Tag: headphones

dec 8/RUN

6.1 miles
hidden falls loop
36 degrees

Wow, what a great morning for a run! All the snow has melted so the paths were clear and I don’t remember much wind. I felt strong and relaxed and grateful to be outside when everything is bare and brown and open. And that river! Half frozen with a thin layer of ice, half open with shiny, dark water. I stopped at the overlook on the ford bridge and stared down at it, admiring the variations of gray and the feeling of air and nothingness — barren, vast, other-worldly.

10 Things

  1. the sound of a kid either laughing when his voice bounced as he went over something bumpy or crying so hard that his voice was breaking — heard, not seen
  2. several runners in bright yellow shirts
  3. two runners in white jackets
  4. some kids laughing and yelling near the skate park just past the ford bridge, again heard, not seen
  5. the view of the valley between ford and hidden falls — bare tree branches, then endless air, then the other side
  6. a blue port-a-potty with the door ajar
  7. the sound of water rushing over concrete at the locks and dam no. 1
  8. a lone goose honking somewhere near the oak savanna
  9. the contrast of wispy, dark branches against the light gray sky
  10. the river — no color, some shiny, some dulled by ice

an attempt to track my train of thought

I’m working on another section of my Haunts poem (which might need a different name as I stray away from ghosts). Before my run, I was thinking about being tender and erosion and H.W.S Cleveland (Horace William Shaler) as envisioning the grand rounds and the gorge as art. Before I headed out, I gave myself a task for during the run: to think about and look for examples of erosion and how it fits in with my idea that art is about making us feel things deeply (feeling tender). This task was inspired by this section in my poem:

his pitch for parkways
was about making space
for beauty and for
feeling things deeply —
he wanted to turn
this place into art.
Grass and benches and
trees to frame open
sky and the stone that
holds a river and
all who seek it. But
up here exposed on
the bluff, it is not
only the view that
makes the girl tender.
Wind, sun, frigid air,
the effort it takes
to keep moving, a
slow wearing down of
cone cells, smooth out her
edges, peel away
her layers, create
cracks that start small then
spread.

During my run, I stopped to record three ideas into my phone:

One: I thought about the cracks and the idea of being split open and how this splitting open was not a wound that needed to be patched but something else.

Two: I can’t quite remember how I continued to think about this idea of the wound and breaking open but I do remember suddenly thinking about eroding shorelines and bluffs and how cracks and a wearing away can be harmful. At first I wanted to make a clear distinction between the erosion I was writing about, and the tenderness it allowed for, but then I realized, just before reaching the ford bridge on my way back from hidden falls, that tenderness and feeling things deeply and art as inspiring this is both wound and that something else I can’t quite name. I spoke into my phone:

Beauty as not always pretty, sometimes ugly. Art as wonder and amazement, terror and pain.

I think I was remembering some lines from a podcast episode for Off the Shelf with Dorothy Lasky, as I mentioned terror.

I don’t think beautiful things are innocent, I guess, sadly. I mean, I don’t know what “innocent” means also, but yeah, I think beautiful things are holy, and I think that those things can be awful. I guess it’s like the sublime, and those things which we have awe about is what beauty is. And I don’t think it’s always kind, sadly. You know, I wish it were. It can be, but I don’t think that’s what is really there. It overwhelms. So, it is terrifying by its nature. Like, real beauty should make you terrified.

Good for the World

Three: By the time I had crossed the ford bridge, I had another thought about erosion and my diseased eyes:

My cone cells eroding is this slow softening, but at some point, most likely, there’s going to be a break — an abrupt break [when the few remaining cone cells in my central vision die, when I won’t be able to read or rely on my central vision at all]. And that is how the gorge works. It’s the slow softening of sandstone until limestone breaks off.

