run: 1.75 miles from minnehaha falls to home 73 degrees / dew point: 64
A quick run with Scott from the falls back home before the rain started. We made it! Checked the weather on my watch after we finished — 95% chance of rain in 8 minutes. Ran at 1 pm, which might be my least favorite time to run. It felt hard. Still, I’m glad we did it. (It never rained.)
We stopped to walk where the trail dips below the road so I could point out the new trail they’ve created that winds down to the river. I can’t wait until they’re finished. It looks cool. Speaking of cool, I was trying to convey to Scott how I felt about the air and what the impending storm was doing to the sky and the air and green of the gorge. First I said “cool,” but it’s not cool (temperature), so I started to clarify, I mean the atmosphere, but realized that atmosphere could be related to temp so I said, I mean the vibe is cool. Cool is such a strange word — both full of meaning and history and empty too. For 35 years, I’ve been trying to expand my vocabulary beyond it, but it never works. How many times a day do I use this word?
I know that there is a rich history of the term within African American culture and jazz and that it’s been appropriated by white culture, but I don’t know the history that well. In poetry, my immediate thought about cool is Gwendlyn Brooks amazing, “We Real Cool.” I also think about Beatnik poetry and the Pia Zadora/Ric Ocasek scene in Hairspray:
“your hair is really uncool”
swim: 3 loops (6 cedar loops) cedar lake open swim 79 degrees rain
Overcast, gray. Calm water, warm-enough air. A great night for a swim. As I swam, I monitored the sky, noticing it getting darker and thicker. Wondered if it would start raining. During loop 4, it did. It’s always difficult to tell if it’s raining when I’m swimming. Today I felt a drop on my check and then paused to lift my head out of the water — a steady rain. I think I heard it underwater, but I couldn’t see it, and barely felt it. No thunder, so open swim kept going. Hooray!
10 Things
a graying sky
a big canoe moving fast across the swim course
even as I tried to stay on the edge of the course, the current pushed me toward the center
pale green, opaque water
bubbles encasing my hands
attacks from floating vines
a party with a campfire and barking dogs at hidden beach
buoyant, feeling held by the water
after: itchy skin
standing up in the sand after the last loop — a final look at the buoys and the water
Remembered the first line from the A Oswald poem fragment that I forgot several times last week: this disintegrating certainty
Thought about the bubbles and imagined that they were holding me up, like some sort of raft or inner tube.
My legs felt like rudders, my torso rocked rhythmically, my shoulders rose and fell.
4 miles river road, north/south 72 degrees humidity: 85%
Because I waited until after today’s tour stage — the last one in the Pyrenees — it was humid and hot out by the gorge! Other than the heat, the run was not too bad. I chanted in triples for about a mile and tried to keep my chest up, shoulders relaxed, arms in a controlled swing. I don’t remember hearing the rowers or seeing the river.
10 Things
the entrance to a steep dirt path above the rowing club on the other side of the path that goes under the lake street bridge
a runner behind me, coming fast, slapping his feet on the paved path
a biker sternly telling the runner, you’re on the bike path!
the runner not reacting because he was wearing headphones
the fence panel that they were redoing yesterday was in place and its new, unpainted wood stood out against the other brown panels
a wooden slat of the fence jutting out by the ravine because of a leaning tree — watch out!
2 older women sitting on a bench — one to the other: not bad, 2 miles in 2 hours
a flash of orange in the peripheral — a hidden tree trunk marked for removal
slightly more of a view at the sliding bench — I think park workers trimmed the trees
the crack north of the trestle looks like it might have grown some more
4 miles river road, north/south 57 degrees humidity: 80%
In the 50s! What a beautiful morning. Sunny, calm, cool. My gait felt strange, awkward, for the first 1/2 mile. Was it the shoes? I wore Brooks instead of Sauconys. The humidity was high — lots of sweat, not dripping but pooling near my nose. Chanted in triples for the first mile.
