Tag: headphones

dec 16/RUN

5.25 miles
bottom of franklin hill
37 degrees
60% snow-covered

Above freezing today! Good, and bad. Good, because the snow on the path is melting. Bad, because it will freeze again tonight. I’ll take it, and the sun! and the warmth on my face! and the sound of wet, whooshing wheels. I ran to the bottom of franklin today to check out the surface of the river: completely covered with ice, a light grayish white. Almost all of the time, I felt strong. It was only after taking a break to check out the river, then starting again and running up the hill, that my legs felt strange. It took a minute to get back into a rhythm.

10 Things

  1. Looking up: powder blue sky, with streaks of clouds and sun
  2. something half-buried in a snow bank, 1: a lime scooter
  3. something half-buried in a snow bank, 2: a bike — not a rental — where is the owner of this bike, and why was it wedged in the snow and not put somewhere else?
  4. another runner, much faster than me, in a bright yellow jacket
  5. deep foot prints in the snow leading up to the sliding bench — someone must have sat here recently
  6. the view from the sliding bench: open, clear through to the snow-covered river and the white sands beach, which is just snow now
  7. someone at the bottom of the franklin hill, staring at the water
  8. a few honking geese down below
  9. cheeseburger cheeseburger — a calling bird — a chickadee, I think
  10. flowers for June in the makeshift vase of an uncapped railing under the trestle

Earlier today, while drinking coffee, I heard (not for the first time) Lawrence’s song, “Don’t Lose Sight” and I started to think about vision/sight/eye songs. Time for a playlist! I borrowed a title from someone’s spotify playlist that came up in a google search: Eye Tunes (groan). Came up with a long list of songs, then put a fraction of them in the list. I’ll keep fine-tuning it. I listed to the list during the second half of my run.

Eye Tunes

  1. I Saw the Light / Todd Rundgren
  2. Blinded by the Light / Mannford Mann’s Earth Band
  3. Eye in the Sky / The Alan Parson’s Project
  4. Eyes Without a Face / Billy Idol
  5. I Can See Clearly Now / Jimmy Cliff
  6. Can’t Take My Eyes Off of You / Ms. Lauryn Hill
  7. These Eyes / The Guess Who
  8. Eye of the Tiger / Survivor
  9. The Look of Love, Pt. 1 / ABC
  10. The Look of Love / Dusty Springfield
  11. For Your Eyes Only / Sheena Easton
  12. Eyesight to the Blind (The Hawker) / The Who
  13. Breakfast in America / Supertramp
  14. Don’t Lose Sight (Accoustic-ish) / Lawrence
  15. Total Eclipse of the Heart / Bonnie Tyler
  16. Double Vision / Foreighner
  17. In Your Eyes / Peter Gabriel
  18. Behind Blue Eyes / The Who
  19. Evil Eyes / Dio
  20. Stranger Eyes / The Cars
  21. Tell Me What You See / The Beatles
  22. My Eyes Have Seen You / The Doors

I listened up until Dusty Springfield’s “The Look of Love.” A few thoughts: I always think, anus curly whirly? when listening to “Blinded By the Light.” There is a LOT of vibraslap in “Eyes Without a Face” and, what does Billy Idol mean here? ABC’s “The Look of Love” is wonderful, and has some hilarious moments, especially the call and response section: Whose got the look? / If I knew the answer to that question I would tell you.

Back to Billy. Looked up the lyrics to “Eyes Without a Face,” and I think they mean that the person lacks humanity, is inhuman. Their look lacks compassion, grace.

Eyes without a face
Got no human grace
You’re eyes without a face
Such a human waste
You’re eyes without a face

And, I’ll end with ABC’s opening lines:

When your world is full of strange arrangements
And gravity won’t pull you through

That sounds like someone with vision problems (me)!

dec 1/RUN

3 miles
ywca track

The first run at the track in over 2 years. I looked it up and the last run at this track was 4 dec 2023. Not much has changed, which was good. It felt like time traveling. Lots of memories at the y with kids on swim team and inside winter running. I wore my bright yellow shoes, and between them and the bouncy track surface, I felt like I was flying. Fun! and also strange and awkward at first. Running at this track — 6 laps is a mile — is easier than the treadmill, but it’s still hard to run for a long time. I ran without stopping for 20 minutes, then walked a lap, then ran a lap, walked a lap, ran 2.

Aside from the dry and warm and not slippery conditions, one of the best things about running on the track is the chance to encounter the same people over and over, loop after loop.

