Tag: morning

may 5/RUN

5.2 miles
franklin loop
42 degrees

Initially I was planning to run south but then I remembered that Scott and RJP had seen a cool art display near the trestle so I ran north to find it. First I ran through the neighborhood, past the daycare playground which was empty of kids, and over the lake street bridge to the east side of the river. Then I ran north to franklin, west over the bridge, and then south to the trestle.

A beautiful morning! Ran into the wind for the first half, with it behind me for the second half. I had to adjust my cap a few times to make sure it wouldn’t fly off, but otherwise the wind didn’t bother me. In fact, I liked what it did to the surface of the water as I ran over the lake street bridge: a wide stretch of rough scales.

I did 9/11 and it helped me to not run too fast. I felt strong, especially in the second half of the run.

As I neared the trestle from the north, I began looking for the art display. I finally found it in a grassy stretch near the part of the walking trail that splits from the bike trail. It’s a cluster of mitten tulips! We’re not sure who did it, or why, but I love it!

After stopping to take these pictures, I kept running south. As I neared the tunnel of trees, I saw that the road was closed. Then I saw smoke — a lot of smoke. Were they smoking the sewers in the neighborhood. Then I heard the crackling of fire on the hill below lena smith boulevard. Oh — a controlled burn. I stopped to take some video. For some reason, most of it is in slow motion again. Only the first five and last five seconds of it are at normal speed.

controlled burn / 5 may 2026

holes, grids, other worlds and other mothers

Yesterday I gave myself a task: weave thread through the plastic grid, sew thread on paper, sew thread on a plastic bag. A preliminary2 verdict: thin yarn on the plastic grid is possible iff I find the right purpose; paper might work if I think more deliberately about it; plastic has a lot of possibility. I’d like to try replicating a drug-induced spider web on it! My sewing skills are very limited — limited = 7th grade home-ec class + the occasional darning of pants/shirts + sewing up the rip on the brand new couch that Delia the dog made when we first got her 10 years ago. Will that stop me? Maybe in the past, but not today! I’ve already cleared the first hurdle: I threaded a needle! Yes, with my very bad vision, I managed to thread the eye of a tiny needle. Oh — the eye of a needle?! That’s an interesting connection to this project and my poem about the string that ties eye to words to world.

eye = needle / string = thread

I posted about this last week (I think?), but I’m reminded of Wallace Stevens’ poem, “Tattoo,” again and the lines, light is like a spider . . . it crawls under your eyelids/And spreads its webs there–/Its two webs./The webs of your eyes Spiders and threads and eyes. Now thread = light = that invisible thing that connects us to words and meaning. So good!

Maybe I should also try creating the web on the latch hook grid? I don’t have a needle with an eye big enough for the thin yarn I’m using, so I’ll try to do it with my hands.

I just watched a clip from Coraline on YouTube titled, “Coraline — Meeting “Other Mother.” I want to think more about the other mother’s button eyes and the idea of the hole as a portal between the world of her mother and other mother. Question: So far, I’ve taken inspiration from Alice in Wonderland and Coraline about holes to other worlds, but what other classic kid movies/books feature a hole/portal? Just as I wrote those last words I recalled Narnia and “The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe,” which I loved reading as kid. A connection: the portal/hole/door is in a wardrobe, closet and through clothes. Is the thread/cloth connection significant?

other mother, button eyes
through the small door between

  1. 9 minutes of running, 1 minute of walking ↩︎
  2. preliminary = spending about 1 or 2 minutes trying each out ↩︎

may 2/RUN

7 miles
lake superior boardwalk, duluth
37 degrees

An impromptu trip to Duluth with Scott. Our first trip alone since last April when we went to visit my best friend in Iowa. We need more of these. This morning, we ran together above Lake Superior through Leif Erikson park and 3 miles north, then turned around and headed back. As we ran, I told Scott that the theme of the run was water.

