5 loops
lake nokomis open swim
71 degrees
5 loops on a beautiful Sunday morning! Even though we’re still under bad air quality advisory and there was smoke and haze lingering above the lake, I didn’t have any trouble breathing. The smoke-haze made it difficult to see the buoys, however. Who cares — not me! I still swam straight towards the buoys.
My 1 2 3 4 5 breathe right 1 2 3 4 5 breathe left or 1 2 3 right 1 2 3 4 right 1 2 3 left 1 2 3 4 left was relaxed and steady. My arms and legs in constant motion, rotating and kicking.
I call my circuits around the buoys loops, but that’s not quite right. They are more triangles, not curved but a straight line with 3 buoys from the northern end of the big beach to the little beach, then a straight line with 2 buoys from the little beach to the southern end of the big beach, then a straight line parallel to beach from the last green buoy to the only orange one and the start of one circuit, the beginning of another. Swimming in the lake is less about curves and more about lines and angles. Angled elbows, a straight back — parallel, the intersecting legs-as-lines. The first segment was fairly smooth and fast, the second was choppy and sluggish, and the third was smoother and faster.
10 Things
- something/someone tapped my toe mid-lake — I couldn’t see anyone, was it a fish? a twig?
- particles suspended, glittering — my sparkle friends!
- my hands wrapped in bubbles
- a loose vine passed over my legs, got stuck in my fingers
- a military plane flying fast
- light green, a hint of yellow, water
- glitter on the surface of the water where other swimmers where
- hazy blue sky
- a gentle rocking from the water
- near the end of the final loop — a sore back
I recited my 4 A Oswald lines about microscopic insects in the eye and surfacing and diving again and giving water the weight and size of myself and lifting the lid and shutting it. Such great lines! Admired the bubbles on my hands, thought of Anne Sexton and shedding them and then believed the bubbles were little thoughts and feelings and ideas that some part of me was shedding and offering to the water and anyone in it.
Thought about my gorge poem that begins, I go to/the gorge / / to find the/soft space. Started composing one for the lake: I go to/the lake // to be held. Thought about the verb, to behold, then beheld, which reminded me of a line in a poem that I love and had pondered on 19 june: Unsee the beheld! / Altitude/ Airea D. Matthews
Unsee the beheld where to unsee is to observe/witness with a sense other than sight, or to unravel, come undone or redone, transformed. Who/what is the beheld? Me, held by the water. So, to unsee me, to let go of me/I and have an encounter/exchange with that which is not-I: the water. I haven’t written about this bit yet, but yesterday I was thinking about Anne Carson and her anthropology of water and I wrote in my Plague Notebook, encounter with that which you cannot contain, control, that is not You — the not-I. In the lake, I am held by the water — rocked, enveloped, lifted — but in the process of being held I dissolve, or the small part of Sara the ecosystem that is I is saturated. Yes, this makes sense to me, but will it to anyone else, including future Sara?
I read mention of May Swenson’s poem “Swimmers” yesterday and I happened to have it in Nature: Poems Old and New. I’m still trying to figure out the different ways I can read the stanzas — across; down the left, then down the right, then bottom?down the left, to the bottom, and up the right? down the left only? down the right only?
Swimmers/ May Swenson
Tossed
by the muscular sea,
we are lost,
and glad to be lost
in troughs of rough
love. A bath in
laughter, our dive
into foam,
our upslide and float
on the surf of desire.
But sucked to the root
of the water-mountain —
immense —
about to tip upon us
the terror of total
delight —
we are towed,
helpless in its
swell, by hooks
of our hair;
then dangled, let go,
make to race —
as the wrestling chest
of the sea, itself
tangled, tumbles
in its own embrace.
Our limbs like eels
are water-boned,
our faces lost
to difference and
contour, as the lapping
crests.
They cease
their charge,
and rock us
in repeating hammocks
of the releasing
tide —
until supine we glide,
on cool green
smiles
of an exhaling
gladiator,
to the shore
of sleep.
However I read it, it’s good!
bike: 4 miles
the falls and back
84 degrees
Biked to the falls with Scott for a beer and a hike and some time to be in the midst of others. Sassy, strong little girls, BIG dogs, small yippy dogs, a hiker with poles, surreys, kids playing soccer, a guy that looked like Mr. Hand, 2 long-haired dachshunds in the ice cream line, a LONG ice cream line, a LONGER food line. A roaring falls, a raging creek, blocked-off steps and wooden path. A dog that plopped down and refused to move, a guy walking by, laughing and calling out to his friend, that dog is done!