Great water! Warm, buoyant, calm, and near the shore, clear. A steady — 1 2 3 4 5 breathe right 1 2 3 4 5 breathe left — swim. Felt strong and relaxed and rhythmic. Didn’t see the buoys that often but knew exactly where they were.
10 Things
the tops of the mifoil: green, wispy, some feathery, some stringy
light green water
green buoys looking robin’s egg blue
the sharp angle of the taut rope with a weight on its end, anchoring the buoy
ducks swimming near shore
glowing bubbles covering my hands
the lifeguard talking through the speaker, testing 1 2 3 attention open swimmers, the course is now open. enjoy your swim!
pale legs underwater — parallel to the ground, kicking breaststroke then fluttering
the feel of something in the water, then a trail of bubbles, then a pale leg — a quick swerve around another swimmer
rounding the green buoy closest to the little beach, getting a brief glimpse of the next buoy — green, looking only like a bright dot, and only visible sometimes
Recited my AO lines again. a rush of gold to the head — giving water the weight and size of myself in order to imagine it — she surfaced and peered around and dived again and surface and saw someone
the beginning of a lake
I started rereading Argument with the Lake this afternoon — a poetry collection I bought in 2018 — and discovered this description of the origins of a lake. I’ll add it to my growing collection of descriptions — of a river in England (see: 30 aug 2024) and a lake in Germany (see: 2 july 2024).
from Begin/ Tanis Rideout
This lake, like others, was dug out. Glacial ice grinding south, scouring weak Silurian stone, an arctic tsunami leaving only the backbone of the escarpment. Canadian Shield and broken tumble of kames in its retreat.
The glacial rebound cast this lake of shimmering waters, Ontario. Give or take a geologic blink. And now, a girl on Holocene shores measures the distance — her to here. Fifty-four kilometres as the crow flies, the herring gull, the cormorant with dried wings. Sixty-four against the current. Three point two kilometres an hour, slower than a winter housefly bumbling against your window
Got out for my run a little earlier today. Still warm and humid. The bunion on my left foot has a blister on it, which hurt at the beginning of the run. Looking up the anatomy of the foot, I discovered that the bone below the big toe is actually two pea-shaped bones called sesamoids. I’ve been thinking that I might want to devote a month, or a few weeks, to the foot. Maybe September?
Noticed the river for the first time as I turned down to enter the Winchell Trail from the south. Through the trees it looked green and warm and stagnant. A little later, on the Winchell Trail, a pale blue with a spot of sparkle. Greeted by Mr. Morning! as I exited the 38th street steps.
10 Things
empty benches
a parked scooter with its red lights still blinking
heard water dripping down the ravine and thought of a grotto with a waterfall
the tree that fell on the trail last week is still there, blocking 2/3rds of the trail
a faint voice below — a rower?
2 people across the road near Becketwood, crouched near the trees — looking at something? picking up trash? weeding?
a steady stream of cars
a cool green under the tree cover on the Winchell Trail
a week later, the 38th street steps are still rainbow colored
someone walking around the overlook, headed to the part of the stone wall where a dirt trail descends — was he planning to take it?
more How to Read Water
glitter path: a long line of shimmering reflections stretching into the distance. The shape of the glitter path is a measure of how high the sun is and the roughness of the waves.
if you see the glitter path bulge at some spot, that indicates rougher waves
wider glitter path = rougher water narrower path = calmer water
“the faces of the waves act as mirrors”
seeing faces in waves / pareidolia: the habit of our brains to find patterns and ascribe meaning where there may be none
orange!
If you are gazing down into cloudy water looking at your own shadow, there are a couple of extra effects worth keeping an eye out for. The first is that your shadow may have an orange-hued fringe around it. This happens because the tiny particles in the water don’t reflect all wavelengths (and therefore all colors) back equally to you. Orange makes it back more easily than the others. The second effect, which, if you see the orange “halo” effect, is definitely worth looking for, is that you may spot shafts of sunlight emerging from your shadow and radiating out away from it underwater. This effect is sometimes nicknamed the “aureole effect.” These radiating rays are caused by an optical effect of looking in the opposite direction to the sun
How to Read Water
swim: 3 loops lake nokomis open swim 83 degrees
Warm, buoyant, calm water. I felt fast and strong and confident. Lots of swimmers, a few floating vines. No ducks or fish or dragonflies. At least 2 military planes — black — screaming across the sky. The far green buoy looked robin’s egg blue to me again today. My nose plug squeaked. The water looked mostly light greenish blue with a think layer near the surface that almost looked white. I saw some orange off to the side and shafts of light rising up from the bottom. Translucent bubble encased my hands.
