4.65 miles minnehaha falls and back 18 degrees / feels like 4 wind: 15 mph
Colder today. Bundled up: purple jacket, green long-sleeved shirt, 2 pairs of black running tights; 2 pairs of black gloves; black hat with ear flaps; gray buff. Sunny. Sharp shadows. At the beginning of the run I had the buff pulled over my mouth to warm my breath. Then, within a mile, I was hot.
Running south I listened to kids at the playground — are the Minnehaha Academy kids still in school this week? — and the voice in my head singing “Old Friends” from the new version of Merrily We Roll Along. Can’t get that song out of my head! On the way back, after stopping at my favorite spot, I put in the soundtrack and listened to Jonathan Groff, Daniel Radcliffe, and Lindsay Mendez sing it, and some of the other songs from the musical. I’d love to see this one on Broadway — just checked and it’s there through July 7th. Would it even be possible to get tickets?
10 Things
cold wind in my face, from most directions
hot sun on my face, once or twice
the river burning such a bright white — no ice on it today
a dry, clear, cold path
the view just past the oak savanna, as the hills part and open to the river — wow! so clear and calm and beautiful
the falls were louder this morning
a kid, an adult, and a dog — walking around the falls
the creek water was filled with bits of ice, foam, and orange leaves
the asphalt on the shared path that travels under the ford bridge is in bad shape — it’s crumbling and has several deep, long holes
there’s a path that cuts down from the 44th street parking lot, bypassing the overlook and the steps. For most of the year it’s hidden by leaves or snow, today I could see it clearly. I almost turned and took it — why didn’t I?
When I stopped at my favorite spot, I also took some video of the falls:
minnehaha falls / 18 dec / less ice, more falling water
3.1 miles marshall loop (cretin) 39 degrees / 90% humidity
The saturday morning tradition: running with Scott. Damp and overcast. Everything quiet and strange. Scott’s bright red jacket looked even brighter and RED! In the distance, a soft mist hovered on the river’s surface. The sidewalk was wet and slick, with some puddles to leap over. We talked about snowboarding and half-pipes and how Ailing Gu is a full-time student (at Stanford), a full-time model, and full-time athlete. Wow.
Entering the bridge, I heard some geese flying by, then a bald eagle soaring low in the sky. At the end of our run we encountered a grumpy goose. Scott warned that they might be ready for a rumble. Not quite, but almost. The goose honked and flapped its wings, then flew up and over a fence to join the rest of the geese.
A gross thing I remember: running over some squishy, slippery mud. Didn’t see it, but felt it — told Scott it felt like stepping in poopy diarrhea. Yuck!
I loved the weather and the quiet, almost reverent, feeling of being out in the world on a gloomy, empty Saturday (late) morning.
A latch lifting, an edged den of light Opens across the yard. Out of the low door They stoop in the honeyed corridor, Then walk straight through the wall of the dark.
A puddle, cobble-stones, jambs and doorstep Are set steady in a block of brightness. Till she strides in again beyond her shadows And cancels everything behind her.
Ran to Lake Nokomis and back — a December goal achieved! A few weeks ago, I told Scott that I wanted to do that at least once before the end of 2023. Today was a great day to do it. Overcast, mild, hardly any wind. Everything brown and orange and calm. I felt relaxed and strong and only a little sore in my left hip.
Ran above the river, past the falls, over the mustache and duck bridges, by Minnehaha creek and Lake Hiawatha, then to the big beach at Lake Nokomis. I ran down the sidewalk that leads to the lifeguard stand and the water — the sidewalk I often take in the summer just before starting open swim. I thought about summer and swimming, then took this video:
Lake Nokomis / 15 dec 2023 / above the frame, a bird was flying
Ran on Minnehaha Parkway on the way back.
10 Things
several spots in the split rail fence where the railing was bent or leaning or broken
headlights cutting through the pale gray sky
people walking below me on the Winchell Trail
kids laughing on a playground*
the parking lot at the falls had a few more cars in it then earlier in the week
the creek was half frozen — thin sheets of ice everywhere
a woman called out to a dog — liam or sam, I think? — or was she calling out to me, ma’am?
a young girl testing out the thin ice on the edge of the lake — her name was Aubrey — I know this because a woman kept calling out Aubrey! Aubrey! No, don’t! and then, Let’s go Aubrey. I need to eat!
the sidewalk was wet — in some spots, slick
running north on the river road trail, in the groove, an older man on a bike called out, You’re a running machine! I was so surprised I snorted in response
*as I listened to the kids, I thought about how this sound doesn’t really change. Over the years, it comes from different kids, but the sound is the same. Season after season, year after year.
before the run
I’m trying to stop working on my poem about haunting the gorge, but I keep returning to it and just as I believe I have found the way in, another door opens, leading me in a different direction. When do you follow those doors and when do you stop? I worry that I’ll just keep wandering and never settle on/into anything. As I write this, I’m realizing that the question of when to keep moving and when to stop are a central theme of the poem. Here’s a bit of the poem that I wrote the other day that sums it up:
Stone is satisfied water wants to be somewhere else. Sometimes I am water when I want to be stone sometimes I am stone when I need to be water.
