aug 14/RUN

3.5 miles
locks and dam #1
73 degrees

Another hard run. Hot! Lots of sweating and stopping to take walk breaks. Ran to the bottom of locks and dam #1 for a great view of the river. I can’t remember its color — blue, I think — but I remember the small waves on it and the faint wake from a long gone boat. Oh, and the single white buoy and the roar of rushing water one way and the ford bridge the other.

At the bottom of the locks and dam, I noticed some bright orange leaves:

fall is coming / 14 aug 2025

Not the greatest picture, but I’ll post it anyway. So orange! Too soon!

Saw someone emerge from the trail that dips below the road to cross the path and wondered if they had just come up from the new trail that descends deeper into the gorge. Encountered 2, maybe 3, roller skiers, walkers, runners, a few bikers. Below the road I stopped to walk and listen to the acorns falling from the tree and thumping on the ground. Then started running again over acorn shells.

I thought about my Swimming, One Day in August project and had an idea: what if I tried swimming in bde maka ska and lake harriet? Or, some other lakes nearby? Or, one of the clearest lakes in the state, Square Lake, in Stillwater?

a few hours later: Hooray! Just received an email that all future open swims will be at Cedar! So as long as Scott can drive me over there, I don’t have to miss a single one.

a ramble on lake water testing

A revelation just last week. Minneapolis Parks tests the lake water weekly, and testing the water is better than not testing the water. But the slow and rigid system of testing only on Mondays and getting results on Tuesdays (e-coli) and Wednesdays (algae blooms) combined with the fickle changes in quality based on weather and other environmental factors, means the testing is not very accurate for what the conditions are at any given time. On an abstract level, it seems obvious to me that you can’t rely on tests to guarantee safe water, but on an experiential level — that is, being in the water swimming for over an hour at a time roughly 6 times a week for 11 summers — I needed an unquestioned faith in those tests and the park’s ability to let me know when it was/wasn’t safe to swim in order to get in the water.

And, mostly it is safe in the water. And it is clean. I get very irritated when someone who doesn’t know what they’re talking about says to me, eww, how can you swim in that dirty water!? Minneapolis Park workers and volunteers do an amazing job of keeping the water quality high. And this is partly due to their regular testing. But, these tests can’t guarantee anything.

What am I trying to do here? I’m not blaming the parks department; these tests are expensive and it would be difficult to test regularly enough to keep up with the quick shifts in wind and rain and the groundwater problems (like unstable sewer systems) that have existed from the beginning of the lake’s modern shape in the 1920s when workers excavated peat and used it to build up the surrounding neighborhood. Not to mention climate change and erratic weather and an excess of nutrients getting into the water from lawn fertilizers. And people feeding ducks who poop in the water which increases the amount of e-coli. No, I think Minneapolis Parks, especially Minneapolis Aquatics, are amazing.

All of this is complicated and messy with no easy answers. And it’s scary. I’ve been wondering for a few years when it’s going to happen — because it seems inevitable that it will happen — that lakes will no longer be safe to swim in, unfiltered outside air will no longer be safe to breathe. And this is how it happens, I think. Not all of sudden, but slowly. More days with bad test results and beach closures. Or inaccurate test results and water that is pea-soup green and slimy and that might get you sick.

I suppose this last paragraph sounds depressing, and it is, and also it isn’t. I love swimming in lake nokomis, and I would do a tremendous amount to keep swimming in it. Maybe it’s time to figure out what I can do to help keep it safe.

aug 12/RUNSWIM

run: 2.2 miles
2 trails
73 degrees

Hot! As usual, I should have gone out before 9:30, but I slept in. When I was in the shade, it wasn’t too bad. Wore my bright yellow shoes. They were fun for the first 3 minutes — very bouncy — but I started to feel both of my calves cramping up. I stopped to avoid anything worse and walked for a few minutes before starting up again. Is it the shoes? Possibly. My calves have been fine and then I started wearing these shoes again and now my calves are cramping occasionally. Last week, I woke up early in the morning to a charley horse just starting to happen. Was able to stop it before it turned into a knot. Whew.