Yes! This is a helpful way for me to connect the gorge with my vision. I’m not sure that this third thing fits into this section of the poem, but I will use it somewhere!

posted an hour later: I can’t believe it, but after searching through the archive of this log, I realized that I have never posted this beautiful, tender poem by Mary Oliver:

Lead/ Mary Oliver

Here is a story
to break your heart.
Are you willing?
This winter
the loons came to our harbor
and died, one by one,
of nothing we could see.
A friend told me
of one on the shore
that lifted its head and opened
the elegant beak and cried out
in the long, sweet savoring of its life
which, if you have heard it,
you know is a sacred thing.,
and for which, if you have not heard it,
you had better hurry to where
they still sing.
And, believe me, tell no one
just where that is.
The next morning
this loon, speckled
and iridescent and with a plan
to fly home
to some hidden lake,
was dead on the shore.
I tell you this
to break your heart,
by which I mean only
that it break open and never close again
to the rest of the world.

dec 6/RUN

4 miles
beyond the trestle turn around
32 degrees

Ran in the afternoon today. It’s warmer and darker and looks like it might snow. Everything was heavy and grayish-white. I wore less layers and wasn’t overheated: 1 green long-sleeved shirt, black vest, 1 pair of black running tights, a black headband for my ears, gloves. The trail wasn’t crowded, but the road was — a steady stream of cars. Did any of them have their headlights on? I can’t remember.

I remember noticing the river, but not what it looked like. Was it completely iced over?

Stopped at my usual bench and took a picture of it and the view below it:

the back of a wooden bench, all around it a faint trace of snow and bare branches
the new ritual: visiting this bench and inspecting its slow progress of sliding into the gorge.

I wonder, can someone who is not familiar with the gorge tell that this bench is perched at the edge of a steep slope or that the tree line in the distance is across a great river?

dec 5/RUN

5.1 miles
minnehaha falls and back
16 degrees

More great winter running! Sometimes sun and sharp shadows, sometimes clouds. When the sun was behind a cloud everything looked sepia-toned. And when some blue sky peeked through it looked like it had been added in, like a photograph touched-up with color. I felt good and relaxed, except for when my left knee suddenly started to hurt — a quick, sharp pain that went away after a minute.

10 Things

  1. the dull thud of a tool hitting something at a construction site — I can’t decide if is was dull like dead wood or something rusted and metallic
  2. another thud, this one more rhythmic, from across the river
  3. the water pooling below the falls was a faint green, like aged copper — patina?
  4. the walking path was speckled or mottled with thin splotches of snow — where bare pavement peeked through it was brown and reminded me — and probably no one else — of a cow’s hide
  5. there was ice on the river, but not thick — it looked like a slushy without the flavor
  6. birds! I don’t remember hearing them, but I saw them flitting around from tree to tree
  7. ran on the bike side of the double bridge — dead leaves were piled on the edge, and next to that was a strip of bare pavement that seemed to be narrowing near the top
  8. at least one fat tire
  9. a patch of open water, shining like glass, on the river — I stopped to admire it through a net of slender branches
  10. the sharp and menacing shadow of the street lamp on the paved path

Rereading an article on the development of the Grand Rounds, I came across this line:

“I would have the City itself a work of art,” Cleveland explained.

A work of art. Yes! I’ve been thinking about the park space of the gorge as a work of art, created by Minneapolis Parks and the city, for some time. I’m envisioning it as part of a series of ekphrastic poems about how I see the gorge through/with my diseased eyes. Could these poems be part of the Haunts project, or is that too much?

nov 22/RUN

5.5 miles
franklin hill turn around
34 degrees

Perfect running weather. Cold, but not too cold, calm, overcast. Clear paths, a dreamy, detached feeling. As I ran, I thought of a goal for this winter: continue working on running with a slower heart rate. I started this during the summer/fall with marathon training, and I think it helped me avoid injuries. This winter I’m thinking I should target 155-160. I wonder what fun experiments I can do while trying to keep my heart rate low?