10 People

  1. the fast runner in blue shorts — a great runner, graceful, making it look effortless — he passed me at least 3 or 4 times
  2. a short-ish woman in black pants and a white jacket walking slowly (and obliviously) in the middle lane, often veering slightly to the outside running lane
  3. 2 tall guys, one in a red shirt, walking and chatting
  4. later, one of the guys, starting to run
  5. an older woman, tall, in black pants, with short hair, her head cocked slightly to the right as she walked
  6. a woman in bright yellow shorts, running, her gait was strange: bouncy, but striking on the wrong part of her foot — too much vertical movement?
  7. 2 people chatting near the window — one of them complaining about how, because of insurance and property tax increases, her mortgage was jumping from $800 a month to $1300
  8. a guy in the far right corner, punching a bag in a steady and strong rhythm
  9. a woman walking with purpose, her locker key jangling in her pocket with each step
  10. someone entering the track and stopping in the middle of the lane to adjust their shoe — they saw me in plenty of time and moved out of the way — thanks!

Earlier today, or yesterday?, I came up with a ywca goal for December: swim a 5k. Now I’m thinking that I should have a running/track goal too. Run a 10k? Run an all out mile? I’ll think about it some more.

locker room encounter

Sandwiched between 2 other people changing, it was awkward. I overheard one say to the other, do you smell hot chocolate? I didn’t, and then suddenly I did. It smelled good. Without thinking, which is something I do more often because of my vision, I blurted out, excuse me, did one of you just say it smells like hot chocolate? One of them said, it’s my cocoa butter. I responded, it smells so good!

nov 22/RUN

6 miles
hidden falls overlook
40 degrees

Sun! Warmer (but not too warm) air! An open view! And 6 miles! A good run. I’m tired now and my legs are sore, but I felt strong and light and full of energy at the end.

10 Things

  1. click scrape scrape click — a roller skier’s poles approaching from behind
  2. one roller skier bundled up, another in shorts
  3. running beside 2 roller skiers, one of them listening to the other express concern/frustration about some part of his ski not locking in right
  4. a mini peloton on the road — 10 bikes?
  5. small scales on the surface of the gray water
  6. a serpentine of big cracks and asphalt erupting on the st. paul path
  7. the small building above the hydroelectric plant on the st. paul side is spray-painted bright pink
  8. the gentle trickle of water over the rocks at hidden falls
  9. a bad heavy metal hair band anthem blasting out of the window of a white car
  10. not a wide open view — too many thin branches — but the feeling of openness and air on the st. paul side

Thought about my rock, river, and air chants as I ran. Recited (in my head) as much of the rock one as I could remember. Liked the groove I fell into as I chanted

poet’s clock
poet’s clock
poet’s clock
this big rock

Finishing up the run, I felt strong and fast and proud as I thought about all the work I’ve put in over more than a decade of coming to the gorge at least 3 or 4 times a week, sometimes more, and running and noticing and writing.

nov 19/RUN

5.2 miles
bottom and franklin and back
39 degrees

Another great late morning for a run. Overcast, possibly some drizzle/freezing rain/flurries. Not too cold, not too windy. Everything gray with brown and dull yellow. Listened to music because I had the King George song from Hamilton in my head — Billie Eilish, then my time and moment playlists. Even with the headphones in, I could hear a loud rumble below. Some sort of big machine doing something — was it at the white sands beach? I noticed a walker notice the sound too. He was startled, then confused, then curious as he peered down, trying to figure out what was causing the ruckus.

Witnessed a big, dark brown squirrel dart fast across my path. So fast that I didn’t have to stutter-step. Stopped at the bottom of the hill for a port-a-potty stop and to admire the river: blueish gray with little ripples. All open, no ice chunks yet. Stopped again at the sliding bench and in the tunnel of trees just above the floodplain forest. Took out my headphones and listened to the gorge. It sounded like it might be softly raining. Heard loud rustling, saw a flash of movement down below. Felt calm, relaxed.

At the sliding bench, I took a picture of the progress: open! no leaves to block out my view of the white sands beach, only thin branches that I can see through!

sliding bench / 19 nov 2025

One more thing about the run that I almost forgot. During the second half, after I climbed out of the flats, I felt fast and free. I had a huge smile on my face and was almost feeling a runner’s high. I haven’t experienced one of those in a while.

more of echo location

echolocation: using sonar flashes to “see” / interpreting echoes (as sound, as reverberations from the past) / navigation / location / locating and being located / finding being found / placing being placed / listen for echoes / gain substance and become an echo / repeat, not same but similar / the location of echoes / an indication of a big and open space / using words and sounds and syllables to place my self, to become more than ghost, girl

“Echolocation is the act of emitting a sound that bounces off an object or surface and comes back to you as an echo. This echo can help determine distance, location, motion, size, shape or surface material” (source).