What to do with all of this? Maybe a run will help…
during the run
I kept returning to these questions of staying and leaving, moving and standing still. At one point, I started thinking about how nothing really stands still, the movement just happens at different speeds/paces/directions, in different scales of time. I’m interested in slow time, directionless time, time that seems to repeat, drip.
Then I thought about the value of solid (or stable or slow moving) forms in which to put my words. These forms aren’t forever fixed, but are solid enough to hold those words, to shape them into something meaningful.
after the run
Not sure what to do with all of this, but forms I’m thinking about: running form — the running body, breaths, feet; boulders; dripping, seeping, sloping water
Water! Now I thinking about Bruce Lee’s poem, be water my friend:
Empty your mind. Be formless shapeless like water now you put water into a cup it becomes the cup you put water into a bottle it becomes the bottle you put it into a tea pot it becomes the tea pot now water can flow or it can craaaaasshh be water my friend
And all the different types of water I encountered on my run: river, dripping ravine, falls, creek, weir, lake, puddle, ice. Different forms with different properties — some flow, some stay
And also Marie Howe’s lines about learning from the lake in “From Nowhere”:
think the sea is a useless teacher, pitching and falling no matter the weather, when our lives are rather lakes
unlocking in a constant and bewildering spring.
And now I’m remembering some lines from a draft of my poem, “Afterglow”:
No longer wanting to be water — formless fluid — but the land that contains it. Solid defined giving shape to the flow.
And finally, it’s time to post a poem I read from Gary Snyder in his collection, Riprap:
Thin Ice/ Gary Snyder
Walking in February A warm day after a long freeze On an old logging road Below Sumas Mountain Cut a walking stick of alder, Looked down through clouds On wet fields of the Nooksack— And stepped on the ice Of a frozen pool across the road. It creaked The white air under Sprang away, long cracks Shot out in the black, My cleated mountain boots Slipped on the hard slick —like thin ice—the sudden Feel of an old phrase made real— Instant of frozen leaf, Icewater, and staff in hand. “Like walking on thin ice—” I yelled back to a friend, It broke and I dropped Eight inches in
note: I just checked and I might have missed something, but I think the last time I ran over 7 miles was on September 21, 2021. I ran 7.2 miles to the bohemian flats. And here’s something interesting: I posted a draft, just finished, of “Afterglow,” with the lines mentioned above included for the first time. Strange how that works.
Sunny and warmer! Shadows! Clear, dry paths! A great afternoon run, even if my left IT band started hurting…again. I was able to run on all of the walking paths, even when they split off from the bike path.
Listened to kids, cars, chainsaws, and some guy with a DEEP voice as I ran to the Steven’s house and The Wiz on the way back.
10 Things
the light was lower — it felt later than 2:30*
a walker with a big white dog
the falls seemed to be rushing more than on Monday
a sour sewer smell near the John Steven’s house
kids yelling and laughing on the playground
a bird flying low in the sky, off to my side, almost looking like a fluttering leaf
the soft whoosh of the light rail nearing the station
the bells ringing as it left the station
my feet feeling strange, awkward until I warmed up
the buzz of a chainsaw echoing across the gorge
*the light reminded me of the line from ED:
There’s a certain Slant of light, Winter Afternoons –
But this light wasn’t oppressive. It was warm and welcoming.
I’m continuing to plug away at my haunts poem, even though I was feeling burned out yesterday. I decided to read Lorine Niedecker’s “Lake Superior” and the translator’s afterword for Perec’s How to Exhaust a Place. It helped and I think I had a break through this morning. Now I’m looking to Sarah Manguso’s Ongoingness and 300 Arguments for inspiration. My focus: restlessness and stone and water. And, 2 mantras: 1. let it go and 2. condense! condense! condense!
3.4 miles trestle turn around 24 degrees / feels like 18
Sunny this morning and colder. I overdressed in my purple jacket, which works best when the temperature is in the teens or below 0. Greeted Dave, the Daily walker, admired the river, only slipped on the ice once. Smiled at several other runners. Took off my second pair of gloves and unzipped the very top my jacket around a mile in.