10 Things

  1. as I ran, I gave attention to my arms — when my form was good, I felt like my arms were blades scissoring the air
  2. the river was half bronze, half pewter
  3. 2 walkers who were not together were both 
    wearing bright RED jackets
  4. 3 stones were stacked on the boulder — the one on top was barely balanced
  5. the yellow leaves were thick on the part of the path that descends into the tunnel of trees
  6. a roller skier bombing down the hill
  7. a noisy squirrel rooting through the dry brush
  8. the slabs of stone stacked under the franklin bridge always look like a person to me — they did again today, looking like a sitting person as I passed them on my way down, just stones on my way back up — I imagined someone playing a trick on me, first sitting there, but then after I passed, putting the stones down
  9. some regulars I haven’t named yet, but that I’ve encountered for years: 3 older white men, walking, stretched across the whole walking path — is it the same guys every time, or different ones, all of them man spreading? That’s what I could call them: the man spreaders
  10. rotting sewer smell in the tunnel of trees, close to where the city is doing some work

More work this morning (and afternoon), on my “And” poem. So far, I’ve written about the formation of the gorge (wanting to be somewhere else) and the designing of the Mississippi River Gorge park (to protect from overdevelopment and sell the gorge as a symbol of the water city). Now I’m getting into my love of the view, which is about what I see — softened, elemental forms, like tree line or water or white sand beach — but also what I feel — open, a veil lifted, a little clarity, freer and more able to breathe and move, to the other side (which stands in for many things, including St. Paul where my mom lived until she was 18, the place where people who died dwell, the normal-sighted and real world that I feel distanced from. I think the view is also about how standing above the gorge enables me to witness how it holds all of these things together, that it doesn’t divide but connects. There is not a gap between girl and world, but a space that can hold them together, along with water and stone, mothers and daughters, hear and there, now and then. These are all references to past sections of the poem.

nov 19/RUN

4 miles
minnehaha falls
49 degrees
wind gusts: 25 mph

Wet. Windy. Slick leaves. Squeaks. A light gray sky. Singing pines. The usual puddles. White foam falls. Gushing sewer pipes. Brisk air. Mud.

Greeted Santa Claus (the regular runner whose long white beard reminds me of Santa Claus). Passed a man walking with one leg up in a boot on a scooter. Gave directions to 2 walkers — which way to the falls? follow the path, it’s over there.

The creek was a steel blue and rushing to reach the limestone ledge. A kid at the main overlook was jumping in a puddle. The green gate at the top of the steps leading down to the falls was still open.

Wore shorts and a pink hooded jacket. My legs were only cold for a few minutes. Too warm for mid-November. Today is the last day of warmer air. Tomorrow, below freezing.

I started working on the section of Haunts poem that I’m titling, And. Came up with a few lines while running north. Recited them in my head until I stopped near the Folwell bench and spoke them into my phone:

Before a Victor-
ian’s great love for
ventilation, there
was water wanting
to be something and
somewhere else.

The ventilation bit is taken from an article about the origins of the Grand Rounds, and the Victorian is Horace W.S. Cleveland:

The concept of The Grand Rounds was born from Cleveland’s “preference of an extended system of boulevards, or ornamental avenues, rather than a series of detached open areas or public squares.” This was not only an aesthetic consideration: Cleveland had lost many possessions in the 1871 Chicago fire, and saw parkways as an effective firebreak in built-up urban areas. In addition, Cleveland stressed the
sanitary benefits derived from parkways. Cholera, typhus, and other diseases plagued cities in the late nineteenth century. Parkways could save land from unhealthy uses and, reflecting the Victorians’ great
love for ventilation, carry “winds . . . to the heart of the city, purified by their passage over a long stretch
of living water, and through the foliage of miles of forest.”