Passive echolocation is sound that occur incidentally in the environment. As a car travels through a tunnel, the sound changes as the car enters the tunnel, travels through it and exits the tunnel. The sound your cane makes on the ground as you tap or roll will be different when you are next to a building compared to in an open area without obstruction.

Active echolocation, on the other hand, is sound you consciously produce like clapping your hands or clicking your tongue. Eventually, the sound you create bounces off other objects and comes back to you. Since your brain is familiar with the sounds you make, the echoes are easier for you to distinguish. By consistently emitting a sound and waiting for the sound to change, you can use active echolocation to help you navigate through an environment.

source

 How does the
sound of your
footsteps change
as you move
from tile floor
to carpet?
Listen to
the sound your
voice makes when
you are in
a small room
compared to
a large room.

Sit in a
moving car
passing by
parked cars. Roll
your window
down. Listen
to how sound
shifts between
each parked car
as you pass them.

you learn to
hear doorways
and walls and
wide open
spaces

Echolocation is an interesting metaphor within poetry and an important practical approach to navigating an unseen (or not seen) world.

Location for me is about recognition — being seen, offered a place in the family of things, and recognizing others (being held by/holding). And it is also about literally locating and navigating a world. As my vision fails, what other ways can I safely move through space?

And, here are a few lines from U A Fanthorpe that link echoes with ghosts and remind me of echolocation — especially those humpback whales:

Ghosts of past, present, future.
But the ones the living would like to meet are the echoes
Of moments of small dead joys still quick in the streets

These are the ghosts the living would prefer,
Ghosts who’d improve our ratings. Ghosts
Of the great innocent songs of freedom
That shoulder their way round the world like humpback whales

nov 18/RUNSWIM

4.3 miles
marshall loop
35 degrees

The forecast was for 2+ inches of sloppy snow early this morning. Maybe rain too. Completely dry. Everything happened just south of us. Hooray! Great conditions for a run. Not too cold or too windy or too crowded. Today’s mental victory: I ran all the way up the marshall hill, over to the river, and down the summit hill without stopping. Stopped at the overlook on the bridge for a minute to check out the sandbar and the reflections and the smooth surface of the river. Beautiful.

10 Things

  1. egg/breakfast sausage smells coming from Black Waffle Bar — no sweet waffle smell
  2. no more leaves on the trees, all on the sidewalk
  3. cars backed up on lake street
  4. the light at the top of the hill: red
  5. smell: savory, eggs and bacon
  6. a car parked in a driveway blocking the path
  7. the bent and crooked slats from blinds in a garage window
  8. two people standing and looking at a stone wall above the ravine near shadow falls
  9. a roller skier on the path, then on the road
  10. several stones stacked on the ancient boulder

echo / / location

I can’t quite remember how it happened, but I was thinking about my Girl Ghost Gorge poems and echoes and chanting — oh, yes, it had something to do with sound and a call for submissions for soundscapes in poetry. As I thought about my rock river air chants, ECHOLOCATION, suddenly popped into my head!

Echolocation is a great title for this collection. Or, echo location. Or, echo | | location. Or, as Scott suggested, echo / / location. I looked it up and someone has a poetry collection with the title echolocation. Is that a problem? To have the same name? I’m not sure. I like the sound of girl ghost gorge, and a girl (me), her ghosts, and the gorge are the theme that inspired all of the poems. But, being located in time and space — both placing myself and being placed by others — seems even more like the theme. At the very least, I’d like to title the final poem of the collection, echolocation.

Here’s something to read about humans and echolocation: How Does Human Echolocation Work? It’s with Daniel Kish, Batman from an Invisibilia episode.

The rest of today is about studying echolocation!

I mentioned echolocation in these past entries:

update, several hours later: I received an email today from a journal that published one of my poems: I’ve been nominated for a Pushcart Prize! This is my second nomination, which is really exciting! It’s for “The Cut-off Wall” (“The Cut-Off Wall” — Rogue Agent, March 2025).