10 Water Things

  1. thin sheets of ice on the water! earlier from the window of our room, I had noticed the texture of the water and wondered what was causing the strips of rough water amongst the smooth stretches
  2. water gushing out of a sewer pipe embedded in a ravine
  3. crack crackle crackle the ice sheet butting up against the rocks near shore and cracking — such a cool sound!
  4. drip drip drip water dripping out of some pipe deep in a backyard
  5. the rushing of the creek under the high wooden bridge we ran over
  6. Lake Superior — blue and beautiful, one giant ship, anchored miles from shore
  7. drip drip drip sweat dripping off my face
  8. a pool of water on the floor of the port-a-potty
  9. benches dotted on the bluff, filled with people enjoying the view
  10. almost all of the ice gone — I thought all of it was, until I noticed a few sheets still on the surface as we walked up the steps after the run

While we ran, we talked about our kids and Star Trek and an article Scott had read about fraternal twin girls with the same mother but different fathers. I saw my shadow and started singing Me and my Shadow. Scott asked who had sung it and when I said, I wasn’t sure but I had a version with Frank Sinatra and Sammy Davis on my shadows playlist, he said, Sammy Davis Jr. is his shadow? Yikes. And I said, Jesus, how have I never noticed that before. Then a string of associations: I mentioned that they sang it on a tv special which led to a discussion of the Andy Williams Christmas special, then the kids in it, which reminded Scott of the scared kid on the Ray Coniff Christmas Special who hears a creepy story about a little gray lamb read to her by the guy who played Wilbur on Mr. Ed — Scott couldn’t remember the actor’s name. Scott started reminiscing about watching Mr. Ed with his mom on Nick at Nite, which prompted me to start singing the theme song from “The Patty Duke Show” — because, of course I would.

It was a good run, and a great mental victory. As I said to Scott, I’m excited to push myself mentally to run these longer distances. It is a wonderful feeling to successfully push through these tough moments.

a quick note about grids

Yesterday, while driving back from 2 Harbors to our hotel in Duluth we started talking about the show Alone and then what it means to be “off the grid,” Yes — another meaning of grids! How can I play around with this in my exploration of grids?!

april 29/RUN

4.65 miles
veterans home, reverse
47 degrees

Sunny, cool-ish. Overdressed in tights and my hooded pullover. Everywhere green and gorgeous. I was too dazzled by the green to notice the river. Was it sparkling? I also didn’t notice the falls — how hard and fast were they falling? I do remember giving a quick glance to the creek: gray, open, flowing fast.

When I wasn’t thinking about anything, which was much of the time, I thought about not running too fast and pushing through tough moments

10 Things

  1. a class-sized group of kids down in the oak savanna — running above, I heard their voices, then saw them hiking below the mesa on the winchell trail
  2. passing a guy on veterans bridge — I was about the say hi when I noticed he was talking into a phone
  3. the surrey kiosk is up — today, on a wednesday, it was empty and closed
  4. running down the locks and dam hill, passing a man, exchanging greetings — hello / hi
  5. encountering a series of bikers — spaced far enough apart that I wondered if they were together — the first two had bright headlights on
  6. from behind, the faint noise of bike wheels moving very slowly, finally passing — a woman very upright in a bright yellow jacket biking very casually
  7. explosions of white blossoms on some of the trees lining the trail
  8. a mower at wabun, the smell of freshly cut grass
  9. the parking lot at veterans home was crowded and full
  10. a moment: running just north of the 44th street parking lot — shadows then suddenly more light: a net or web of shadows, some sprawled, some with little circles at the tips (the buds of trees)

When I saw these shadows I stopped running, pulled out my phone, and took a few pictures. A thought: this net of shadows would be the grid/net obscuring the text of a NYer essay. I’ll have to play around with it. As I kept running, I thought about shadowboxes and silhouettes and playing around with them in a visual poem. I stopped twice more to take shadowed pictures.

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10

I decided to post all the pictures that I took so I could study them some more. I like imagining these shadows as a net or a veil, a weaving/gathering of threads/strings/lines that affect my view of what is beneath them. Here it is the sidewalk, on the NYer page, it’s the words.

a thought: I’ve been trying to create neat and precise (well, precise-ish) grids of lines to mimic the Amsler grid, but does that really express/show how I see, or how I feel about, the words as I try to read them? What if I drew a “normal” grid directly on the text and then made the grid elevated above it more slanted, askew, not straight or orderly?

a few hours later: I made another frame out of cardboard and then tried to turn it into a loom that I could thread a grid on. Unsuccessful. Too hard to cut the slats enough so I could wind thread through it. I’m not completely giving up on this idea, but I think I’ll take a break from it. A little discouraging, but that’s okay. I think I just need some time to build up the skills to figure it out.

april 25/RACE

6.4 miles*
falls to lake to ford to falls
Get in Gear
45 degrees / drizzle

*I started my watch before the start line and we didn’t take the tangents so we were weaving around the course.