The History of the Grand Rounds


nov 14/RUN

4.1 miles
trestle turn around
45 degrees

Moist this morning. Wet sidewalk, wet leaves, wet air. Something was squeaking — my shoes on the leaves or the leaves on my shoes? Only one stone on the boulder, looking lonely and flat. The black stocking cap I mentioned yesterday was still there on the pole. Today I remembered that it was above the old stone steps. Greeted Dave, the Daily Walker with a good morning Dave!, greeted Daddy Long Legs with a wave. He was with his walking partner again. Smiled and gave a head nod to another walker who I think I’ve mentioned before. They always wear a long skirt with tights, and most of the year, a blue puffer jacket. They have gray hair in a long braid. I looked it up, and when I wrote about them before (26 jan 2024), I described them as wearing a dress and tentatively named them, All Dressed Up.

Anything else? I’m pretty sure I looked at the river, but I don’t remember what I saw. No fat tires or roller skiers or geese — where are all the geese? — or turkeys. More YELLOW leaves, falling fast. Some sour sewer smells, puddles, empty benches.

I listened to squeaking leaves and thudding feet as I ran north, then my Color playlist returning south: “Not Easy Bein’ Green,” “Roxanne,” “Mellow Yellow,” and “Let’s Go Crazy.” Speakig of color, I discovered this excellent color poem yesterday afternoon:

Night Comes and Passes Over Me/ Carl Phillips

There’s a rumor of light that
any dark starts off as. Plato speaks
here and there of colors, but only
once, I think, does he break them
down into black and white, red,
and a fourth color. By then they’d
reached for California high country
where, knowing none of the names for
all the things that grew there, they

began to make names up. But to have
trained an animal to come just a bit
closer because here, here’s blood,
doesn’t mean you’ve tamed it. Trans-
lations vary for what Plato calls his
fourth color: what comes closest
to a combination of (since they
aren’t the same) radiant and
bright–what shifting water does,

with light? Violence burnishes
the body, sometimes, though we
call it damage, not burnishing, more
its opposite, a kind of darkness, as if
to hide the body, so that what’s been

done to it might, too, stay hidden,
the way meaning can, for years, until
some pattern by which to trace it
at last emerges. There’s a rumor of light.

I need to give more time to this poem; there’s so much I don’t quite get. But I love the discussion of Plato and color and what shifting water does to light.

nov 11/RUN

5.45 miles
franklin hill turn around
38 degrees
wind: 13 mph / gusts: 27 mph

Sunny, windy, cooler. Wore one of my mild winter combinations: running tights, shorts, long-sleeved shirt, sweatshirt, vest, gloves, headband that covers my ears. I overdressed. Had to take off the sweatshirt near the top of Franklin. A good run. I’m running 30 seconds faster per mile and feeling stronger in the cooler weather than I did when it was warmer.

Yesterday, I woke up feeling not quite right. I slept a lot during the day. Almost a sore throat. Took a covid test: negative. Still feel a little off today. Is it a cold? Should I cancel my annual check-up that’s scheduled for tomorrow?

I deactivated my twitter account and haven’t checked the news since the election. Mostly I’m not thinking about what is coming, and instead focusing on writing, trying to help my kids with their struggles, and living (temporarily?) in the world I’ve built through my practice.

10 Things

  1. the surface of the river was burning white through the bare trees
  2. forest branches creaking and moaning in the wind
  3. one or two trees in the floodplain forest still green
  4. bright pink bubble-letter graffiti under the 1-94 bridge
  5. 4 stones stacked on the ancient boulder
  6. Daddy Long Legs walking with someone today — I think every other time I’ve seen him, he’s been alone
  7. a pale blue sky with one or two puffs of cloud
  8. a biker slowing climbing the franklin hill on the road, a car following behind impatiently then hastily passing him
  9. an empty bench facing an open view — so much air and sun and softness
  10. walking up the hill close to the trees on the slope, I noticed a blanket spread out, hidden in the grass — was someone sleeping in it?