Also, another cool thought about my collection and the chants in it. I’ve been playing around with making the shape of the river out of words in my river chant:

flow flow flow
slow slow slow

In early drafts, I had the words form the river, but now I’m thinking of making a page of these words and removing some to form the shape of the river/gorge. It’s echolocation with the syllables flow and slow bouncing off the object I cannot see! I’m imagining a sound accompaniment to this, inspired by Diana Khoi Nguyen’s reading of her “Triptych” for Ours Poetica:

inspiration starts 2 minutes in

Nguyen doesn’t remove words, but creates space in-between them where the shapes of her brother would be if he had not cut himself out of the photograph. I need to think about how I want to do it — like in this poem, or by removing some of the chanted words altogether. Maybe I wouldn’t call them chants but echolocations?

I think I’d like to do them for all three of the key “objects/subjects”: rock, river, and air! Very cool. I think this would be a great submission for the poetry soundscapes feature that I mentioned earlier in this post.

This section explores poetry in all its sonic dimensions. Across the premodern world, at a time when books were scarce and costly, poetry was often chanted or sung aloud, and the boundary between song and verse was fluid. Many poems resonate with the sounds of nature, while others pulse with onomatopoeia and sonic texture. Later, poets since the early 20th century have pushed the medium to its limits, exploring how the sonic interacts with grammar, rhetoric and rhythm on the page. 

For a special section of Mantis 24 (2026), Soundscapes of Poetry, we invite submissions  that engage with sound in any and all ways—whether through music, noise, onomatopoeia or rhythm, or even the sound of silence itself.

submission call for Mantis

The only bummer: your submission doesn’t include sound files; it’s only the written word. I’d like to find a journal that also wants the sounds.

swim: 1.5 loops
ywca pool

Another swim! Swam at the y before community band rehearsal. It felt good and it wasn’t crowded. I had my own lane. I felt strong and relaxed and swimming a mile and a half wasn’t hard at all. I tried to think about echolocation while I swam, but I just counted my strokes instead.

nov 12/RUN

4 miles
river road, north/south
50 degrees
wind: 14 mph / gusts: 29 mph

Ooo. Felt that wind, running north. A few times, I had to square my shoulders and sink down to face it, like I was a linebacker getting ready to tackle the air. Bright sun, lots of shadows — of tree branches, and fence posts, and flying birds, and swirling leaves. I don’t remember looking at the river as much as I remember admiring the air above it. Such openness! I felt strong until I didn’t. Stopped to walk a few times. Took some wooden steps down on a very steep part of the winchell trail. No wall or fence to stop you from falling far enough down to break something. Stopped at the sliding bench to see how much green was left and to admire the birds flitting from branch to branch.

Also stopped after mile 1, to record myself fitting some of Lorine Niedecker’s words into my running/breathing rhythm:

In every
part of
every thing
stuff that
once was rock.

Except, I forgot the stuff part, so I ended up with this:

In every
part of
every thing
there once was
living rock.

Does this second one make sense? Not sure.

before the run

Riprap. Thinking about riprap and rock and creating some sort of ceremony related to the gorge and running on and above the absence of rock. Reading Mary Oliver’s section in The Leaf and the Cloud, titled Riprap, fitting it into my breathing/running pattern —

tell me dear
Rock — will
secrets fly
out when
I break open?

Raking leaves and hearing the man next door scream at his grown daughter again through walls that aren’t thin, listening as she screams back, wondering what the daycare kids will remember from this moment.

Watching the late poet, Andrea Gibson, perform their beautiful poem, MAGA HAT in the Chemo Room:

before we are all wiped off of this planet that desperately wants us to live of natural causes, like kindness, like caring

Remembering something else I read earlier about a troubled woman who encountered a stranger that offered her kindness instead of judgment:

“The only question she asked me was, ‘Where do you want to go?'” Stacia said. “No judgment, no expectations. Just acceptance.”

Stacia immediately felt relieved.

She didn’t want to talk about her troubles; she just wanted to go home. She got in the car and they talked about things that gave her a sense of calm: nature, music and art.

After about 40 minutes, the woman dropped Stacia off at her house. Stacia didn’t learn the stranger’s name and she never saw her again. But she has never forgotten the woman’s question or how it made her feel.

“What I experienced that day — a single generous act of compassion — has stayed with me ever since and it shaped the life I went on to live.”

NPR Unsung Heroes

a few minutes later: Watching the daycare kids playing in the leaves in the front yard, screaming in delight. Remembering how one of them greeted my daughter last week as she parked in front of our house, distraught and overwhelmed, with: you’re beautiful, and how that kindness offered made such a difference.