I recited bits from AO’s Dart and Nobody as I looped.
Noticed a swimmer looking so far away from the orange buoy and wondered how much of it was my off perspective and how much of it was them being off course. Probably more me; I struggle with depth perception.
almost forgot: during the second half of a loop, the water suddenly got a lot darker for many seconds — a minute? However long it actually was, it felt like a long time. I couldn’t see what caused it, but I’m imagining the darkness was caused by a cloud. On other days, I felt a shorter darkness pass when a plane passes over the sun.
4.25 miles monument and back 71 degrees dew point: 64
Hot! I’ve never liked running in the heat but now that I’m taking lexipro my heat intolerance has increased. For some moments of the run I felt great, other moments I didn’t. So I walked some, ran some, and walked again at different stretches.
10 Things
I kept seeing orange flashes — a sign, a cone, a tree marked for removal
kids yelling and laughing outside at a daycare attached to a church
the river from above, on the bridge, heading east: brown, and looking shallow — were those sandbars I was seeing near the surface?
trickling water out of the limestone below the bridge
the sound of shadow falls, falling
a kid’s voice rising from the ravine
construction on the other side of the lake street bridge — orange cones, trucks, yellow-vested workers, the buzz of equipment
the river from above, on the bridge, heading west: blue and covered in the reflections of clouds*
click clack — a roller skier
seen, not heard: a dog, by the clanging of their collar
*stopped at the bridge overlook to take a picture of the clouds reflected on the surface of the water. Is it just me, or does this look like an impressionist painting?
river with clouds, 7 july 2025
the color of water
How to Read Water is fascinating. Here are some things I’d like to remember from the chapter on color:
The colors we see in water depend on the brightness and angle of the light and the water’s depth, as well as what’s on, in, and under that water.
How to Read Water
something to consider: are you looking at water, or something in or under the water, or a reflection on water’s surface. Is it the color of water, or the color of the ground beneath the water (a puddle), or the color of cloud on its surface? What angle are you looking from?
. . . in many circumstances when we think we are looking at the water, we are actually looking at something different and in the distance. Looking out to the sea in the distance is a great example: What we see in that situation is dominated by the reflection of the sky even further in the distance. This is why the distant sea appears blue in fine weather and gray on overcast days.
How to Read Water
This water looks blue because it’s reflection the sky is one I’ve heard a lot, but I think I’ve always heard it as the reason, not one reason under certain circumstances.
What about when we see different colors — which I often do as I run across the bridge and look down at the water? The different colors are based on how much of the water we are actually seeing. Sometimes I see brown, sometimes blue.
You will notice this if you look for it, but not if you don’t because our brain has gotten used ot this effect and so oesn’t register it as at all peculiar.
something to try: Can you find the area/the moment where the shift takes place from looking only at reflections to being able to see water?
the exact color that can travel furtherest through the water without being absorbed: blue-green color, wavelength = 480 nanometers
Is it a big cloud or Jaws? People often think it has gotten deeper or there are fish around when the water darkens, but it might just be a big cloud.
eutrophication = excessive nutrients — algal blooms reduce light, use up a lot of oxygen, change the color of the water
oligotrophic = low in nutrients, clear
my sparkle friends! “A lot of the particles that see in water will be inorganic, a mixture of mud, sand, clay, silt, chalk, and other substances, each one affecting the colors we see.” Do I see them as anything other than the color sparkle?
Today I’m swimming at Cedar Lake, which is much deeper than Lake Nokomis. It is also more of a “natural” lake than nokomis. What impact do these factors have on its colors and my experiences of them?
swim: 2.5 loops (5 cedar lake loops) cedar lake open swim 82 degrees
The water by the orange buoy closest to Point Beach was almost hot — so warm! It was a little cooler in the middle of the lake and near Hidden Beach, but not that cool. It was also calm. Not much wind, no waves. A few vines floating over and under and around me. Some milfoil by the beach. I forgot to look at the color of the water from above, but I did look below. Blue-green, a few hints of yellow. Opaque.
10 Things
driving past another part of the lake: the surface covered with green vegetation
clear blue sky, then a few clouds, the more clouds, then dark
the first orange buoy seemed much farther out in the water
breathing to my right, seeing some other swimmers halfway across the lake
yellow safety buoys
something in the sky — a plane? a bird? I’m uncertain
the warm water was buoyant; I felt higher on the water
bubbles around my hands
a line of white buoys at hidden beach
a breaststroker, stroking with intensity — are they trying to race me?