A good start to marathon training. Probably By far, the slowest 10k I’ve ever run in a race (partly due to a port-a-potty stop 3 miles in), but Scott and I ran together, we felt strong, and we didn’t stop for any walk breaks. A big mental victory, especially in that last mile, which seemed to last forever.

Near the beginning of the race, as faster runners were passing slower runners, I had 3 people in a row clip my elbow as they ran by. I asked Scott, do I run with my elbows sticking out? He said no, but I’m not so sure.

I can’t remember what Scott talked about, but I remember talking about pro runners running with wide elbows to claim space on the track, and the music they played — My Way — at the house with the bleachers on the marathon route. I talked about past versions of this race — we run it at least 5 times, probably more. I remember we were talking about how many races we’ve run total. I guessed at least 50. Scott looked it up on his spreadsheet: 65.

Just before mile 4, an older woman rang a cowbell and chanted this:

Get/ in/ Gear/ x (4/4
You/ are/ get/ ting/ in/ gear (6/4)

It was awesome in its awkward earnestness and deadpan delivery. It prompted me to start chanting and talking about chanting with Scott. I did my classic triple berry chants for a few minutes. Scott said that doing this would drive him insane. I said that it helps keep me focused.

The last mile seemed to go on forever but I found some energy at the end to pick up the pace. It felt so fast, but it was really only about what I used to run as an average pace for an entire 10k. Wow, I have slowed down as I have gotten older.

10 Things

  1. the gentle tapping of rain on the port-a-potty roof
  2. little kids chanting, go! go! go!
  3. an enthusiastic woman behind me in the start corral responding to the announcers, how is everyone feeling? with a shriek
  4. the pavement was wet and felt slippery under my shoes
  5. several non-racing runners calling out to some runners, go mill city running!
  6. frequent big cracks in the asphalt
  7. crossing the ford bridge, hearing a white car continuously honking as they drove by us
  8. wild turkeys! in a yard — I didn’t see then, just heard another running point them out to someone and then another runner calling out to the turkeys, hey turkey! gobble gobble!
  9. feeling the rain falling mid-race and not caring
  10. nearing the finish line — not seeing it, but close enough to hear the crowd — hearing an air horn go off

april 22/RUN

2.6 miles
2 trails
57 degrees

A quick run before it warms up later today. 80 degrees at 5. My legs felt heavy and sore and something doesn’t seem quite right with my new shoes. Nothing felt smooth. Hopefully, I’ll break in the shoes and it will be okay.

Even with the struggling, I’m glad (as always) that I went out for a run. A beautiful spring morning! Birdsong, bright sun mixed with cool breeze, green buds, shadows.

My favorite part about the run: the sun was coming from the east and creating sharp shadows of the fence on the sidewalk1. As I ran below on the winchell trail, the lines from the wrought iron fence were so distinct that I thought I was running on a boardwalk instead of a sidewalk. The lines reminded me of the stretch of wooden walkway near the Guthrie. It didn’t feel like a boardwalk, but my brain kept making me think that it was.

Other things noticed: the sound of water trickling out of the ravine at 42nd; a woman power walking in the street, swinging her arms with purpose; kids laughing and talking as they got dropped off for school; mostly empty benches, one or two occupied; the bells of St. Thomas; the rumble of construction work somewhere nearby; a steady stream of cars commuting to work.

from the library

Last week I requested the graphic poem, Her Read by Jennifer Sperry, and today I was able to pick it up! Scott and I did our usual routine: pick up a book at the library, head over to Arbeiter for a beer because it’s about a block away. This book looks really great. I”m excited to dig into it tomorrow!

  1. As I was telling Scott about the slat shadows, I realized that it was less the direction of the sun and more the fact that there were no leaves blocking the fence. In the summer, when I usually run down on the Winchell trail, there are no shadows because of the thick leaves. ↩︎

april 21/RUNHIKE

4.2 miles
shadow falls / monument and back
50 degrees

The earliest run I’ve done in some time. I started just after 8, which would have been a late run five years ago. I want to get back to early morning runs as it gets warmer. Even in 50 degrees, I was sweating. Is it the effort of hot flashes?