Even though it was hot, I’m glad I got out by the gorge. Beautiful. Fall is coming. Leaves drifting down in the soft wind. Half-crushed acorns all over the sidewalk. A deep green everywhere. The winchell trail was cooler in the shade. Tricking water near the ravines (3 — 44th, 42nd, and 36th). Decided for the first time in a long time to take the dirt path past the 38th street steps and visit the oak savanna. It was dark and overgrown. Branches reaching across the trail, the dirt path that leads to the ravine narrowing to almost nothing.

10 Things

  1. at least 2 or 3 benches occupied, including the one near folwell
  2. a runner accompanied by a biker discussing how much mileage someone else was doing — marathon training?
  3. the river: sparkling, blue, empty
  4. a bird — cheeseburger cheeseburger
  5. another bird: me me me
  6. the fallen tree on winchell: still there, still blocking 2/3 of the path, still holding browned leaves
  7. squeak squeak a swing across the road at minnehaha academy
  8. movement — a bird? a squirrel? the wind moving a single leaf
  9. loud noises in the bushes — a bird? a squirrel?
  10. the worn wooden steps leading to the ravine — still cracked on a few boards — noticed that the steps are rectangular boards placed on the slope with a handrail, and some sort of wedge at the top

swim: 6 loops
90 minutes
lake nokomis open swim
78 degrees

Wonderful! The water was a little rough, but nothing too bad. No waves crashing into me. The course the lifeguards set up with how they positioned the buoys was off today. It didn’t fit with any of my strategies for sighting. The lifeguards were too close to the buoys heading out to the little beach, and the fourth buoy was much farther south than it usually is. The final buoy was too close to the orange buoy and too far from the beach. No triangle today. Not sure what shape it was. I’m almost positive I swam 6 loops, but the distance was so much shorter that it seemed more like 5. I’ll still count it as 6.

Lots of vines. Setting sun. Bubbles. Menacing swans and sailboats. Strange flashes underwater. Seeing orange. A roaring plane. Thin shafts of light. Not as many sparkle friends.

aug 9/RUN

3.25 miles
trestle turn around
75 degrees
thunder – drizzle – rain

Dark out there this morning. My weather app and the radar said 0% chance of rain. Ha! I didn’t hear any thunder until I had already turned around and was heading back. I didn’t feel the rain until I was running a treeless stretch of the trail. Greeted Mr. Morning! Heard water rushing in the ravine. Smelled onions as a group of male runners — a big pack of cross country runners? — ran by. Forgot to look down at the river but did remember to glance at the sliding bench. Noticed that the crack in the path north of the trestle is still blocked off and still cracked — are they waiting until fall to fix it? Will they fix it? Saw dogs and runners and walkers and 4 bikes going by much faster than the 10 mph speed limit and 2 guys talking at the edge of the path that I think were rowers who just finished a session on the river.

What did I think about? I can’t remember. I wasn’t working through any ideas for a poem or the chapbook I’m putting together. I wasn’t thinking about anything I read this morning or worried about the news. Can I remember even one thought I had? Oh, here’s one: when it thundered, a flash of concern — do I need to find shelter? can I make it home before the storm begins? (I did.)

This morning before my run, I found out that 4 of my poems, including my purple hour poem, that were accepted at the beginning of the summer went live today on Trampoline Poetry! Very exciting! I also learned a few days ago that another one of my mood rings — Incurable — will be published later this month. Nice.

aug 7/SWIM

5 loops
90 minutes
lake nokomis open swim
86 degrees

Yes! A wonderful swim, and another hour and a half to add to my goal of reaching 34 hours by the end of the month. The water was choppy, which I liked, except for when it made it hard to get a stroke in and I felt like I was sinking. The water was thick and filled with my sparkle friends. Several times it felt like the buoy kept getting farther and farther away, until I broke the spell and suddenly had reached it. I saw some menacing sailboats and 1 or 2 paddle boarders. The light during the last loop was very cool — why? I guess because it was giving very chill twilight vibes. Noticed a few planes flying low and lots of seagulls and ducks. A few flashes down below — fish?

I felt strong and can tell that I’m getting stronger as I do more longer swims. A thought — could I possibly manage 7 loops in 2 hours? That would be amazing!

A few lines from two poems discovered this morning:

There is the clarity of a shore
And shadow,   mostly,   brilliance

summer

                the billows of August
(from “From the Sustaining Air“/ Larry Eigner

The clarity of a shore and shadow. Not sure about the shore, but I like the idea of shadows bringing clarity. They do for me.