For the first half of the run, I listened to the gorge and my feet and the wind. For the second half, I put in my “It’s Windy” playlist.

nov 9/RUN

5.25 miles
bottom of franklin hill and back
47 degrees

A great November morning. Most of the trees bare, almost everything light brown and steel blue. A few yellow leaves still on the trees. I felt relaxed and was able to run without stopping — until I needed the port-a-potty. Found a freshly cleaned one at the bottom of the hill, then ran back up it all the way without stopping. For the last 2 miles I felt strong and resilient and ready to resist.

10 Things

  1. roller skiers — at least 3 of them, not together. All of them looked graceful and strong and ready for it to snow
  2. the awkward slapping of oars on the water from a rowing shell far below
  3. the bells of St. Thomas ringing briefly
  4. more awkward slaps from oars, this time from a shell with 3 people. I heard them when I was at the bottom of the hill and watched as they angled across the river. One of them had on a bright yellow — or was it orange? — shirt
  5. a man sitting on a bench, his back to the gorge, reading a book
  6. faint voices getting louder — was it runners or bikers? both
  7. the floodplain forest is open — no more leaves — I glanced down the steep slope to the forest floor
  8. a runner on the other side of the road in black shorts and white tights
  9. 4 stones stacked on the ancient boulder
  10. a walker bundled up in a coat with a scarf

I had a thought about my Haunts project near the start of my run. I’m writing a lot about looping and orbiting, but I haven’t written about pacing back and forth — all of my out and back or turn around runs, when I cover the same ground twice, and stay on one side of the river. I’m thinking about the difference between restless pacing and cycles/loops/orbits.

I didn’t see any eagles or hear any geese. No regulars or fat tires or music blasting from car or bike speakers. No one singing or doing something ridiculous. Only one honking car horn. No chainsaws or sirens or leaf blowers.

Today I checked out Carl Phillips’ poetry collection, which won the Pulitzer Prize, Then the War. Here’s an early favorite of mine:

The Enchanted Bluff/ Carl Phillips

You can see here, though the marks
are faint, how the river must once have coincided
with love’s most eastern boundary. But it’s years now
since the river shifted, as if done with the same
view both over and over
and never twice, which
is to say done at last with conundrum, when it’s
just a river—here’s a river . . . Why not say so,
why this need to name things based on what
they remind us of—cattail and broom, skunk
cabbage—or on what

we wished for: heal-all;
forget-me-not. Despite her dyed-too-black hair
wildly haloing her soulders, not a witch, caftanned
in turquoise, gold, turning men into better men,
into men with feelings—instead, just my mother,
already gone crazy a bit, watching the yard fill
with the feral cats
that she fed each night.
Who says you can’t die from regret being all
you can think about? What’s it matter, now, if she
learned the hard way the difference finally between
freedom and merely
setting a life free? As much
as I can, anyway, I try to keep regret far from me,

though like any song built to last, there’s a
rhythm to it that, once recognized, can be hard
to shake: one of by fear, with its double flower—
panic, ambition; two if by what’s the worst thing
you’ve ever done?

I love these lines:

But it’s years now
since the river shifted, as if done with the same
view both over and over
and never twice, which
is to say done at last with conundrum, when it’s
just a river—here’s a river . . .

I’d like to use, as if done with the same/view both over and over/and never twice.

I want to fit it into my 3/2 form and use it my Haunts section about looping and doubling back. Maybe something like this:

Occasionally
the girl does not run
on the rim, changes
her route, as if done
with the same view, both
over and over and
never twice.

nov 1/RUN

5.6 miles
ford loop
40 degrees

I overdressed this morning in a long-sleeved shirt, sweatshirt, tights and gloves. The sun was warmer than I thought. Most of the leaves are off the trees and on the ground. The ravine near Shadow Falls was a beautiful rusty red. The thin creek running through it shimmered in spots.

It helped to get outside and be beside the gorge. It’s an exhausting time. Both of my kids are supposed to be in college this semester, neither of them are. They are each working on their mental health. It’s hard to see them suffer. On top of that, the impending election is terrifying. While I ran, I forgot about all of this.