I decided to run through the neighbor hood, and past the Church daycare. The kids were outside already and having fun. It sounded like one kid was playing some sort of game where he was blasting his enemies as he ran near the perimeter of the fence — take that! pew pew pew! I admired the river as I ran over the lake street bridge. Blue, calm, inviting reflections. No rowers yet. At the Monument, I could hear Shadow Falls roaring, which only happens after rain, so I stepped off the trail and hiked for a closer look. A runner with a dog passed me at one point, both of them having no problems navigating the narrow and steep trail on the edge of the bluff — good morning! thank you! / hi! sure! I couldn’t see the falls falling but I heard the gentle rushing of water. In a flash, I thought of the poem I wrote last year, especially this part:

Deep in
the autumn
when rain
rarely happens
and nothing
flows down
off the ledge,
listen
for something
other
than water,
listen for
shadows instead.

Shadows of

soldiers,

Shadows of

mothers, 

Shadows of

paved-over creeks.
Shadows that
signal
what else could
be here now
Shadows that dwell
in-between.

Speaking of shadows, I saw mine, down in the ravine, beside me on the path, climbing a tree.

In addition to the runner and the dog, there was another hiker on the trail, and a few different pairs of fast runners near the hill that climbs out of the monument park. I heard the roar of a plane, then saw the flash of silver in the sky. Also heard cheeseburger cheeseburger — I think that’s a carolina wren? Yes! Looking it up, the results said it was a black capped chickadee, but I knew it wasn’t. I found the carolina wren when I remembered the other words people think this song sounds like: tea kettle tea kettle.

This run wasn’t easy — sore legs, unfinished business — but I’m glad I did it. I love being outside in the early-ish morning. Today it was 8, but I’d like to be up and out by 6:30 or 7 this summer.

With summer, and high humidity coming, here’s a poem to help me endure it:

Ode on Humidity/ P. Scott Cunningham

What am I if not what happens
when I try to run away?

Water falls out of me like
an opinion. I’m like a screen
door banging between two rivers.

Dear air, what’s inside me
you’re so desperate to take?

I put on the Atlantic like a sweater.
My head bobs on the surface
of a lake I’m named after.

Where do I belong?
My head asks. My body,
exasperated, answers.

hike: 60 minutes
minnehaha off leash dog park
with FWA and Delia
63 degrees

Ahhh! A wonderful late morning for a hike. The green continues to creep up the trees. More exploding shadows of new buds. I only recall hearing one dog name: Liza. Liza, don’t you ambush that dog! That dog was Delia, and if there was any ambushing being done, it was by Delia to Liza and her human. Delia loves to get other dogs worked up, which the humans don’t see, or ignore. They assume because Delia is small and cute she is always the one being preyed upon. Ha! Another typical Delia dog encounter: a big talk playing fetch in the water. Delia thought it looked fun and wanted to join in. The big dog barked at her, which seem to translate to: back off! this is my game, and this is my stick!

Often as we’re walking, FWA and I talk about video games or the past or One Piece. Today we wer’re mostly quiet, except for my occasional commentary on this tree or that leaf. I was fine not talking; I liked having the chance to listen to all the different sounds: birds, footsteps, a nearby stream rushing or gushing or swirling in an eddy.

holes

Today, more cutting out black netting holes and layering and mapping them on the paper. For now, I’m pinning them, but I’m wondering if I could fasten them with a button through the center and then glue the word to the button? Would that work on paper? Only one way to find out — I just need more buttons and a needle!

Here’s one version of Holes 1. I wrote numbers directly on the page to indicate how to read it, but I’m not sure if I want to keep them. Also, I kept the cross-hatched hole and the pencil shaded one for now.

the numbered version

another note: the shape of the word is the shape of my working central vision. In theory, I like doing this, but I think the shape looks awkward. I’d prefer a circle instead.

the hole process
island
where
reading
still
possible
waits
as
large
something
that
surrounds
it
grows

another note: I want to make the shade part around the hole process larger
also: instead of individual numbers, I could number the 4 pages/panels and identify the location of the words in a small key

word
island
where
reading
still
possible
waits
as
large
something
that
surrounds
it
grows

panel
1
1
1
2
3
4
4
2
2
4
4
3
`1

april 17/RUN

5.25 miles
franklin loop
63 degrees / drizzle
humidty: 85%

I beat the storm! Yes, there was drizzle, but no strong wind or thunder, so I’ll take the victory. Today I felt strong and relaxed and capable. Not anxious or overwhelmed. Today I also feel vulnerable and open to the world, ready to embrace any slight shifts in perspective.