2

I am pointless. This I come to know
by pressing ear to night’s machinery.
Outside, the words rub each other
until they are dull: calibrate, resurface,
surface, invest, investigate, snowy, open,
environ, woman, wooden, system.
I look where little nodes of language cling,
lichen-like, to what will have them.
(from “Rose-crowned Night Girl”/ Emily Skillings

I read this line about being pointless and it helped me to think about pointless meaning more than useful or not worthwhile. To be pointless is to not have points, to be smooth instead of rough, nothing sharp about you. My vision is point-less but not pointless. Everything softens with my fuzzy gaze.

added after the swim: During loop 4 or 5, I started thinking about pointless again as a way to indicate a dot — it’s a star without points. Earlier today I was working on a poem that describes a dot as a distant star. After thinking about pointless I thought about how the star/point, which was the far-off buoy, wasn’t always there — it flickered.

added 8 aug 2025: Just remembered a few more things. After the swim, I met Scott at Painted Turtle for a beer. We watched the ducks in the water, bobbing and floating and almost getting into fights with seagulls. We also watched the final swimmer being escorted into shore by 3 lifeguards. I told Scott that being the last swimmer, that is, staying until the very end of open swim, is a goal every year. I think I’ve done it once. Then we watched the green buoys heading in for the night, looking so much smaller than they do in the water when you’re right next to them.

aug 6/RUNSWIM

2.2 miles
2 trails
68 degrees
dew point: 64

Humid. It rained last night — everything is wet — but there must been wind, too, because small branches and leaves were scattered over parts of the path. No big trees.

10 Sounds

  1. Bird
  2. the coxswains speaking through their bullhorns
  3. a faint radio with someone singing, some vibrato
  4. the steady trickle out of the sewer pipe near 42nd
  5. good morning, excuse me / morning! no, excuse me (passing a walker)
  6. morning! a greeting from Mr. Morning!
  7. good morning / good morning (greeted by an older runner)
  8. the whirr of a motor on an e-bike zooming by
  9. another runner’s music coming from her phone as she ran by — some poppy upbeat song that I can’t remember
  10. who run the world? girls! Beyoncé from my headphones and my mood: Energy playlist

Listened to the poem I wrote yesterday before I headed out for my run. This is my tentative ending:

tethers us to each
other — swimmer and
vision, buoy and
body, to sight
and to rarely see

swim: 3 loops (6 cedar loops)
60 minutes
cedar lake open swim
81 degrees

Choppy today. Sometimes hard to stay high on the water. Lots of vines. Saw some planes and birds above, no fish below. The surface looked silvery. Sometimes the sun was out, sometimes it was behind a cloud. Once a big, hulking cloud, looking like something other than a cloud from my perspective half-submerged in the water — a monster, like godzilla?

Forgot to recite Mary Oliver or think about the deepening and quieting of the spirit, but I felt it. Relaxed, happy, strong. Swimming for an hour wasn’t difficult.

Found this description of how we are both part of and separate from water saved on my reading list:

Nature—the non-built environment, creatures—is a realm of supreme “otherness” with which we are already always in strange relation. We plead for communion with this nature; it cannot answer us; so we project that onto it, that feeling of harmony and oneness at a shore or a vista. We are both a part of that natural sphere and stand distinctly apart within it, in our creaturely and industrial/technological dominance over it. You are both part of that sphere, and stand painfully apart, with your consciousness, language, cumbersome car and computer.

Moheb Soliman on “On the water”

Now I’m thinking about Anne Carson and her definition of anthropology (as in, “Anthropology of Water”). I wrote about it on 13 july:

encounter with that which you cannot contain, control, that is not You — the not-I.

added on 8 aug 2025: I forgot to mention a delightful thing that happened on the way over to cedar lake: a vee of geese — 20? — flying low over Bde Maka Ska then just above us — and, lucky me, I had the moon roof open to watch! — then heading towards Lake Harriet.

aug 4/RUNSWIM

2.5 miles
2 trails
66 degrees
dew point: 61
AQI: 81 (moderate)

Better air! Well, less smoky air. Also, humid air. Heavy air. I checked the weather for rain. Nope. Leaving the house, I was greeted (or threatened or warned) by my next door neighbor, the bluejay. Screech! Screech! I admired the beautiful flowers — dark and light purple, orange, yellow — of the neighbor who lives with Matt the Cat. On the paved path, I glanced down at the oak savanna — dark green — and over at the leaning, almost twisted, fence. Heard the coxswain giving rowers their workout, something about 75ers, and wishing she had a micro-stop on her watch (at least, I think that’s what she said). Also heard rustling in the leaves, sounding bigger than a squirrel. A dog? A turkey? Heading down the hill at the Cleveland overlook, the river looked green and still through the trees. Someone was sitting on the bench in the grass near the stone wall. It was dark enough that the cars and bikes had their headlights on.

