went for a run by the gorge. A beautiful fall afternoon! A bright blue sky, rusting leaves, clear paths.

At the beginning of my run, I chanted the opening section of my Running Chant: River — flow flow flow / slow slow slow / flow flow flow / slow slow slow. The goal was to quiet my mind and fall into the rhythm of my feet. An idea: why not have a page filled with these opening words as part of my Girl Ghost Gorge collection?

3 visual options:

  1. a page with a line of flow then a line of the word slow
  2. 2 or 4 columns, one with flow, one with slow — you can read it vertically, down the lines, or horizontally, across the columns
  3. a page of flow flow flow / slow slow slow in very faint print, with only a few of the words in regular (or bold?) print

10 Things

  1. empty bench at the Horace Cleveland Overlook
  2. trickling water at the 44th street ravine
  3. the steady falling of water at the 42nd street ravine
  4. a friendly biker on the walking path below — hello! / hello
  5. 2 people at the folwell bench, one of them leaning over looking at their lap — were they holding a phone?
  6. graffiti — can’t remember color or what it said — on the limestone retaining wall
  7. a squeaking sound from across the river — a bike?
  8. someone squatting at the edge of the 38th street steps, talking on the phone
  9. a trace of color — yellow, pink — on the 38th street steps
  10. kids’ voices drifting over from across the road — recess

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 13/RUN

3.1 miles
ford bridge turn around
58 degrees / damp, post-rain

Pre-run Sara

Friday the 13th! Tonight, Scott and I will watch the original movie. Today, I run between rain drops. No open swim last night or this morning because of rain. Ordinarily I’d be upset, but I overdid it on Tuesday’s first open swim and my left shoulder hurts. If there was open swim, I’d be tempted to do it, which might further injure my shoulder. Now I don’t have a choice. That’s good. Speaking of injuries, my left knee is a bit stiff and it feels like there’s some sort of swelling on the back. It doesn’t hurt too much, just feels tight and stiff. I don’t think it’s a big deal, so I’ll do a short run this afternoon. Post-run Sara, let me know how it goes!

Mid-run Sara

a spasm of sirens ringing across the river
the usual puddles to leap over
a chorus of hammers
dark green
rich brown
rusted red leaves
a new trail descending deeper into the gorge
empty benches
no walk breaks
a triple chant: history / mystery / first story / my story / her story

Post-run Sara

I’m happy to report that the run felt great and because I wore compression socks, my left knee and calf don’t hurt. Hooray! I also wore a different pair of shoes — did that help, too? The run seemed to also loosen up my left shoulder.

On my walk home, after the run, I recited Wallace Steven’s excellent vision poem, “Tattoo.” The light is like a spider. . . This led to more thoughts about light as an insect, or a spider, or a fish, or a tiny robot. Then I remembered the song in my new favorite musical, Maybe Happy Ending about dragonflies as little robots. Never fly away/little robot. I started imaging little robots of light helping me to see, and what that technology might look like.