10 Things
rowers! heard 2 different coxswains
after 5 or 6 months, they’re finally replacing the fallen fence panel above the northern end of longfellow flats
the dirt they put in the crack north of the trestle has settled and the crack is back and as big as before — at one point will this be unfixable?
good morning! / good morning! — exchanged greetings with a runner with a dog
good morning! — Mr. Holiday wished me a good morning
click click thought it was a roller skier, but it was a biker changing gears
a circle of light below the sliding bench — have they cleared some branches for more of a view here?
smell of cigarette smoke
the dark dirt of a steep trail leading down to the river
the loud slap of a runner’s shoes as he passed me, running fast, or at least much faster than me
I was watching the tour as I compiled the 10 Things list, but had to put my computer away when they reached the last climb — a tough HC. Pogacar went for it near the bottom and Vingegaard couldn’t follow. Wow!
this disintegrating certainty this water whatever it is whatever anything is under these veils and veils of vision which the light cuts but it remains
unbroken (Nobody/ Alice Oswald)
while I’m swimming today: recite this bit and the others from Dart and Nobody:
swim: 4 loops lake nokomis open swim 71 degrees
Open swim is back and I did 4 loops! A wonderful night, in and out of the water. The water was smooth and fast and not too warm or too cold or too crowded. Entering the lake, I watched as a motorized paddle board zoomed by, then another. What? As I swam toward and then past the orange buoy I heard a metallic buzz in the water. Was it because of these paddle boards? I am very grateful that motorized boats aren’t allowed on nokomis. If they were, would I be hearing this buzzing sound all of the time?
I was off course in the first loop; the sun made it very difficult to see the green buoys. But it wasn’t a big deal. On the second loop, I figured it out.
I marveled at the contrast between above and below the surface. Above was a smooth blue, below a glittering green. Checked out my bubbles. Felt the water darken when the sun went behind a cloud. Was attacked by a few stray vines.
Thought about how much I love the water and how confident I am in it, and then about how dangerous and scary and deadly it can be.
Recited Alice Oswald lines — not the new ones I just memorized, but the ones I’d already been reciting in my head.
Rain this early (7 am) morning. Hopefully stopping in a few hours. Watching the tour and rereading old entries from july 16ths. Discovered this excellent description of a buzzing bug:
Its hot voice sizzles from some cool tree Near-by: It seems to burn its way through the air Like a small, pointed flame of sound Sharpened on the ecstatic edge of sunbeams.
note: I first posted this poem on 16 july 2022. I posted it again last year in 2024. Maybe I should memorize it?
a few hours later: what a stage of the tour (stage 11)! Pogacar crashing; Visma waiting for him. What will happen tomorrow in the Pyrenees?
It is 10:30 and a light rain. Won’t stop until 12:30. Do I wait, or go now? It’s probably refreshing and it might be fun to run in the rain . . .
4.25 miles minnehaha falls and back 66 degrees light rain
I did it, and it was a great run! Back to the 9/1 (9 minutes running / 1 minute walking) and feeling strong and relaxed. The light rain helped to cool me down, and I liked how my feet glided on the wet trail. Glided sounds strange. How about glode or glid or glod? Started the run by chanting in triple berries then turning everything I noticed into triples — river road, dripping trees, running feet, rushing cars. Listened to everything dripping for the first 30 minutes, then put in the “Energy” playlist for the last stretch.