Because it’s cooler than the air is better, I have the windows open. Several squirrels are rooting around in the bushes. The sound is irritating me as I write this entry.

Listened to the cars and the rowers and the birds running south and on the Winchell Trail, then a few songs by Lawrence for the last stretch from the 38th street steps to home.

Swimming One Day in August

Because the big beach at Lake Nokomis has been closed due to high levels of e-coli, I haven’t had a chance to swim yet in August. Finally today, at Cedar Lake, I will start working towards my goal of swimming a total of 24 hours (= 1 day) in August. As part of that project, I’m devoting time out of the water to swimming in Minneapolis lakes, too by reading, researching, reflecting, and writing on water. Today, I’m reviewing the history of Cedar Lake, thanks to a masters thesis I found a few years ago.

Already today, I’ve been reading about the dredging of the lakes. 2.5 million cubic yards of peat and sand and wetland were dredged out of nokomis; it took 4 non-stop years. The sand went to the beach, the peat and wetland to making the park bigger and building a neighborhood. Why dredge? Not just because it would make a lake I could swim in a century and a half later. Original Park Board Superintendent Theodore Wirth was thinking about economic growth and the future of a city:

Wirth is outspoken in his belief in the utility of taming nature to increase land value and develop the city’s natural resources. By dredging and creating more shoreline, the park board could improve the parkland, thereby making the property surrounding the parkland a more desirable place to live. The increased value of the private property could provide a greater tax base for the city and for the Park Board, which could use the revenue to continue to acquire and improve park space.

Cedar Lake History/ Neil Trembley

swim: 4 loops
75 minutes
cedar lake open swim
77 degrees

Wonderful night for a swim! Calm water, not too warm or too cold. Not too crowded. And even with fogged up goggles (I haven’t treated them in a few weeks), I didn’t get too far off course.

The water felt a little sluggish — not buoyant. There were tons of sharp and scratchy vines, some individual strands, others in clumps. The water was opaque — no fish sightings tonight.

The sky was white; no clouds to notice. I think I remember seeing one bird. Oh — every so often the sky would break open and there was sun. It didn’t last that long.

I wanted to think about Mary Oliver’s “deepening and quieting” but there was none of that tonight. I was swimming hard — not all out, but not stopping either.

aug 3/RUN

2.25 miles
2 trails
70 degrees
AQI: 151

Another short run today. The air quality is still bad, but it didn’t bother me — or, I’m so used to it bothering me that I didn’t notice. Wore my bright yellow shoes again and felt bouncy. Listened to my “Slappin’ Shadows” playlist running south, the gorge running north: trickling water, laughing kids, someone talking about walking on a boardwalk, a beeping/ringing noise on repeat somewhere below. Noticed a haze above the river, everything washed out, pale. The tree that fell a few weeks ago is still there, unmoved. The benches were empty, the trails were thick with bikes. No more mud. Acorn shells on the sidewalk.

Walking back after the run, I thought about my inkling poems and how I like to/have to try and guess what something is based on very little data. Some lines came to me —

It’s a game, really —
Name that Tune but for
forms. I can name that
form in 2 curves . . .

Searching for “inkling” on poets.org, I found these great lines:

For what is prophecy but the first inkling
of what we ourselves must call into being?
The call need not be large. No voice in thunder.

It’s not so much what’s spoken as what’s heard—
and recognized, of course. The gift is listening
and hearing what is only meant for you.
(from Prophecy/ Dana Gioia)

And now I’m thinking about inklings as creatures, and not just hunches or ideas or guesses or a call/prophecy to listen to. An inkling is the tiny creature that speaks to us — not a little man, but a spirit or an insect or Dante’s spiriti visivi.

aug 1/RUN

4 miles
the monument and back
68 degrees
AQI: 163

The wild fire smoke is still here. Mostly it didn’t bother me, but it did make running a little harder. The worst smoke moment was when I came off the lake street bridge and turned onto the river road — not hard to breathe so much as hazy. There weren’t too many runners out there, some walkers, a few bikers, a family of hikers and shadow falls.