Reading Gary Snyder’s poem, “Riprap,” fitting his words into my breathing pattern:

Lay down these
words be-
fore your mind
like rocks
placed solid
by hands
in choice of
place, set
before the
body
of the mind
in time
and in space.

Riprap: being broken up, made tender, feelings/fears exposed and scattered, gathering them into words and building a new foundation.


nov 11/RUNYARDWORK

6 miles
hidden falls and back
41 degrees

Beautiful morning! I was over-dressed in 2 long-sleeved shirts, running tights, winter vest, stocking cap, gloves, and a buff. Wow — what was I thinking? Had my hair in a braid, which really wicks the water, so when I arrived home RJP and FWA let me know that sweat was dripping (pouring) down my back. They thought it was hilarious and disgusting. It was.

My average pace wasn’t the fastest (11 minutes), and I stopped several times to walk in the second half, but I’m proud of my mental victories. I had planned to run this route before I started, but in the first mile I already felt it would be too hard. Just make it to the downhill at the locks and dam no 1, I thought. By the time I reached that I thought, just make it to the top of the wabun hill. Then it was, keep going over the bridge and make it to parking lot before you stop. Then, keep going until you hit 3 miles. I made it to 2.8, at the spot when the path and parking lot were closed for construction. I walked, then ran, then walked, then ran again for 1.5 miles.

10 Things

  1. what a view between the ford overlook and hidden falls — wide open and steep
  2. a lot of sirens — police, ambulance, fire? — across the river — on highway 5?
  3. feeling strong and fast on the ford bridge
  4. voices below on the winchell trail — happy, chatting
  5. a tall fence around a construction site (for a BIG house) at Highland Bridge
  6. later, that fence rattling, when a worker was entering the site
  7. the “straight” (that is, straight to me) bluff line across the river, visible and framed with fuzzy tree limbs
  8. someone sitting on the ledge at the ford overlook, gazing out at the gorge
  9. the steady flow of water above hidden falls, part of the new water management plan for Highland bridge — making a soft, pleasing sound
  10. empty benches, until I stopped at the one above the edge of the world to retie my shoes

Arrived home just in time to rake the leaves for almost 2 hours. Now I’m tired!

a few more things: Inspired by a call for hybrid/text-images/sound pieces for a journal, I thought about doing more with my rock, river, and air chants from GGG. Not sure I can do it in time for this call (11/16), but something fun to include with GGG as a collection.

Talked with RJP and she showed me her sketches from yesterday’s hike in the gorge. I love them! I could imagine us doing some fun collaborations!

Came across this great resource while searching for something else rock-related. It seems fitting to add it in this entry, since I ran to Hidden Falls! The Cascades of Minneapolis/St. Paul

nov 6/RUN

3.35 miles
2 trails+
49 degrees / feels like 37
wind: 15 mph / gusts: 32 mph

Windy today. Had to make sure my hat was secure. Ran south to the start of the Winchell Trail. Stopped to admire the river — a clearer view, with far fewer leaves. Stopped again, a few minutes later, to study a felled tree. Yesterday, we (me, Scott, FWA) had seen park workers with chainsaws and a truck with a ladder around here as we drove by. This must be one of the trees they cut down. I felt a little safer running through this section in the strong winds, knowing that the tree workers had just been here yesterday removing sprawling branches and leaning trees.

added a few hours later: this came up on my instagram feed. I love these stories and learning more about what park workers do!

The trail was covered in leaves, so I couldn’t see if there were any potholes or big cracks. Of course, I often can’t see them even if the path is clear. So I run lightly and carefully. The worst part of the trail was the graveled bit in the ravine. Ouch! A few times my feet landed on the sharp end of a stone.

10 Things

  1. above the floodplain forest, looking out, no leaves, small branches all around created a veil of mesh, making everything look fuzzy
  2. the wind rushing through the leaves on the bluff, or was it water seeping out of the limestone?
  3. the voices of laughing kids at the playground
  4. swirling leaves
  5. leaves, floating gently
  6. voices above me
  7. a biker with their headlight, their wheel crossing over and onto the walking path
  8. a short, all-white animal on the trail — a dog? no a little kid in a white snowsuit
  9. the limestone ledge in the ravine looking dark and cavernous
  10. something clanging down below near the old stone steps — a dog collar?

cells

1 — juliana spahr

the opening lines of poemwrittenafterseptember11/2001 / juliana spahr

There are these things:

cells, the movement of cells and the division of cells

and then the general beating of circulation

and hands, and body, and feet

and skin that surrounds hands, body, feet.