10 Things

  1. the bells of St. Thomas tolling twelve times as I crested the Summit hill
  2. 2 small bowls on a neighbor’s front steps, filled with full-sized reese’s peanut butter cups
  3. a man walking a dog listening to talk radio without headphones — I couldn’t tell if it was about politics or sports
  4. water falling softly from shadow falls
  5. the river from lake street bridge: gray, rippled, a shimmering line of light near the east shore
  6. a graffitied port-a-potty with the door very slightly ajar — was it open, or was the door unable to fully close?
  7. the trees on the west side of the river near locks and dam no. 1 were bare and a fuzzy brown
  8. the sudden start of sirens close by — a fire truck coming up the hill from the locks
  9. the stinky mulch that had been piled on the edge of the path was gone
  10. an opening on the bluff — what a view of the river and the other side!

Yes, That’s When/ Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer

I like my body when I’m in the woods
and I forget my body. I forget that arms,
that legs, that nose. I forget that waist,

that nerve, that skin. And I aspen. I mountain.
I river. I stone. I leaf. I path. I flower.
I like when I evergreen, current and berry.

I like when I mushroom, avalanche, cliff.
And everything is yes then, and everything
new: wild iris, duff, waterfall, dew.

oct 31/RUN

3.5 miles
trestle turn around
38 degrees / drips then drizzle then freezing rain

Happy Halloween. Snow later this morning. Wanted to get in a quick run before that happened. When I started it was only dripping but as I finished, freezing rain. Wore black running tights, a pink hooded jacket, a black winter vest, and black gloves. Running north I had the wind in my face. Running south, to my side. I enjoyed this run. Hardly anyone else out on the trail and cool temperatures. Winter running is coming!

Since I’m trying to finish an audio book that’s due in 2 days, I listened to it instead of the rain — except for in the last minutes of the run. I took out my headphones and heard water falling steadily.

10 Things

  1. the usual puddles on neighborhood sidewalks: just past the alley, a stretch on the next block, a big one covering entire slab on 46th
  2. bright headlights cutting through the trees on the other side of the ravine
  3. a few stones stacked on the big boulder
  4. under the lake street bridge: a red blanket stretched on the uneven limestone with a person under it, an empty wheelchair nearby
  5. a small stretch of the river road between lake street and the trestle was flooded. It almost was cresting the curb
  6. most cars slowed down for the flooding, but one didn’t — splash! — thankfully not on me
  7. only one other runner out there
  8. roaring wind
  9. light gray sky
  10. a steady, strong rhythm of striking feet

That wheelchair broke me open for the rest of the run.

Yesterday, Scott, RJP, and I voted early! Everyone at the polling place was happy and nice and excited to be voting. A great experience, even as it was difficult because of my failing vision. Before voting, we were required to fill out an absentee ballot form. Only the highlighted parts, the person who handed us the form instructed. The problem: I can’t see yellow, and that was the color of the highlighted text. RJP had to point out the sections. Scott was unsettled as he was reminded of how bad my vision is getting. At first, when I looked at the ballot, I couldn’t quite make sense of it, but after a moment, slowly, I could read the different categories and names. I thought I was filling in the entire bubble (Harris/Walz, OF COURSE!), but when I double- then triple-checked it, I had only filled in half of it. Another few times, and I finally filled it all in.

water section of haunts

Wrote this bit about the hidden cut-off wall in downtown Minneapolis that was put in place in 1876 and still holds the river back from breaking through the last bed of limestone:

A century and
a half later, the
concrete, hidden deep*,
still stands and the river,
ever restless*, has
not stopped trying to
move past it. Water
will flow where water
wants to go, under
over through. Near the
gorge the girl beholds
its quiet refusal
to be contained.

*should I cut these extra bits?

I thought about the idea of water going where it wants to go as I ran through the rain, navigating the streams and puddles.