Writing this back at my desk, I can’t remember what I listened to as I ran north. Running back south, I put in a Billie Eilish playlist.
Before putting in the playlist, I stopped and looked out at the river. Not focusing on details, like color or whether or not it was icing over, but breathing in the feeling of being above a river on a cold day, grateful to be out in the world and not inside at my desk trying to figure out what to write about haunting the gorge (I think I’m burned out for now).
Yes, I need a break from all the writing and thinking about haunts. Too much planning and trying to be clever, not enough just sitting down (or running) and finding words.
4.5 miles minnehaha falls and back 25 degrees 50% snow and ice covered
Cold air! So wonderful to breathe in, to make me feel a little dazed and disconnected. More gloomy white sky. Flurries on my face. Listened to a few birds, the kids on the playground, and the rushing water at the falls on the way there, then Olivia Rodrigo on the way back.
10 Things
the strong smell of weed from behind me — no one in sight, then an old white van with a ladder on the back drove by
much of the walking path was covered in a thin layer of snow/ice — so thin that the dark pavement was still visible, making the snow look light gray
a leaning split rail fence, bent in the middle — not quite broken but almost
a walker with two dogs walking down the steepish trail just past the double bridge — was it icy?
someone in a bright yellow puffer jacket walking with a dog on the winchell trail — they had just crested the short, steep hill right before folwell
the tinny recording of the train bell echoing from across Hiawatha to the falls
the heavy thud of my feet on the cold cobblestones in the park
a walker with a dog emerging from the steps that lead down to the bottom of the falls. As I watched they crossed the bridge
running up the hill at the edge of the park near the sledding hill, remembering my run here a month ago when I imagined it being covered in snow
missing: a view of the river, turkeys, fat tires, orange, red
Stopped at my favorite falls viewing spot and recorded the bridge and the water falling:
minnehaha falls, still falling / 11 dec 2023
At one point on my run back, I suddenly felt a beautiful ache of emotion and thought: tender. Yes, I need to include a few lines in my haunts poem about feeling tender as I run — maybe in contrast with tough and the callouses I mentioned last week (6 dec 2023)?
It didn’t feel as warm as it was because of the wind and the clouds. The sky, smudged white. Gloomy. Clear paths with a few chunks of ice still sticking around. How did they not melt yesterday when it was 49 degrees and sunny? A good run, even if my left IT band was sore.
IT doesn’t stand for iliotibial, it stands for:
Itchy Teeth
Irksome Toes
Incandescent Tonsils
Infatuated Trapezoids
Indigo Toenails (from Scott)
Inconceivable Tracheas (from RJP)
10 Things
a noisy car speeding down the river road — don’t remember the color of the type of car or who was driving it, just remember that it was LOUD and FAST
chick a dee dee dee dee
the floodplain forest was roomy and deep brown and open to the river
click click clack — roller skiers hitting their poles on the path
bright headlights cutting through the tree trunks on the other side of the ravine
can’t remember the color of the river — probably pale brown or gray or brown — just that it was soothing (looked at my video: blueish white)
at the start of the run, the pavement was wet — why? melted snow?
a regular — Santa Claus! we raised our hands in greeting
overdressed — took off my orange sweatshirt at the turn around
a mom on roller skis to her kids, also on roller skis — we’re almost there! I’m assuming she meant the big franklin hill
Listened to my breath, my striking feet, the cars driving by as I ran north. Put in a Billie Eilish playlist running back south.
Before turning around, I took some video at a favorite spot: the curved fence on the Winchell Trail before Franklin:
Not yet winter by the gorge. Listen to the sirens on the other side sing with the chickadees and the cars.
After I finished running, I recalled a line I had composed while running for a poem I’m working on about the bells of St. Thomas:
Have others outside forgotten those bells? Or do they hear them ringing still?
I like the double meaning of still here — both: continuing to ring and ringing until they become still/stop. I have to sit with it longer, but I think I’d like ring instead of ringing, but it doesn’t fit the 3/2 form.
As I write this I’m remembering another thought I had: getting rid of all of the longer poems that begin with I — I go to the gorge, I sync up my steps, I want connection, I orbit the gorge, etc. Those are the ghosts that haunt this Haunts poem — they are the traces/residue/palimpsest that is still there, but not fully. I think this makes sense to me, but I’m not sure if I can remove all of those words that I love and have spent so much time with…yet.