10 Things

  1. graffiti on the lake street bridge steps: STOP HATE
  2. a fancy water fountain, bubbling, in the grand yard of the U of M President’s house that Gov. Walz rented while his mansion was being renovated
  3. someone asleep on a hard stone bench by the Monument — in the hot sun, wearing long pants, a long-sleeved shirt, and a stocking cap
  4. the bells of St. Thomas — ding dong ding dong / ding dong ding dong / ding dong ding dong / — the time, 10:45
  5. an orange flash on the sidewalk — the smoky light or spray paint?
  6. a boat speeding up the river, leaving streaks on the water’s surface
  7. no kids outside at the church preschool — were they staying inside because of the smoke, or was it not recess?
  8. the graceful curve of the bridge’s arch — I checked if anyone was climbing on it (nope) — my daughter told me about how kids do that (her included, but only once and only halfway across)
  9. the soft trickle of water near Shadow Falls
  10. a stone wall above the ravine, leaning — it had a sign on it that I couldn’t read, so I took a picture of it to study later
Furnished to the city of St. Paul by the Kettle River Co.

I could mostly read it when I looked at the photograph, but I had to doublecheck with Scott.

I wish the lake was open so I could have gone to open swim for the first day of my “Swimming One Day in August” project, but at least I was able to run. I am almost didn’t go out because of the smoke. Glad I decided to!

The smoke doesn’t seem that bad so, for the first time in weeks, we have the windows open! I like the relief that air conditioning brings, but I hate how it makes me feel trapped in the house. As I sit at my desk writing this, I just heard the feebee call of the black-capped chickadee through the open window!

Today I’m working on more swimming sonnets and Inklings. Some subjects: water quality, blue-green algae, milfoil, water as the medium, loops at lake nokomis are actually triangles, the color of the water, Alice Oswald seeing self in water, again and more darkly, Mary Oliver and the deepening and quieting of the spirit

a little later: I almost forgot about the mushrooms! Walking north before my run, I saw some HUGE mushrooms in a neighbor’s yard. The first one I noticed had lost its cap and I thought it was a newly cut tree trunk. I think there were a cluster of 4 or 5 mushrooms. I started reciting Sylvia Plath’s Mushrooms in my head. I thought about mushrooms as the fruit of fungi and little explosions and expressions of the self (like through poetry) as emerging like mushrooms. For the rest of the run I checked the grass for more mushrooms, but don’t recall seeing any more.

a lot later: RJP checked out a book for me, Mary Oliver’s Blue Pastures, so I could read some of Oliver’s sand dabs and the chapter, “Pen and Paper and Breath of Air.” I’m on the second page and I already needed to stop and archive some of her ideas:

First, in describing her practice of keeping a notebook, she writes that she doesn’t write in it from front to back, but just opens a page and writes anywhere and everywhere. She uses “private shorthand” to record phrases and feelings.

The words do not take me to the reason I made teh entry, but back to the felt experience, whatever it was. this is important. I can, then, think forward again to teh idea—that is, teh significance of the event—rather than back upon it. I ti s the instant I try to catch in the notebooks, not the comment, not the thought. And, of course, this is so often waht I am aiming to do in the finished poems themselves.

“Pen and Paper and Breath of Air” in Blue Pastures/ Mary Oliver

And here’s one of the phrases she put in a notebook:

A fact: one picks it up and reads it, and puts it down, and there is an end to it. But an idea! That one may pick up, and reflect upon, and oppose, and expand, and so pass a delightful afternoon altogether.

“Pen and Paper and Breath of Air” in Blue Pastures/ Mary Oliver

july 31/RUN

4.5 miles
minnehaha falls and back
59 degrees
AQI*: 157

*Air Quality Index

Cooler! Smoky, again. Ran on the dirt trail on the other side of the river road heading south. Noticed how the trail didn’t seem quite as wide as it did a few years ago during the pandemic when more people were using it. Wondered how many feet have to tread over the same spot to make a trail, and how long it takes for a forgotten trail to revert to grass. Crossed over to the paved path by Becketwood and stayed on it to the falls, then past the falls, then over the Veterans bridge then down the steep hill to the very bottom of the ford bridge then north thenhome.