10 Things
gloom with the occasional bright flash from headlights
one flash looked lower — I think it was a reflection in a big puddle!
the ravine by 42nd was gushing like the falls
the falls were giving off a fine, gauzy spray
a stranded surrey near the longfellow house — were they getting wet in the rain?
someone walking up the hill at the edge of the park, carrying an umbrella
above the creek, the grass next to the sidewalk was soaked with a line of big puddles
the sprawling reflection of a tree in a wide puddle on a sidewalk
the silhouette of a bird on a wire, looking very Bird
the bells of St. Thomas — faint, distant
an hour later: I was planning to do open swim at cedar lake tonight but I just got an email: “canceled due to inclement weather.” Bummer.
a few random Alice Oswald bits
1
On her process of translating what she notices into a poem, and on poetry as framing the silence:
She and her husband, playwright Peter Oswald, divide their day in two – walking their sons to and from school through fields. But she doesn’t take a notebook with her. She believes in the subconscious, in what is brewing on a ‘non-verbal level’. She thinks ‘a flavour or feeling builds up, almost a sculptural shape that could be a living creature, or a dance or a painting’. Only later comes the ‘plastic art of finding the words’.
There is also, in her poems, a sense of the silence behind every word. ‘One of the differences between poetry and prose is that poetry is beyond words. Poetry is only there to frame the silence. There is silence between each verse and silence at the end.’
closed and containing everything, the land leaning all round to block it from the wind, a squirrel sprinting in startles and sees sections of distance tilted through the trees and where you jump the fence a flap of sacking does for a stile, you walk through webs, the cracking bushtwigs break their secrecies, the sun vanishes up, instantly come and gone. once in, you hardly notice as you move, the wood keeps lifting up its hope, I love to stand among the last trees listening down to the releasing branches where I’ve been – the rain, thinking I’ve gone, crackles the air and calls by name the leaves that aren’t yet there
Oh, that ending! Now I’m imagining what the rain does when it thinks I’m not around! Today the rain didn’t crackle the air but . . . dotted it? feathered it? poked or punctured it?
3
The other day I came across Alice Oswald’s description of a project she’ll be working on next year as a fellow at Columbia University. She’s calling it Interviews with Anon:
At the Institute, Oswald will write a procession of passersby, not all of whom are human and many of whom are imperfectly seen: “My inspiration is the wandering, bartering, folktale style of Herodotus, who included 940 characters in his Histories. I shan’t be writing history. Perhaps it will be more like a headcount or even a carnival.”
Wanted to do a longer run today, but it was too hot! At first I wasn’t going to run at all, but I decided to do a short one to, as I sang to Scott, kick start my heart. Of course I sang the melody of this song completely wrong and of course we had to listen to the original. Ugh! And of course I had to remind Scott that one of the many soccer teams I was on as a kid was named Motley Crüe. Another team: Jabberwockies.
When I was in the shade it wasn’t too bad, but in the direct sun — HOT! I had wanted to run to the overlook on the bridge but I noticed, at the last minute — a few feet from the sign — that the sidewalk was closed. So, I turned down and ran south on the river road trail. Ah, shade!
10 Things
my bright yellow running shoes
the neighbor who is always sitting on his front steps smoking was there but wasn’t smoking
the excited chirping of little kids on the playground at the daycare
from a biker: that was so sweet — the tone of sweet made me think kind, thoughtful, not awesome
a long line of cars on lake street
my shadow, straight and strong
2 runners crossing the street, standing in the bike path, a biker approaching, heads up! / oh, sorry!
the rush of wind through the trees
a steady stream of cars on the river road making it difficult to cross
the dark brown dirt, the gentle curve of the green grass, the sharp edge between of a front yard on 46th
This Be the Place: a Pond
Today is the first rest day of the tour so no cycling to watch all morning. Instead I returned to my morning reading practice of visiting poetry sites and rereading past log entries. A lot of great stuff, including: This Be the Place: A Several-Acre Space of Tenderness/ Han Vanderhart
The “several-acre” space is a pond, which struck me as strange. I think of ponds as small bodies of water and several-acres sound big. But is it (big, that is)? Maybe several acres is small. What distinguishes a pond from a lake? I recall looking up brooks and streams and creeks and rivers when I was reading Emily Dickinson’s poem, Have you got a Brook in your little heart (see 13 march 2021), but not ponds. So I looked it up. Fascinating!
pond or lake: the distinction is arbitrary
The term “lake” or “pond” as part of a waterbody name is arbitrary and not based on any specific naming convention. In general, lakes tend to be larger and/or deeper than ponds, but numerous examples exist of “ponds” that are larger and deeper than “lakes.” . . .Names for lakes and ponds generally originated from the early settlers living near them, and the use of the terms “lake” and “pond” was completely arbitrary. Many have changed names through the years, often changing from a pond to a lake with no change in size or depth. Often these changes in name were to make the area sound more attractive to perspective home buyers.