Is that what bothers me about breaststrokers I encounter: that they always look so intense and like they are trying to race me or keep up with me? I think of breaststroke as a chill stroke, where you glide and kick as you travel on the surface of the water, able equally to see above and below. But, there’s nothing chill or relaxed about the breaststrokers i encounter!
Before swimming, I worked on memorizing some more lines from Alice Oswald, this time from Nobody, but I got stuck on the beginning and wasn’t able to recite them in my head as I swam:
There are said to be microscopic insects in the eye who speak Greek and these invisible ambassadors of vision never see themselves but fly at flat surfaces and back again with pigment caught in their shivering hair-like receptors and this is how the weather gets taken to and fro and the waves pass each other from one color to the next (Nobody/ Alice Oswald)
What a beautiful morning for a swim. Sunny, not too windy. The water was warm and smooth. The sky was blue, the water a greenish-blueish-olive. Flashes of orange every so often. There were a few canoes crossing the path, but no menacing swans or stalking sailboats.
1 2 3 4 5 breathe right 1 2 3 4 5 breathe left
10 Things
a green buoy that sometimes looked white, sometime blue, occasionally green, and often disappeared
a few minnows
glitter on the water from other swimmers’ hands and feet
squeak squeak — my nose plug, leaking air
a feeling of something disturbing the water, then bubbles, then pale legs: how I know I’m nearing another swimmer
the far green buoy looking white and blending into the sailboats in the distance
clear water in the beach/swimming area
pink and yellow safety buoys tethered to torsos
Scooby-doo bubbles
shafts of light underwater, looking like they were coming up from the bottom
Like I did on Thursday, I recited lines from A Oswald on the last segment on my loop. Thought about lifting the lid and shutting it again. I do a lot more shutting, then lifting I think.
Fourth of July, so no open swim. Bummer. Too hot to run, besides I haven’t taken a day off from running since last Thursday. Today a break from disciplined moving outside. But not from thinking and writing and reading and dreaming.
Sometimes when something is missing, what you have left is making and believing (Keith S. Wilson).
Copying this quotation from Keith S. Wilson into this entry, I wasn’t thinking about the missing in relation to the green buoy I couldn’t see last night, yet swam straight towards. But somehow, it was the next thought I had as I stared at the words.
a few hours later: I’m sitting under the crab apple tree in my backyard in the shade — thank you, tree, for this shade on a hot day — and I’m re-reading Alice Oswald’s nobody and pondering a word, rumor/rumour:
what kind of a rumour is beginning even now under the waterlid she wonders there must be hundreds of these broken and dropped-open mouths sulking and full of silt on the seabed I know a snorkeller found a bronze warrior once with the oddest verdigris* expression and maybe even now a stranger is setting out onto this disintegrating certainty this water whatever it is whatever anything is under these veils and veils of vision which the light cuts but it remains
unbroken
*verdigris: a green or bluish deposit especially of copper carbonates formed on copper, brass, or bronze surfaces
A fun rumor to make imagine believe in spread: maybe your brain, or some part of your brain, or your breath, or some other part of you that is not (only) you, has secret conversations with the water in which the water reveals the location of the buoy and the part of you that is you but not (only) you guides you towards it. Of course, this only works if you listen, which I have learned to do. Can you?
rumour (OED):
General talk or hearsay, not based on definite knowledge
General talk or hearsay personified 1600: “Open your eares; for which of you wi’l stop The vent of hearing, when lowd Rumor speaks?”/ W. Shakespeare, Henry IV, Part 2 Induct. 2
Clamour, outcry; noise, din. Also: an instance of this
To make a murmuring noise
This last one — to make a murmuring noise — reminds me of the idea of bubbles speaking to me in a soft, faint, bubble-whisper. And now, I’m thinking of a book that I checked out of the library years ago: How to Read Water. Since the ebook is available, I just checked it out again! What are water’s languages?
Back to Alice Oswald’s words and her bronze warrior. Have I written about these particular lines (I’ll check later)? I’m thinking of the ghosts — people who drowned, objects forgotten or carelessly discarded — on the bottom of the lake. What do/can they say to me? Do their messages travel through the pale milfoil that stretches up to the light?