Image of the Day: Running north on the east bank, looking down at the river: a sea of bright, fresh green. On this side of the gorge, between lake and franklin, there used to be a park down below, so there’s wide stretches of cleared land and open grass. Even knowing that, the green looked like water not grass to me, high up on the bluff.

Realization of the day: Returning to the west bank, running south, admiring the straight-ish ridge line across the gorge and wondering how it could be almost uniform, I realized something: this ridge line was made by humans — leveled after logging and road and residence building. What did it look like before settler colonists arrived?

on training for the marathon: Today I ran 9, walked 1. After crossing over Franklin, I did a 5 minute walk to get my heart rate below 170. Then another 9/1. After this last one I checked how long it took to get my heart rate down to 135: 2 minutes. A goal for future Sara: cut that time in half, or even more.

10 Things

  1. flashes of white flowers on the edge of the bluff: the spring ephemerals!
  2. little kid voices, laughing, somewhere deep in the gorge
  3. a guy yelling near a car parked across the parkwy on seabury — was it “fun” yelling as he played with a kid, or “unhinged” yelling at someone?
  4. chickadeedeedee
  5. a verbal greeting with a walker: good moring! / good morring!
  6. honking geese, a honking car horm
  7. a grayish-brownish-blue river, empty
  8. bright LED headlights, cutting through the thick gray air
  9. slashes of bright green are beginning to appear in the floodplain forest!
  10. several stones stacked on the ancient boulder

grids and strings and threads (oh my)

It’s a few hours after I returned from my run and it’s hailed twice and thundered and dropped 15 degrees since then. Boo. I tried a new thing with Holes 3: drew a graph directly on the words, mapped the words on the xy axis, lightly shaded in the words, repinned the grid over that, and then used thread to finish it. I like the doubling, almost out of focus feeling that the pencil grid and the string grid create. I don’t think the words are clear enough yet. I’ll have to keep working on that.

double grid
double grid, a slightly closer look (find fall and almost)

Here’s something else I tried: encasing the words in circles (using a penny) then roughly erasing the circles:

ghost hole effect

Another thought: map the words on a grid, then color in the rest of the grid box around the word or phrase from the poem. How would that look? Maybe I’ll try it on a smaller scale?

april 12/RUN

4.25 mile
franklin loop
65 degrees
dew point: 62

Strange weather. Yesterday it was in the 40s and raining, today it could get up to 80 degrees. Then 70s all week and high of 40 next Saturday. I wore shorts and a tank top today and felt fine — not too hot or cold. For the first time this year, I ran with Scott. Hooray for old traditions returning! We did 9 minutes of running and 1 minute of walking, which helped keep us steady. We both agreed that we’ve been very undisciplined with the steadiness of our runs. Yes, I’ve continued to run about 20 miles per week, but I haven’t had much of a plan and I’ve usually made it for 2 miles without stopping, then running and walking the rest. Time to get more serious and work of my mental toughness.

Scott talked about his latest musical composition — a suite inspired by Artemis and its voyage to the dark side of the moon. It’s in 26/81. I talked about the YouTuber, Ms Space Cadet, her struggle running, and how she was running faster than her fitness because of her new shoes. I also mentioned the podcast I’m listening to: an interview with Robert Macfarlane about his recent book, Is a River Alive? So good! I was listening to it this morning as I colored in my holes/circles for a redo of Holes 4 (more on that below).

We passed a race in progress on the river road. I think it was the Gopher 10 mile, but I’m not positive. At one spot, where the spectators and volunteers were thick, I heard someone call out, you can do it! you’re stronger than you think! (is that what they said, or am I remembering it wrong?)