Learned that the study of inland waters is limnology. And the terms, lotic and lentic, too:
surface waters are divided into lotic (waters that flow in a continuous and definite direction) and lentic (waters that do not flow in a continuous and definite direction) environments. Waters within the lentic category gradually fill in over geologic time and the evolution is from lake to pond to wetland. This evolution is slow and gradual, and there is no precise definition of the transition from one to the next.
From lake to pond to wetland reminds of my discussion of ecological succession and Robin Wall Kimmerer at the begining of May. A meadow becomes a thicket, a thicket becomes a forest.
Was Lake Nokomis ever a (bigger) lake that became a pond, then a wetland, then a lake again? Yes!
The landscape around Lake Nokomis was formed by natural forces, to be a place that absorbed and stored water. Over 11,000 years ago, glaciers carved through the land, and then retreated and melted. As the ice blocks that were left behind melted, they formed an expansive system of interconnected wetlands and lakes. Under these saturated conditions organic material from dead plants was unable to completely decompose, forming extensive peat deposits — a wetland soil. Because peat readily absorbs moisture and can hold up to 10 times its weight in water, it can act as a barrier and prevent rainfall from draining into deeper layers of the soil. This can cause water to accumulate, or perch, above the peat. Once abundant wetlands in South Minneapolis were filled or development.
In 1853, the U.S. Surveyor General’s Office conducted the first government land survey of the landscape around Lake Nokomis, then called Lake Amelia. The area contained over 1,500 acres olakes and wetlands. At that time, the natural lakes were larger and shallower than today. Since then, nearly 60% of the area’s wetlands have been filled. In their place is today’s built landscape.
Linda Gregg might call my pond a “resonant source,” a term she uses for places that are “present as essences. They operate invisibly as energy, equivalents, touchstones, amulets, buried seed, repositories, and catalysts.” These are the Ur-images of our creative psyches, that live with us and inform our writing. “If we opened people up,” remarked the filmmaker Agnès Varda, “we’d find landscapes.” Along with a Virginia creek and cornfields and the wood with its mayapples, this pond is inside me: as summer, as stillness, as childhood—as peace.
You can not realize you are in despair, looking at a pond’s surface.
I love the surface of Lake Nokomis. How when I lift my head out of the green water to sight, I see blue. How its ripples sparkle and its small waves sometimes look like other swimmers. How dragonflies hover above, bubbles hang just below it. How it often hides its moods from those at a distance; what looks calm and still from afar, feels rough and active from within.
ponds and writers: Maxine Kumin and Henry David Thoreau
Two writers that popped into my head as I think and read about ponds; Maxine Kumin and her homemade pond, Pobiz Pond, on her farm and Thoreau and Walden Pond. I just requested Kumin’s memoir in which she writes about how she and her husband, along with help from friends, dug out a pond on their farm property.
Other poetry people who love ponds? Mary Oliver, of course!
note: I was planning to swim, but open swim was canceled because of thunderstorms forecasted for 6:30.
3.1 miles locks and dam #1 and back 72 degrees / humidity: 84% air quality: 117
Hot! Humid! Hazy! The shade helped. Avoided the crowded river road trail. Heading south I ran on the narrow, root-filled dirt trail on the grassy boulevard until I reached the parking lot, then the trail to Locks and Dam #1. Heading back north, I ran on the Winchell Trail.