8 a.m. and already 72. It’s going to be hot today. Heard some birds and the coxswain and water trickling, then dropping steadily. The river was pale blue through the trees. When I heard the rowers I wondered how hot they were on the water without any shade.
overheard: an adult runner to a kid biking behind them — you’re doing such a good job!
Wore my bright yellow shoes — the ones I bought over a year ago and have tried to wear several times but always give up because they hurt my feet and my calves. They seem to be working now.
10 Things
purple flowers just beyond the fence
blue sky
empty bench
a roller skier holding their poles up instead of using them
noisy birds near the tree that fell a few days ago onto the winchell trail
a small circle of shimmer: sparkling water seen through a gap in the trees
several stones stacked on the ancient boulder
a small group of bikers — 4, I think — speeding past, one of them wearing a bright pink shirt
a women with a dog stepping off the path near the bench above “the edge of the world”
faint lines of yellow and orange and pink and purple chalk on the 38th street steps
orbit
This morning, another orbit around an idea that I’ve been orbiting for a few years now:
1
He aligns himself and moves forward with his face in the water staring down at the bottom of the lake. Old, beautiful shadows are wavering steadily across it. He angles his body and looks up at the sky. Old, beautiful clouds are wavering steadily across it. The swimmer thinks about symmetries, then rotates himself to swim on his back staring at the sky. Could we be exactly wrong about such things as—he rotates again—which way is up? High above him he can feel the clouds watching his back, waiting for him to fall toward them.
The Anthropology of Water/ Anne Carson
Which way is up? Which way down? Which real? Imagined? Symmetries or similarities?
2
I began more seriously than ever to learn the names of things—the wild plants and animals, natural processes, local places—and to articulate my observations and memories. My language increased and strengthened, and sent my mind into the place like a live root-system. And so what has become the usual order of things reversed itself with me: my mind became the root of my life rather than its sublimation. I came to see myself as growing out of the earth like the other native animals and plants. I saw my body and my daily motions as brief coherences and articulations of the energy of the place, which would fall back into the earth like leaves in the autumn.
Native Hill/ Wendell Berry
Brief coherences and articulations of the energy of the place.
3
Reading Berry, I’m reminded of Arthur Sze’s discussion of mushrooms as poems:
I began to think I love this idea that the mycelium is below the surface. It’s like the subconscious, then when the mushroom fruits pops up above ground, maybe that’s like this spontaneous outpouring of a poem or whatever.
4
Then, I returned, as I often do, to the beginnings of a poem:
Maybe like mushrooms, we rise or not rise, flare — brief bursts from below then returns to swim in the dirt…
our word “domestic” comes from the Latin domus, meaning “house” or “home.” To domesticate a place is to make a home of it. To be domesticated is to be at home.
X.
But if we were really to pay attention to what we’ve been calling “wilderness” or “the wild,” whether in a national park or on a rewooded Kentucky hillside, we would learn something of the most vital and urgent importance: they are not, properly speaking, wild.
XI.
Our overdone appreciation of wildness and wilderness has involved a little-noticed depreciation of true domesticity, which is to say homemaking, homelife, and home economy.
XII.
With only a little self-knowledge and a little sitting still and looking, the conventional perspective of wild and domestic will be reversed: we, the industrial consumers of the world, are the wild ones, unrestrained and out of control, self-excluded from the world’s natural homemaking and living at home.
swim: 3 loops lake nokomis open swim 90 degrees
Another great swim! Felt strong — no strange calf pain, or feet that feel like they might start cramping, or fear over not seeing buoys. The water was warm and green. The sky was blue with a few clouds. No dragonflies or planes or menacing swans, although there was a lurking sailboat. The far green buoy still looked blue to me, when I could see it as having color. Often it looks like a white dot, or just a colorless dot that I understand as buoy.
I saw pale legs and green globs and a vague orangish red light and sparkle friends and bubbles and ghostly milfoil underwater. No ducks or fish or seagulls. For the last stretch of each loop, I recited the lines from Alice Oswald’s Dart that I just memorized:
1
Then I jumped in a rush of gold to the head, through black and cold, red and cold, brown and warm, giving the water the weight and size of myself in order to imagine it, water with my bones, water with my mouth and my understanding
2
He dives, he shuts himself in a deep soft-bottomed silence which underwater is all nectarine, nacreous. He lifts the lid and shuts and lifts the lid and shuts and the sky jumps in and out of the world he loafs in. Far off and orange in the glow of it he drifts
Such great lines that feel familiar when I’m swimming in the middle of the lake.