The air was thick, the trail still damp from last night’s rain. Noting green yet, everything still brown. No rowers on the river. No roller skiers. No memorable birds.

grids and threads

I’ve put Holes 4 on my new corkboard (which doesn’t seem to want to stay stuck to the wall in this humid weather) and experimented with black thread and gray yarn. FWA likes the thread, and Scott thinks I need something in-between both. Dark string? We don’t have dark string, but we do have white string? Should I try that?

experimenting with lines / 12 april

I did try the white string and didn’t like it. More experiments with thinner yarn and embroidery thread tomorrow!

  1. I had to double-check with Scott on that strange time signature. He also sent me the breakdown to the movements: I. Launch [5/8 + 5/8 + 5/8 + 5/8 + 6/8]
    II. Journey Through the Void [4/4 + 4/4 + 5/4]
    III. Mare Orientale [6/8 + 6/8 + 6/8 + 4/4]
    IV. The Terminator [6/8 + 7/8 + 6/8 + 7/8]
    V. L.O.S. [3/4 + 2/4 + 3/4 + 3/4 + 2/4]
    VI. Eclipse [7/8 + 7/8 + 7/8 + 5/8]
    VII. The Return [6/4 + 7/4]
    VIII. Splashdown [5/8 + 5/8 + 5/8 + 5/8 + 6/8] ↩︎

april 6/RUN

4.35 miles
minnehaha falls and back
32 degrees / feels like 17

Cold again. Because of the low feels like temp, I overdressed: 2 pairs of tights, long-sleeved shirt, sweatshirt, pullover. Halfway through I ditched the pullover, which was awkward as I struggled to take it off without removing the outer layer.

Tried to stay steady and slow. Chanted in triple berries in my head. Took several walk breaks — not because I was tired, but to take pictures or to record my thoughts or to take off my second layer.

Thought about grids and nets (more on this below) as I ran. Recorded some thoughts on my phone:

recording 1: I’m thinking about grids and the lines and why it matters to me. And I’m thinking about the xy axis and a map and the visual field. And mapping and locating yourself within the known world and how reading is so important to that locating and figuring out how to navigate without that.

recording 2: Thinking more about why nets or grids or that particular way of being located is to be held, to be connected, to be located, to be seen or recognized or have others aware (of you). So not in this free fall. To orient yourself in some way. To not be entirely unmoored. Because as fun as it sounds in theory to be untethered and unlimited by these restrictions, physically it does not feel good. Dizzy, disoriented, nauseated (sometimes). A slow, growing anxiety.

This last bit about the ill effects of being unmoored was inspired by how I felt as I started my run. It wasn’t entirely unpleasant, but I did feel a little dizzy and disconnected from the path, unable to clearly see what was ahead of me. I wasn’t blind to the trail or anyone on it. I was disoriented and anything I saw was vague and barely formed. This way of seeing unsettled me; it also made everything feel dreamy and not real or unreal or surreal. By the end of the first mile, it had dissipated somewhat.

So, why the Amsler grid? First, the obvious: it’s a vision test and I am writing around (and through) vision tests in much of my vision/visual poetry. Another explanation: it represents a mapping, a locating, a connecting to the known world (where known partly = “normal”/medical understandings and models of seeing). Also, it is a reference point from and a starting point that readers can understand (a place of common ground, a concrete and easily expressed and understandable model and map for blind spots in central vision/visual field).

grids / nets

I was planning to study worms and bugs for my April challenge, but that will have to wait. This month is about grids and nets and matrices. I chose this topic because I want to dig deeper into the grid and what role it plays in my Holes series, and also because of a series of pieces that AMP pointed out to me at MIA (Minneapolis Institute of Arts):

text: Charles Gaines Numbers and Trees: Tiergarten Series 3: Tree #1, #2, #4, #6
Charles Gaines / Numbers and Trees

I found a book from one of his exhibits and requested it from the local library. When I get it, I’ll discuss the grids more. (I also plan to return to MIA soon to study the pieces more closely). Here’s one photo of them that I particularly like of me, FWA, and RJP, who is talking with her hands in a way that I love.