Warmer today. Almost all of the snow has melted. Sunny, bright, shadows. Chirping birds, sparkling water, shimmering sidewalks — melted snow illuminated by sun. I went out feeling a bit overwhelmed, needing a run. It worked. By the end of the run I felt so much better.
I listened to the world around me as I ran to the falls: the birds, kids on the playground, cars whooshing by, the gushing falls. When I turned around, I put in a Billie Eilish playlist on the way back.
At the falls, I stopped at the overlook right beside the falls:
minnehaha falls / 6 dec 2023
10 Things
wet path, shimmering — is it just water, or is it super slick ice?
most of the snow gone, only little ridges on the edges of the trail
empty, open, iceless river
more darting squirrels
encountering a woman in pink running shoes twice
the bells from the light rail ringing and dinging from across the road
my shadow — sharp — running beside me
a runner in a bright blue jacket
an empty parking lot at the falls
the potholes on the path were easier to see because they were filled in with snow while the rest of the path was bare
Thinking about the gorge and WPA walls and riprap and Gary Snyder:
Lay down these words Before your mind like rocks. placed solid, by hands In choice of place, set Before the body of the mind in space and time: Solidity of bark, leaf, or wall riprap of things: Cobble of milky way, straying planets, These poems, people, lost ponies with Dragging saddles— and rocky sure-foot trails. The worlds like an endless four-dimensional Game of Go. ants and pebbles In the thin loam, each rock a word a creek-washed stone Granite: ingrained with torment of fire and weight Crystal and sediment linked hot all change, in thoughts, As well as things.
I mention the limestone walls made by the WPA in the 30s and 40s in my poem. I’d like to expand on them just a little more. Each rock a word — something there to build on, I think.
4.5 miles minnehaha falls and back 32 degrees 10% snow-covered
It snowed last night. Less than an inch? Enough to cover everything, making it look like winter, but not enough to cause any problems running on the path. Wonderful! I love winter running. I started out a little cold, with my hood up against the wind, but ended over-heated: lots of sweat and a flushed face. My right IT band hurt a little, but not enough to end the run. I did stop at the halfway point — my favorite spot near “The Song of Hiatwatha,” admiring the falls from a distance. I took some video:
minnehaha falls / 5 dec 2023
video: Minnehaha Creek rushing over the limestone ledge, frozen water on either side of the rushing water, a bridge above, a bridge below.
10 Things
the river: brownish-gray, flat, empty
caw caw caw
the snow is soft and not slick or clumpy, easy to run over
a path winding through the savanna revealed by settled snow
a leaning tree branch, dusted with snow. The snow making visible the trunks texture
rustling in the brush — a squirrel
the voices of kids laughing on the playground
running near the overlook of the falls, not stopping to see the water, just hearing it rushing over the limestone
beep beep beep beep beep beep then a few beats of silence on repeat — a service truck near the roundabout
rabbit footprints all over my driveway — such big footprints!
before the run
This morning, while doing the dishes, I began listening to Chris Dombrowski’s The River You Touch. Here are a few passages I’d like to remember:
What does a mindful, sustainable inhabitance on this small planet look like in the Anthropocene? is no longer an academic question but rather a necessary qualifier to each step we take. For answers, we who have proven ourselves such untrustworthy stewards of our home might look to what Barry Lope called “myriad enduring relationships of the landscape,” to our predecessors, in other words, whose voices are the bells that must sound before any gritty ceremony of community can truly being.
The River We Touch/ Chris Dombrowski
bells — I like this idea of bells as signaling the start of a ceremony. Each loop around the gorge, or run beside the gorge is the start of a ritual, a ceremony, both sacred and mundane. What else do bells signal? I want to review my notes and weave other meanings into my poem.
“listening,” refers to direct contact, engagement, what the forager Jenna Rozelle calls the “primacy of immediate experience.” Callouses on palms formed by friction between human skin and oar handle. Shoulder muscles straining to pull oar blade through current, the oar stroke negotiating with the wave train’s brute liquid force.