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
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
a smattering of young runners in small groups — a high school cross-country team already in training?
empty benches
the steady hum of some construction equipment
a sour smell coming from a trash can
a packed shopping cart parked on the lowest part of the trail that dips below the road
the flash of a very small bird — a hummingbird? — flying past me
an over-the-shoulder sideways glance at the falls: all white foam
2 people waiting to pay for parking at the falls
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.
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.
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.
4 miles the Monument and back 82 degrees dew point: 74
Last night I decided I would get up early and do a 7 mile run. Then I checked the forecast. 80 at 6 am. What? No thanks. I went to bed thinking I might skip running today and tomorrow (the low is 80). Then I woke up at 6 and even though it felt oppressive outside, I decided to go for a run. Maybe a 5k. Somehow, without meaning to, I ran 4 miles. It was hard. I felt almost dizzy once as I walked up the lake street bridge steps. And I’m glad I did it. Even with a few extra walk breaks I consider this run a victory.
Yes, it was warm and uncomfortable, but it was worth it for the quiet and for the strange light: darker, a little ominous, the green so deep, not glowing but pulsing? not sure what word I would use.
10+ Things
on the lake street bridge from east to west, to the right a pale blue sky, to the left darker blueish-purple
on the lake street bridge, wind blowing hard from the south, a bird getting a boost and flying so fast
from the monument, I could her Shadow Falls dripping
small white caps on the river
the gentle slope of a mowed stretch of grass between Shadow Falls and the Monument
the shuffling of a runner’s feet across the road
the clicking and clacking of ski poles through the trees and on the other side of the ravine
at the Monument, the line of narrow paving stones near the water fountain — they looked old — when were they placed here and who did it?
the swirling and waving of some wildflowers in the wind
taking off my cap on the bridge because of the wind, feeling it hit my face and grab my hair
encountered the runner who wears bright orange compression socks*
*I’ve encountered this runner enough that they’re officially a regular. I think I’ll call him Mr. Orange Socks
Listened to the wind and dripping water and the heavy air for 3 of the miles. Put in my “It’s Windy” playlist for the final mile. Windy has stormy eyes that flash at the sound of lies.
Encountered two Anne Carson poems this morning and it feels like a sign, or a nudge, to keep reading her The Anthropology of Water. One of this poems was from an 21 june entry in 2022 (Could I), and this one from today’s poem of the day:
BETWEEN US AND animals is a namelessness. We flail around generically — camelopardalis is what the Romans came up with or ”giraffe” ( it looked to them like a camel crossed with a leopard ) or get the category wrong — a musk Ox isn’t an ox at all but more closely cognate with the goat — and when choosing to name individual animals we pretend they are objects (Spot) or virtues (Beauty) or just other selves (Bob).
The idea of knowing the names of things has come up before on this blog. There’s the act of naming something, which is addressed in this poem and evidenced in my naming of “regulars,” and there is also the act of learning the name that a living thing calls itself. Robin Wall Kimmerer (Gathering Moss in 22 march 2024 entry), JJJJJerome Ellis (“A Litany of Names” from Aster of Ceremonies), and Alice Oswald (“Violent” in 16 feb 2025 entry) all describe this in their writing.
an hour later: Taking up the nudge to read more Anne Carson, I returned to The Anthropology of Water. I focused on the final section, “Margins: An Essay on Swimming By My Brother.” Wow! So many great descriptions of what it feels like to swim in a lake! I need to make a list.
I may have posted this bit before, but here’s Carson’s answer to the question, How does swimming figure into your writing?
It keeps me from being morose and crabby. Sometimes I think in the pool. Usually it’s a bad idea. The ideas you have in the pool are like the ideas you have in a dream, where you get this sentence that answers all questions you’ve ever had about reality and you get up groggily and write it down, and in the morning, it looks like “let’s buy bananas” or something completely irrelevant. Plus, I like water. Some people just need to be near water.
Back to the “An Essay on Swimming.” I like how it’s structured: journal entries titled with day of the week and time and either swimming or not swimming. Here’s the second entry:
Friday 4:00 p.m. Swimming.
In late afternoon the lake is shaded. There is the sudden luxury of the places where the cold springs come flooding up around the swimmer’s body from below like an opening dark green geranium of ice. Marble hands drift enormously in front of his face. He watches them move past him down into the lower water where red stalks float in dust. A sudden thin shaft of fish smell. No sleep here, the swimmer thinks as he shoots along through the utterly silent razor-glass dimness. One drop of water entirely awake.