This is a shape,

a shape of blood beating and cells dividing. 

But outside of this shape is space.

—

cells
the movement of cells
the division of cells

2 — how much of us is not us?

57%. 43% of a human body is made up of human cells, the rest is: “bacteria, viruses, fungi and archaea (organisms originally misclassified as bacteria)” (More than half of your body is not human).

the importance of microbiomes

3 — L Niedecker and dwelling with place

our bodies as place or space (see J Spahr up above)

      It all comes down
to the family

‘We have a lovely
finite parentage–
mineral

vegetable
animal’ 3

Instead of fretting over how such a finite parentage might threaten our “humaniqueness,” Niedecker welcomes our bond with nonhuman life and seeks instead to endow us, as she writes in “Paean to Place,” with a deeper appreciation for the “sea water running / in [our] veins.”

She also insists upon the necessity of our learning to dwell with other biotic elements who share our land-community, including what she calls in one poem “our relative the air” and “our rich friend / silt.”

—

Niedecker’s portrayal of living with beings and things in our environment is not merely a poetic metaphor; it also finds support in the field of biology. We now understand that even our bodies, the things we think of as most us, are in fact shared organisms, with trillions of microbacteria colonizing our guts in such numbers that they may potentially outnumber our own cells. 

Dwelling with Place: Lorine Niedecker’s Ecopoetics

some rambling: And now I’m thinking about all of this and wondering if it fits with Girl Ghost Gorge or is part of a new (series of) poems? It does, I think, in terms of the relationship between the girl and the ghost and the gorge and how the speaker/writer/Sara imagines herself as all three yet also wants to assert a Sara-self (Girl). I like the idea of composing this poem, and assertion of self, with lines from others — a cento! Poets and scientists and geologists and historians.

Questions of what makes us us? and what part of us remains throughout our lifetime? and what is the essence of Sara or, who is Sara, on the cellular level? I do think that these are questions that haunt these poems, as the other side of a deep desire for connection. In light of so many connections and how much of me is made up of stuff outside of or before me, what is sturdy and solid and singular about Girl/Sara/me?

I came up with a draft of a poem responding to these questions that I quite like. I’m calling out “43% Girl”

Happy 4th Anniversary

During today’s On This Day practice, I discovered this, from 2021:

Yesterday, I started working on a poem (or a series of poems?) based on my October focus on ghosts and haunting. I’ve decided to use my rhythmic breathing pattern as the form: couplets with 1 three syllable line and 1 two syllable line (3/2)

from log entry dated 6 nov 2021

4 years. That seems like a long time to be working on one collection of poems, and also not that long at all. It started as Haunts, then became Girl Ghost Gorge. Poems all about haunting a place and being haunted by it. Up until recently, the haunting involved a lot of feeling disconnected and isolated. Perhaps because of all of the attention I’ve given the gorge and those feelings, I feel more connected and more girl, less ghost. I should finish this collection and be done with it before I start editing it too much and lose some of its original story.

nov 4/RUN

4 miles
river road, north/south
49 degrees

We were planning to go to the Y, but when we stepped outside and felt how beautiful it was, we changed our plans. Instead of swimming, I would go running. I’m glad I did; it was beautiful out there! Saw on the forecast that rain turning into snow is possible on Saturday. It’s coming: winter! Felt strong again and bouncy, able to pop off the asphalt with my powerful leg swings and foot strikes. Nice!

I’m writing this 3 hours late because we had a mini kid crisis with parking tickets and passes. Had to help figure that out. Can I remember 10 things?

10 Things

  1. Good morning Dave! / Good morning Sara
  2. running in shorts with bare legs, warmed by the sun
  3. a tall oak, 2 of its branches stretched, looking almost like shrugging shoulders
  4. a lime bike below me in the bushes
  5. stopping before the trestle, walking through dead leaves, standing on the edge of the bluff, looking down to the below the trestle and at the blue river
  6. the warning tape and cones around the big crack north of the trestle have been removed — has the crack cracked more? Possibly
  7. standing by an empty bench nearing franklin, walking past it to another bluff edge and another open view of the river and the other side
  8. sliding bench: empty
  9. my shadow: sturdy, strong, moving fast
  10. after the run, walking back through the grass, kicking up dead leaves and delighting in their crunchiness

Listened to the last part of the Invisibilia episode that I mentioned yesterday. According to the neuroscientists, there is no thing in our body that doesn’t change over the course of our lifetime, even our brain cells are transformed. I need to listen to it again; I was distracted.