Listened to cars and birds and voices as I ran south. Put in my “Remember to Forget” playlist returning north. Tried to forget that I was hot and wanted to stop as I listened to Peter Gabriel and Michael McDonald singing about forgetting.

10 Things

  1. orange light dotting the path
  2. turkeys! 4 female turkeys (hens) bobbing their necks and moving slowly, 1 male (a tom) following behind — the hens ignored me as I stopped to look, but the tom turned and stare
  3. the rush of minnehaha creek below me as I ran over the veterans bridge
  4. standing on the bridge above the falls, watching it tumble down to the creek below
  5. a man and a little kid sitting at the bench near the boulder
  6. the path blocked off near Godfrey by 2 trucks and some cones — not sure what they were working on
  7. the path blocked off near folwell by cones: park workers repainting the biking and walk signs
  8. a new person painted on the paved path — glowing white, I checked to see if anyone had drawn in a face yet (nope)
  9. my shadow — I could see my pony tail bobbing as I moved
  10. fake bells x 2: the ding-ding-ding of the light rail pulling out of the station and the chiming of the st. thomas bells at 7:45

excerpt from 38. Shedding the Old/ Samantha Thornhill

Such as the lobster 
cracking loose 
from its exoskeleton 
after moons of moulting,  
or the viper that squeezes 
out of the skin 
of its remembrance, 
this oracle invites you
to rewild yourself,
to unbox, detox, and de-
clutter your blood. 

Rewild yourself!

july 30/RUNSWIM

2.5 miles
2 trails
71 degrees

Hazy and smoky this morning. Canadian wild fires again. A present from the wind. It looked bad, but didn’t bother my breathing too much. Inspired by the wind, I listened to my “Beaufort Scale” playlist until I reached the old stone steps near the south entrance of the Winchell Trail. Then I listened to the water falling out of the sewer pipe and splashing on the rocks down to the river.

a stone wall with a plaque that reads, WPA 1938
WPA 1938

I took this picture of a stone wall built by the WPA, and possibly by grandfather, on the stone steps at the edge of the 44th street parking lot. 1938 was four years before my mom was born. Was my grandfather working for the WPA then?

At the bottom of the steps is the Winchell Trail and the 44th street sewer pipe/ravine. Also, the curved wall that I like to admire from above as I run by and the spot in the trail that transitions from crumbled asphalt to cracked. Yesterday I wrote about the sound of the water falling. I decided to stop and record it today:

water falling at the 44th street ravine

10 Things

  1. a section of the fence on the edge, missing a slat
  2. something on the asphalt ahead — a big puddle? no spots of light shining through a gap in the trees — a pool of light!
  3. smoke on the water (waTER — Deep Purple/Pat Boone reference) — my view from the Winchell trail through the trees, light blue looking fuzzy and faded through the smoke
  4. the faint voices of kids on playground
  5. the blending of car wheels above with wind in the trees and water falling down the ravine
  6. an older couple walking fast and with purpose, especially the woman who was leading the charge, seen twice
  7. a small bird flittering by, a flash of yellow — was it yellow, or was it a trick of the light, or was it my unreliable vision?
  8. the 38th street steps are still rainbow colored — well, at least, a few steps are — the yellow and orange and purple ones
  9. glancing across the road and doing a double-take: is that a turkey or a young tree with its trunk covered in black plastic?
  10. empty benches

swim: 2.5 loops (5 cedar loops)
cedar lake open swim
77 degrees

Very glad Cedar Lake is okay so that open swim could happen. It was windy and choppy and smoky. At first I thought my goggles were fogged up, but then I realized it was the smoke in the air. Air quality was bad: 168, which is unhealthy. With the choppy water, it took a few loops to get into a rhythm. Lots of breathing on one side, or breathing every 2 or 3 strokes.

I’ve been working on a new poem form today. I’m calling it inkling. It’s inspired by an Alice Oswald line from Dart: the inkling of a fish. Inkling as vague, the idea of, a whisper, unproven, a rumor. My little poems — 3-5 lines, I think — are about describing or evoking the feeling or idea of something that you can’t quite see, or that you feel more than anything else. My first one will be about fish.