I like how there’s no date. It’s placed in time, but vaguely.
that sudden luxury! I welcome those cold patches in lake nokomis when I swimbut I don’t think they’re from cold springs. What are they from? Now when I feel them I will think: I’m being flooded with a dark green geranium of ice!
marble hands — yes! that’s how I should describe the pale legs and hands of swimmers that I’ve seen recently.
where red stalks float in dust — for me: curled green feathers that do more than float, they seem to reach up to/for me.
that’s me: one drop of water entirely awake
Recap, and to put on a list of Carson’s water descriptions to use/think about as I swim:
I’m being flooded with a dark green geranium of ice!
Today I tried the walk/run method: 9 minutes of running, 1 minute of walking. As usual, I followed this method approximately. Run 9:30/Walk 1:30, 8:30/1 — I can’t remember after that. It was good. It’s still difficult, but I’m pushing through more. I greeted 2 regulars! Dave, the Daily Walker and Daddy Long Legs. I noticed how green the floodplain forest was, only the narrowest sliver of river to see. And the view from the sliding bench? Green green green. If someone was walking below, would I even be able to see them? Ran on the grass and the dirt a lot. Thought about taking the short dirt trail that cuts behind a tree nearing the trestle, but didn’t. Next time? Admired someone’s raspberry red running shoes. I used to have shoes that color. Now they’re boring dark gray/almost black.
Ran through gnats. Most of them went in my eye, one in my throat. Also ran through cottonwood, or some white flowery thing that I thought of as cottonwood fuzz. Usually the cottonwood arrives at the beginning of June, so maybe it was something else?
No rowers, no roller skiers, no turkeys or geese or bird shadows. One fat tire. One little kid. Several runners and walkers and cars.
I don’t remember what I heard for the first half of the run, but for the second half, I listened to my windy playlist (it was windy out there!).
edges / middles / context
I started the morning thinking about surfaces and the places where things meet and textures and skin and feet. And then I remembered Emily Dickinson’s love of the circumference and the wonderful site, out of Dartmouth, all about ED in 1862. It has a blog post on ED and circumference.
I was excited to read this bit:
Laura Gribbin argues that Dickinson’s conception of Circumference rejects Emersonian expansion, revises the patriarchal conceptions of the (male) poet’s encompassing consciousness, and resists being taken over by an outside power. It does so by calling attention to “the circle’s necessary boundary or perimeter without which it has neither shape nor meaning.” In Gribbin’s reading,
“Circumference marks the borderline of symbolic and linguistic order. This border is a highly charged point of convergence where oppositions are collapsed, boundaries are explored, and meaning originates. Circumference is also the space within a circle where life is lived, pain is felt, and death is observed.”
In what amounts to a powerful critique of Romanticism, Dickinson stands not at the center but on the periphery, at the outer limits of knowledge and language, replacing, as Gribbin notes,
“the Romantic impulse toward transcendence with an alternative concept of knowledge gained within the limits of experience.”
Instead of the Emersonian emphasis on sight and specularity, Dickinson emphasizes touch and what can be felt. Because
“Circumference delineates that region where the imagination comes into play, [it] is thus the source of poetry itself.”
While reading my “on this day” posts yesterday, I encountered a discussion of middles from 6 may 2023. It’s in the middle of my summarizing of Mary Ruefle’s essay “On Beginnings”:
It’s about beginnings and how there are more beginnings in poetry than endings. The first note I jotted down in my Plague Notebook, Vol 16 was about the semicolon, which is a punctuation mark that I particularly like. Ruefle has just introduced an idea from Ezra Pound that each of us speaks only one sentence that begins when we’re born and ends when we die. When Ruefle tells this idea to another poet he responds, “That’s a lot of semicolons!” Ruefle agrees and then writes this:
the next time you use a semicolon (which, by the way, is the least-used mark of punctuation in all of poetry) you should stop and be thankful that there exists this little thing, invented by a human being–an Italian as a matter of fact–that allows us to go on and keep on connecting speech that for all apparent purposes unrelated.
then adds: a poem is a semicolon, a living semicolon, and this:
Between the first and last lines there exists–a poem–and if it were not for the poem that intervenes, the first and last lines of a poem would not speak to each other.