There was a moment when I heard the soft rush of cars, the trickle of water out of the sewer pipe, and . . .? I know there were 3 distinct sounds that I noticed all at once and that I imagined putting in a contrapuntal poem. Was the third sound the rowers? the birds? the tapping which might have been a woodpecker on a tree, or a squirrel with a nut? It wasn’t the wind, because there is no wind today. I felt its lack, but also saw it on the surface of the water. Still, thick. It wasn’t the buzzing of workers sawing or mowing or building something. What was it? Just remembered! The soft then sharp buzz of cicadas, which came in waves. I knew I’d remember it! (It only took 2 hours.)
The common thread for these 3 noises is their steady, insistent beat, not moving time forward, but around and around, on repeat.
swimming words
Catch water, thumb first then the semi-circle pull, arms straight, centre, down. Palm push back, twist shoulder to breath. And recover. Kick. Kick. Kick.
Stretch bone to breakwall and the tidal roar of thirty thousand swamps, refuses to crest, to break. Thirst for the bubbled silence of midnight, midlake, midstroke when the limelight was all to reach for, a trap door opening to a world below.
Pulse counts in an orchestra — it’s only a paper moon waterlogged and beaming up, a lighthouse lamp spinning in time. A course to decipher all the way to safe harbour. There’s a table laid in checkered cloth. The catch of the day muscles away.
At the edge, pulled bodily from a lake that holds fast and drags thighs, shins against stacked stone and laps the bloody threads. It won’t return you whole to the land.
Love the title of this poem and the last line. Does the lake return me whole to the land? What does it mean to be returned whole? And, is that to be desired?
I was planning to do open swim at Cedar Lake tonight, but there is a heat advisory and it’s 90 degrees, so Scott and I will go on Wednesday instead, when it’s much cooler.
process influences constraint
Last week, I read about Sarah Riggs’ approach to writing her latest collection, Lines:
In my poem “November 14” from Lines we start with “Only hour only thought: speech speech.” At the age of 47 I set out to write the book in 47-minute time periods. Roughly an hour, an only hour so to speak, in a field of time dedicated only to thinking/ speaking. Increasingly hard to do this century, with text messages et cetera punctuating thought. So on October 15, 2018, I started on a dictation of the mind so to speak, in which second thoughts are also written, and set my phone timer for each writing session, at the same café for many of the poems. Not written so much as transposed. I determined each poem would be 47 lines, and the lines do not need to be connected to ones before or after, though they could be. There would be 47 poems. The name of each poem is the date it was written. To be in time, in the calendar, to have a project that is a book that is a series. To feel in the momentum of it. To slant into dream, to invite that we survive through the tilt and whir of connecting synapses.
Process, Influence, and Constraints. I love all 3 of these, and think about them quite a bit. I like how Riggs opens the essay: “The bird song and street noise and lilt of the subway and recent phone conversations go into our poetry. We are made up of influences, there is no blank page or screen, as has been said many times.”
In terms of influence, Riggs offers these suggestions:
Channel an influence or more than one. You can choose to riff on or translate someone else’s work. You can choose epigraphs. Dedicate or address your work to someone.
I like the idea of translation. I’ve been playing around with something I call form fitters, where I take words from other poets I love and fit them into my running rhythms (3/2 or 2/1 or 3/3/3/4) and swimming breath patterns (5 syllable lines or 3/4/3/4 or 5/4/5/4). I also like the idea of taking a line and making it the title or, what about the last line?, of a poem. Playing around with influences could be a fun month-long project?!
Sticky, but feels cooler because of the cloud cover. Felt relaxed and able to keep running without stopping. Wore my bright yellow shoes, which seem to not be hurting my feet/calves as much. The river was a light gray-blue, the trees dark green. Heard voices near the ravine — was it the workers finishing the new trail? Also heard the clicking and clacking of ski poles up above near the road.
Several trucks and workers in and around the house that used to have the poetry window (it hasn’t had a poem for more than a year). I wonder where the poetry people went?