3 hours later:

“Neurons don’t die and get replaced, but the atoms that make them up are constantly turning over.”

memory: “each time we think about a memory, we corrupt it”

“we have this illusion of continuity”

Looked up “cell” on poems.com and found this great poem:

Always and Only from Material/ H.L Hix

A drop of water changes shape if it falls through an electric field
(the thunderstorm, say, that gave God material form
in Job, then in Lear trued troposphere to terror).
The drop takes the shape of a spindle (the same that turns,
in the myth of Er, on the knees of Necessity)
and sends out from tl1e positively-charged spindle-point
a slender filament of electrical force.
Or take your red blood cells, which in the blood itself
retain the shape of a dimpled disc, a spongy
rubber ball squeezed lightly between finger and thumb.
A little water, though, to thin that blood, and the cell
turns spherical; a little salt, and the entire
cell shrinks and puckers, grape into raisin.
Mysteries attend even membrane formation.
No pure liquid ever froths or foams. Something
must be dissolved or suspended, to sustain
the additional surface area, the passage
from smooth and taut to bubbled and subdivided.
I feel subdivided, denatured, quasi-solid.
I often fall through electrical fields. I can speak
only as I do: in fragments, of a continuum.

This last bit: I feel subdivided, denatured, quasi-solid./ I often fall through electrical fields. I can speak/ only as I do: in fragments, of a continuum.

Hix’s mention of the spindle reminds me of A.R. Ammons and garbage. I remember that he writes about the spindle early on — in relation to presocratic philosophers, I think? I’ll have to find the reference.

I always forget what denatured means: take away or alter the natural qualities of.

Do I feel subdivided, denatured? No, I don’t feel fragmented or altered, just unstable and never quite finished.,

This poem comes from a book that I might like to find: BORED IN ARCANE CURSIVE UNDER LODGEPOLE BARK

“H. L. Hix demonstrates a Thoreauvian burrowing of the mind—a burrowing of fifty poems—into fifty “seed sentences” from fifty “soil texts” from natural history. The poems burrow, too, into common yet rarified encounters with “the carcass of an elk,” or the sun which “contains all direction,” or the “breathing of Breathing” of a “fresh-brushed red-brown ribcage-rounded coat” of a horse. We readers are invited to burrow along with Hix, not unlike “generations of a beetle species” who can “migrate /deeper into a cave than any individual / could travel to get out.” The exploration yields glimpses of the mystic part and the elusive, mythic whole as well as a profound and sobering reflection of the human experience upon planet Earth.”         

nov 3/RUN

4.5 miles
minnehaha falls, new variation
45 degrees

Late fall fabulousness! More of a view, sparkling water, crisper air, brightly colored leaves. Had fun trying out a variation on the minnehaha falls loop: the regular version until I reached the steps near the falls. I took them down, then ran beside the creek until I reached the last bridge before the path is closed. Crossed over the creek, turned back up towards the river road. Climbed up a hill that led me to the bottom of wabun park. Ran up some easy steps — a stretch of slanted sidewalk, a set of 5 or 6 steps, sidewalk, steps, sidewalk, steps. Ran past the splash pad that I used to take the kids to 12 or so years ago, then down the steep hill to the locks and dam.

I’m feeling stronger, physically and mentally. Scott and I are thinking about doing the marathon again in fall of 2026.

10 Things

  1. the tree that is usually red 2 doors down is yellow-orange this year
  2. the view to the other side is opening up — less leaves on the trees
  3. river surface — bright white and burning
  4. a thinner falls
  5. a subdued creek down below — not rushing or gushing but also not still
  6. honking geese near the splash pad in Wabun
  7. the gate down to the falls is still open
  8. empty benches above the edge of the world and at Rachel Dow Memorial bench — I decided to stop at the edge bench, which is not right on the edge but several dozen feet in — walked over to the edge and admired the water and sun and openness of it all
  9. bright pink graffiti under the ford bridge
  10. good morning/morning! greeting a woman in a puffer jacket that I think I saw in the same spot yesterday

after the run

I am officially ready for winter running. Scott and I went to Costco and they had some great winter stuff set up in the front. New gloves, 2 new pairs of running tights and base layer shirts, and all the hand and foot warmers that I could possibly need! Guess that means I’ll have to run outside in the arctic cold so I can use them!

cells cells cells cells cells

Today I’m returning to EAP and “The Bells,” which I my using as a template for my own “The Cells” poem. Three versions of cells that I’ve been working with so far: dying/dead photoreceptor cone cells; the uncontrolled growth of cancer cells and late capitalism; and the narrowing of a world out of anxiety and necessity —

writing this, now I’m wondering about cells as individual building blocks of living things and the phrase, on the cellular level. What exactly does that mean? basic functional and structural unit of an organism.