At some point as I read, I suddenly thought of middles. The in-betweens, after the beginning, before the end. How much attention do these get, especially if we jump right in and start with them. It reminds me of a writing prompt/experiment I came up with for my running log: Write a poem about something that happened during the middle of your run–not at the beginning or the end, but the middle (see 27 nov 2019).
the MIDDLE
mid-motion mid-walk, mid-run Activity: notice and record what you notice in the midst of motion. Pull out your smart phone and speak your thoughts into it.
Not how you got there or where you’re headed, but here now in-between
the middle: Lucille Clifton’s unfenced is, Alice Oswald’s purpled sea
I like the idea of being dropped in the middle — no need to endure a beginning or an ending, but what’s lost when we’re floating in the middle? Something that grounds or frames the experience: context.
aside: writing that last bit, I recalled a few lines from Jorie Graham’s “Still Life with Window and Fish”:
The whole world outside…. I know it’s better, whole, outside, the world—whole trees, whole groves–but I love it in here where it blurs, and nothing starts or ends, but all is waving, and colorless, and voiceless….
This morning, I came across a learning prompt on Poetry Foundation: Context.
The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines context as “the parts of a discourse that surround a word or passage and can throw light on its meaning.” The word itself comes from the Latin contexere, which means “to weave or join together,” which I interpret as “to make sense of” what we’re reading, particularly when we’re not familiar with the author’s background and/or work. Knowing a poem’s context can give us a sense of place, culture, politics, gender dynamics, etc., and situate us in a specific time and place using concrete references. . . .
A sense of place, a connection, an anchor, a way to ground ourselves and our understandings.
a few hours later: I just remembered Kamala Harris’ coconut tree comment, which RJP loved to quote during the campaign:
context
added the next day: As I read through this entry again the next morning, I suddenly remembered something I posted earlier this spring about how not knowing or acknowledging a person/community’s history is to de-humanize them, to turn them into an object and not a subject. I can’t find where I wrote about it or what I was referencing. After a lot of searching, I found it! It’s in an interview with Jenny Odell about her new book on time, Another Kind of Time. Instead of posting the lengthy quotation here, I’m putting it in my entry for 8 may.
ground contact time
The Apple watch has all sorts of data points, most of which don’t matter to me or are meaningless because I don’t know what to compare them too. One such data point is “ground contact time.” Mine is almost always between 235 and 240 ms. It’s cool to think about how little time my foot is on the ground — and how much time I’m flying! — but what does this number mean? I suppose the fact that it is consistent is good, but should I be spending more time or less on the ground? I found a helpful primer on GCT (ground contact time) that has a chart — and plenty of caveats about that chart — to use for evaluating your ground contact time:
< 210 ms: Great
210 – 240 ms: Good
241 – 270 ms: Room for improvement
271 – 300 ms: Needs improvement
> 300 ms: Lots to work on
The bottom line: less time on the ground is better. It makes you a more efficient, less injury-prone, faster runner.
So, mine is good, but barely. Ways to improve it include: picking up the cadence, being lighter on your feet, dynamic hip exercises — plyometrics or hill repeats, more deliberate arm swing. Maybe I’ll try some of it; I’d like to fly more! I think I’ll start with hill repeats. I’ve been wanting to do those for some time.
All of this talk about surfaces and edges where things meet — seams — and middles and shortened time on ground is making me want to reread Wendell Berry’s “A Native Hill.” I finally have a physical copy of it. I think I’ll read it and mark it up this afternoon!
Last week, RJP sent me a yoga video that’s been very helpful with tight hips/glutes/sciatica. I did it this morning and it was great. Was it why I felt so calm and relaxed on my walk?
walk: 50 minutes winchell trail south to folwell 58 degrees
Deep into spring — red tulips everywhere, light green leaves, grass. Birds, shadows, bikers.
Overheard — biker 1: I just love biking! biker 2: me too
Walked to the winchell trail, then to the back of the oak savanna, on the other side of the mesa, then to the paved part of the path. Warm and peaceful. Some wind.
10 Things
a biker listening to music — it probably wasn’t, but it reminded me of the Macarena
water dripping steadily and with an echo over the limestone ledge in the ravine
more green in the savanna
the chain link fence beyond the mesa was almost buried in the bluff — steep and slowly eroding — how many years before this fence is buried or falls in?
silver sparkles on the blue waves
a trail runner passing by — hello / hi! — I liked watching their heels lift and drop, lift and drop
the graffiti I noticed last week on the 38th street steps is still there
tree trunks and thick roots emerging from the hill, many intertwined, some gnarled and knobby and knotted
2 distinct and soft horizontal lines dividing bluff and tree line from sky
the soft shadows of trees stretching across the greenish grass on the boulevard
What a wonderful walk! What a beautiful day! No back or hip or leg pain. No anxiety. Lots of deep breaths and flashes of past spring hikes on the edges of suburban developments in the little bit of woods still left. Briefly, I thought about orange (which I had been thinking about before my walk). I pulled out my phone and made a note about Alice Oswald’s Dart and Nobody and how she sees orange underwater.