3 people -- a son, a daughter, their mother -- stand in front of a series of trees. The daughter gestures with her hands.
3 people looking at art, 2 of them talking about it, one with her hands

. Heading out for my run this morning, I wanted to notice grids. A few minutes later, all I could think about was the twisted/bent fence at the falls that I noticed last Thursday. I regretted not stopping to take a picture of it then, so I took several today. Here are 2:

1

Remembering this crooked fence and then taking pictures of it, inspired me to expand my grid/net/matrix month to fences too — this fence + chainlink fences. Things that contain, orient, map, frame.

To start this grid exploration, some research on the Amsler Grid. Have I done any research about it in past years? Not that I can find!

Amsler Grid

The Amsler grid, used since 1945, is a grid of horizontal and vertical lines used to monitor a person’s central visual field. The grid was developed by Marc Amsler, a Swiss ophthalmologist. It is a diagnostic tool that aids in the detection of visual disturbances caused by changes in the retina, particularly the macula (e.g. macular degeneration, Epiretinal membrane), as well as the optic nerve and the visual pathway to the brain. An Amsler grid can show defects in the central 20 degrees of the visual field.

In the test, the person looks with each eye separately at the small dot in the center of the grid. Patients with macular disease may see wavy lines or some lines may be missing. . . .

Wikipedia Entry

and:

Although originally intended for use in clinical settings, the Amsler grid has proven highly adaptable for home monitoring. Its portability and ease of use enable patients to participate actively in the management of their ocular health, allowing earlier detection of disease progression and more timely medical intervention.

the Amsler Grid in Everyday Practice

This idea of it being for use at home connects to my desire to use whatever materials and words I can find around me for this Holes series. There’s more there, I think.

I’d like to spend a few minutes (maybe later today or tomorrow morning) writing more about lines and grids and mapping and why it’s important to me, both in this series and in my understanding/description of my vision loss.

While looking for more on Amsler and the grid, I found out about Edward Munch and his vision loss at 60. As he was experiencing it, he drew a series of sketches/paintings, some with grid lines, some annotating the strange ways he saw. Very cool. Here’s more about it from a exhibit at the Tate. Is there a book for the exhibit and could it be at my local library? Yes! I just requested it.

april 2/RUN

4.45 miles
minnehaha falls and back
35 degrees / steady drizzle

The forecast, rain all day, but when I looked out my window it didn’t seem too bad. No ice, above freezing, so I decided to go for a run, which was an excellent decision. I was bundled up and barely felt the rain — well, I guess I felt my soaked socks and cold legs (through my running tights), but I didn’t care. It was wonderful to be outside, mostly alone, only a few other walkers and runners joining me.

Because of the rain, I was wearing an old pair of Saucony’s (3 or more years old?) and didn’t run too fast. That helped me stay relaxed and able to keep going for longer. Maybe I should train some more in these shoes and save my new ones for faster runs, races, and until I’m trained up to run longer?Everything was wet. My favorite wet thing was the slick mirror Godfrey Boulevard made from the rain and new asphalt. Very cool! I saw my running self, trees, and sky and I thought about the upside down world where they all lived.

10 Things

  1. the creek water falling fast over the limestone ledge on the bridge at the top of the falls
  2. the deep puddle I stepped in that I thought was only a reflection of light on the trail
  3. drip drip drip of water off the brim of my cap
  4. taking off my hood, folding the flaps of my hat, and hearing the steady patter of rain
  5. in through the nose 2 3 / out through the mouth 2 — 123/12
  6. a steady, almost invisible rain with the occasional big drop — plain rain or freezing rain?
  7. the lid of the toilet in the porta potty was wedged behind a bar and couldn’t be closed
  8. empty benches / mostly empty parking lots
  9. bright headlights cutting through the trees on the other side of the ravine
  10. running by the Horace Cleveland Overlook parking lot and seeing an animal care truck (another name for animal control?) — is there a wolf or a coyote or a bear in the gorge — it’s always possible; they’ve all been spotted before

worms after the rain

It’s raining now, but sometime later today or tomorrow or the next day, it will stop and the worms will appear on the sidewalk. Here’s a poem I found about those worms:

Advice/ Dan Gerber

You know how, after it rains,
my father told me one August afternoon
when I struggled with something
hurtful my best friend had said,
how worms come out and
crawl all over the sidewalk
and it stays a big mess
a long time after it’s over
if you step on them?

Leave them alone,
he went on to say,
after clearing his throat,
and when the rain stops,
they crawl back into the ground.