And now, I’m looking up cellular level and “cell small room” and reading about “understanding health at the cellular level” and having a wonderful thought: why not devote a month to the cell and some of its different meanings? Fun! In the past 2 months, I haven’t posted monthly challenges; I’ve been too busy working on a draft of Girl Ghost Gorge. As I finish that (because I want to be finished for a while and submit it for a first book contest), I’d like to return to the delightfully wandering work of picking a topic and finding as many different ways to imagine and understand it as I can.

a lingering thought: I am enjoying using EA Poe’s “The Bells” as a starting point for a poem, but I’m not sure I’m a good enough poet (yet? ever?) to wrangle rhyme and meter the way he does in his poem. So tricky and easy to overdo it.

and now a random thought bursting in my brain: what is poetry, at the cellular level? the basic unit, the building block of poetry? Rhyme, meter, sound, pulse, something else?

from definitions of cell on Merriam Webster: a single room, usually for one person

cellular, celluloid, cell phones cell towers, the creepy movie The Cell

Looked up cell on poets.org. Found this Sara poem!

Sara in Her Father’s Arms/ George Oppen

Cell by cell the baby made herself, the cells

Made cells. That is to say

The baby is made largely of milk. Lying in her father’s arms, the little seed eyes

Moving, trying to see, smiling for us

To see, she will make a household

To her need of these rooms—Sara, little seed,

Little violent, diligent seed. Come let us look at the world

Glittering: this seed will speak,

Max, words! There will be no other words in the world

But those our children speak. What will she make of a world

Do you suppose, Max, of which she is made.

Sara, little seed! Love it. And, Come let us look at the world/glittering and What will she make/of a world of which she is made

WHAT? Whoa!

So, reading this poem and the opening lines, Cell by cell, the baby made herself, the cells/made cells, prompted me to ask and then investigate: How often are our cells replaced? And do all of them get replaced every 7 years? I found information about the time span of different types of cells, an explanation of why the 7 years thing is a myth, and then this from NPR: Does Your Body Really Refresh Itself Every 7 Years?

I watcher their video and got to the part, which is almost at the end, when they say this:

And there’s one more part of you that lasts your whole life

2:14Months before you were born,

2:16a little cluster of cells stretched and filled themselves with transparent protein

2:21As you grew, even after birth, more and more fibers were added, but that center endured

2:28This is your lens the window through which you are watching this video right now2:34and its core has remained the same since the moment you first opened your eyes

generated transcript on YouTube

Sara’s little seed eyes?! I had no idea that the lens lasts!

Video (can’t embed it)
A tumblr post with more info

And found out this about the lens:

What is the eye lens made of?

The lens of your eye is made up of structural proteins called crystallins. This is why it’s sometimes called the “crystalline lens.” It has the highest concentration of proteins of almost any tissue in your body. These specialized proteins give the lens its transparency and focusing power. Mature crystallins have no nucleus or organelles — they lose them as they mature. This adds to their clarity and transparency.

But having no nucleus or organelles also prevents the cells from reproducing. This means they don’t “turn over,” as most of your body’s cells do. The cells arrange themselves in concentric layers, like tree rings. Throughout your life, new cells continue to grow at the outer edges of the circle, while the older cells compress toward the center. Eventually, the older cells at the center begin to show wear and tear.

source

Like little tree rings?! You better believe that that is making it into a poem at some point!

future explorations and ideas to play with: If (most) of our cells are being replaced, what makes us us? And, are they really “our” cells? Or, do we all just live together (Oppen’s household)? Is a body one thing?

Listen to Lulu Miller on an Invisibilia episode, especially the last story:

Finally Lulu talks to a scientist to come up with a complete catalogue of all the things about us that actually do stay stable over the course of our lives. They look at everything from cells to memories until ultimately they come up with a list — but it’s a really short list.

a final note: Questions about cells and bodies and what makes us us are ones I’ve been asking for a long time, but I was especially preoccupied with them after my mention of M. Hemingway and her retreat for reclaiming the “sovereign self” in yesterday’s post.