The River We Touch/ Chris Dombrowski
The mention of callouses reminds me of Thoreau and his essay on walking:
Living much out of doors, in the sun and wind, will no doubt produce a certain roughness of character—will cause a thicker cuticle to grow over some of the finer qualities of our nature, as on the face and hands, or as severe manual labor robs the hands of some of their delicacy of touch. So staying in the house, on the other hand, may produce a softness and smoothness, not to say thinness of skin, accompanied by an increased sensibility to certain impressions. Perhaps we should be more susceptible to some influences important to our intellectual and moral growth, if the sun had shone and the wind blown on us a little less; and no doubt it is a nice matter to proportion rightly the thick and thin skin. But methinks that is a scurf that will fall off fast enough—that the natural remedy is to be found in the proportion which the night bears to the day, the winter to the summer, thought to experience. There will be so much the more air and sunshine in our thoughts. The callous palms of the laborer are conversant with finer tissues of self-respect and heroism, whose touch thrills the heart, than the languid fingers of idleness. That is mere sentimentality that lies abed by day and thinks itself white, far from the tan and callus of experience.
physical dialogue (contact…encounter between feet and land)…sensorial empathy
The faculty of wonder—which, in this context, is simply the unsentimental ability to identify with astonishment the earth and its inhabitants as relational—is diminishing as quickly as any endangered species. If it vanishes as an inevitable byproduct of decreased direct encounters with the physical world, so, too, may go the instinct to protect the very places that sustain us.
Concluding a story about kayaking with his son, encountering a sea otter, attempting to capture the moment with his phone and then dropping the phone in the ocean, Dombrowski writes:
I scanned our ambit for further sign of the otter, weighing the value of what I’d beamed in on 4G versus the salt drying on the hand Luca had dragged through the water. I sensed the latter would form a more lasting kind of knowing.
The River We Touch/ Chris Dombrowski
Before heading out for my run, I wanted to think about some of these ideas, especially: touch, physical dialogue, and sensorial empathy.
during the run
I recall thinking about my feet and rough ground and how much I enjoy feeling the ground as I move. The snow today was fun to run over/through. It wasn’t hard or crusty or sharp or too soft or thick or soggy or slick. It felt almost like running over a carpet of grass. A nice break from the hard asphalt. I also thought about breath and air and how much they are a part of touching/experiencing the gorge.
Near the end of my run, a song came up on my playlist: Breathe (2 AM)/ Anna Nalick. I’ve had it on a running playlist for over a decade now. As she sang, breathe, just breathe, I breathed. Maybe more than feet, lungs and breathing and breath have been central to my writing on this log.
I also thought about the gorge as an emptiness, a void, mystery, the ineffable/inaccessible, that I return to when I run because I want to encounter this void. I want to face the mystery.
after the run
Sitting at my desk now, I’m hungry. After I eat, I’d like to think more about the Thoreau quote and feet and callouses and the physical impact of running around the gorge as part of this haunting experience.
Back at the end of October, we rejoined the y so that I could swim in the winter and Scott could run and hot tub. With Scott’s busy schedule and my desire to run outside, today was the first day we finally went. The hot tub is closed indefinitely. We decided to cancel our membership and run outside — fine by me. I’ll miss swimming a little, but I’m feeling like 2024 is a serious running year.
I didn’t mind the track, it was fine — not crowded, warm — but it’s not the same as being outside above the gorge. I forgot my headphones so I listened to the sounds around me as I looped the elevated track: a guy lifting weights and muttering to himself, high schoolers playing basketball and dropping a few f-bombs, my own breathing. The people I passed: an older man walking with a cane, a young-ish woman walking then briefly running, an older woman walking, a guy in a red shirt reading a book on his phone as he walked.
added a few minutes later: I just remembered that I was running on the track, feeling my feet bounce on the springy track, I thought about how my feet connect to the ground. Then I thought about how I connect/am connected to a place also through breath — lungs inhaling, moving through air. Wind/air/breath are unseen and less noticed than feet striking the ground, but air is there and we possess/are possessed by it through our breaths.
This morning I woke to the wonderful news that 2 of my mood ring poems have been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. This is a big deal and makes me very proud and pleased that my strange poems are meaningful to others. I’ve worked hard for 7 years, writing almost daily, trying to develop ways to express what it feels like to be losing my vision.
Today A.R. Ammon’s Tape for the Turn of the Year came and I’m excited to read it and be inspired by it. In anticipation, I checked out Ammons’ collected works. Here’s a poem I ‘d like to remember and put beside Mary Oliver’s ideas about writing and language in The Leaf and the Cloud:
Motion/ A. R. Ammons:
The word is not the thing: is a construction of, a tag for, the thing: the word in no way resembles the thing, except as sound resembles, as in whirr, sound: the relation between what this as words is and what is is tenuous: we agree upon this as the net to cast on what is: the finger to point with: the method of distinguishing, defining, limiting: poems are fingers, methods, nets, not what is or was: but the music in poems is different, points to nothing, traps no realities, takes no game, but by the motion of its motion resembles what, moving, is—- the wind underleaf white against the tree.