Here’s the AO reference, which I posted about on 28 july 2024.
excerpt from Dart/ Alice Oswald
He dives, he shuts himself in a deep, soft-bottomed silence, which underwater is all nectarine, nacreous. He lifts the lid and shuts and lifts the lid and shuts and the sky jumps in and out of the world he loafs in. Far off and orange in the glow of it he drifts
nacreous = iridescent/iridescence = “a lustrous rainbowlike play of color caused by differential refraction of light waves (as from an oil slick, soap bubble, or fish scales) that tends to change as the angle of view changes (Merriam-Webster Dictionary).
Last week, the water had streaks of red — or maybe tangerine? — in it. Today, blue-green. Not iridescent below, maybe above?
A different take on the far off orange glow: a buoy, or the idea of a buoy, or the certainty that a buoy, orange and glowing, is there.
Orange
It’s the last day of April. My theme was supposed to be steps but ended up being color. It seems fitting to end it with orange, the color that matters the most to me and that I can’t always see. I posted this poem a few days ago. This morning, I’m returning to it to explore its various references.
If I have a gender, let it be a history learned from orange Freak Sun Sucker Queer Orange Boy
Rumor of 6th grade sunrise, dressed in you I was a child of unspeakable obsession. Archaic language, Giolureade
rumor: not sure what this (if anything) a reference to, but it reminded me of the opening of Carl Phillips’ poem, “Night Comes and Passes Over Me”: There’s a rumor of light that/any dark starts off as. obsession: because I can’t see it, but seemingly, in order to swim across the lake, I need to, I have become obsessed with orange. giolureade: portmanteau, yellow-red
Until Margaret Tudor, Queen of Scots. Her lips unlocked your sarcenet line, my fingers knew taste before the orange
Margaret Tudor: The earliest known use of orange as a color name in English was in 1502, in a description of an item of Margaret Tudor’s clothing. sarcenet line: thin, soft lining often in bright colors and used in elaborate dresses
Dared on Norwood apartments, Dutch colonies hunted man straight into your family crests of orange
Dutch colonies: William and the House of Orange
Scraped from dust to crown our bruises, warriors we stared directly into the sun, Tainos dyed in orange
dust/bruises: arnica? Tainos: original inhabitants of Puerto Rico
As if we always knew we were history. Amber hardened into gold tricking mortals, mortals tricking gods asking Was it the fruit or the color?
amber tricking mortals: alchemy?
First, Tibbets’ grove, millions of fruits grafted instead of born, from two parent orange trees
Timmerts’ grove: “In 1873 Eliza Tibbets received two new grafted orange trees to grow and test, from the botanist William Saunders, the Director of the new U.S. Department of Agriculture in Washington, D.C.[4] He had ordered the original cuttings from Bahia, Brazil.”
The key to a philosopher’s stone: Colormen flirting with volcanos to retrieve your arsenic orpiment
philosopher’s stone/volcano/orpiment: “From antiquity to the end of the 19th Century, a volcanic mineral found in sulphurous fumaroles (great gashes in the Earth’s crust) was a significant source for the harvesting of orange pigment. The highly toxic orpiment, rich in lethal arsenic, ripens from mellow yellow into outrageous orange when subjected to the heat of a fire. Convinced that the luminous shimmer of orpiment (its name is a contraction of Latin aurum, meaning ‘gold’, and pigmentum meaning ‘colour’) must be a key ingredient in concocting the Philosopher’s Stone, alchemists for centuries risked exposure to the noxious substance” (source).
Forever in danger of sliding into another color, I ran after you, tracing rivers and creeks and streams of citrus
sliding into another color: “forever in danger of sliding into another color category” (The Secret Lives of Color)
The Washington Navel Orange, a second fruit protruding: not a twin, nor translation, but a new name every season.
not a twin, nor translation, new name: “For centuries, growers noticed that orange trees would occasionally, spontaneously produce individual fruit different from the that of rest of the tree, with fewer or more seeds, a thicker or thinner skin, a sweeter or sourer taste” (source).