The tree is still across the winchell trail. Every time I encounter it I’m cautious, looking out for people coming the other way, hidden behind its branches. Today, there were 2 people, but they were paying attention and waited for me to pass. Thanks!
bike: 8.6 miles lake nokomis and back 80 degrees / 78 degrees
Biked with Scott to the lake. Nice! No scary moments. I felt confident and didn’t once question where I was going or where the trail was or if that thing ahead of me was a crack or not. Loud birds. A car not knowing how to drive in a round-a-bout. High creek water under the echo bridge. An ultimate frisbee game in the field between the duck and echo bridges. Slanting light. Kids wading in the creek.
swim: 3 loops lake nokomis open swim 79 degrees
Another orange buoy gone, replaced with a green one. Only one left. For 11 years, seeing the orange buoy has been my thing. I’ve dreamed about them, written poems about them, and now they’re being replaced with green buoys. That’s okay, but I will miss them and all of my orange thoughts.
The water was a little rougher. Not too rough, more like gentle rocking. Some stray vines, lots of breathing only to my right side. Difficult to see the buoys. Recited my Alice Oswald poems as I swam and thought about lifting the lid and shutting it again and the sky jumping in and out. During the second half of the third loop, I stopped in the middle of the lake just to see what it was like. So quiet and wonderful. I couldn’t hear anything from the sky or the beach or other swimmers. Very cool.
Sparkle friends, bubbles. an orange glow off to the side, marble legs, ghostly milfoil, blue sky with a few clouds. Above: blue water, below: a light greenish-blue. An interesting effect: looking up blue, down below green.
A great swim. I feel strong and free and grateful to be moving and pushing my body. Big shoulders, no calf cramps, no numb/tingling fingers.
3.75 miles river road, north/south 70 degrees humidity: 74%
Summer! Not the easiest running with the heat, but it’s beautiful by the gorge. Greeted Dave, the Daily Walker and he wished me a happy birthday again!
10 Things
a coxswain’s voice below me
a very loud bird across the road, trilling not screaming
a sea and sky of green in the tunnel of trees
a woman walking down the center of the path, gesturing to herself
the two big cracks on the stretch of path just north of the trestle have been filled in with dirt
orange cones and orange spray paint surround the cracks to warn pedestrians
looking through a gap in the trees, seeing the air above the gorge, feeling so open and peaceful
an orange day lily on the edge of the trail
empty benches
the sliding bench looks like it has slid more
I stopped to take a few pictures of the bench:
sliding bench / 9 july 2025
During the run and after, I recited AO’s lines from Nobody about the microscopic insects in the eye who speak Greek. Such a great poem! And such a great poem to memorize!
Got out for my run a little earlier today. Still warm and humid. The bunion on my left foot has a blister on it, which hurt at the beginning of the run. Looking up the anatomy of the foot, I discovered that the bone below the big toe is actually two pea-shaped bones called sesamoids. I’ve been thinking that I might want to devote a month, or a few weeks, to the foot. Maybe September?
Noticed the river for the first time as I turned down to enter the Winchell Trail from the south. Through the trees it looked green and warm and stagnant. A little later, on the Winchell Trail, a pale blue with a spot of sparkle. Greeted by Mr. Morning! as I exited the 38th street steps.
10 Things
empty benches
a parked scooter with its red lights still blinking
heard water dripping down the ravine and thought of a grotto with a waterfall
the tree that fell on the trail last week is still there, blocking 2/3rds of the trail
a faint voice below — a rower?
2 people across the road near Becketwood, crouched near the trees — looking at something? picking up trash? weeding?
a steady stream of cars
a cool green under the tree cover on the Winchell Trail
a week later, the 38th street steps are still rainbow colored
someone walking around the overlook, headed to the part of the stone wall where a dirt trail descends — was he planning to take it?
more How to Read Water
glitter path: a long line of shimmering reflections stretching into the distance. The shape of the glitter path is a measure of how high the sun is and the roughness of the waves.
if you see the glitter path bulge at some spot, that indicates rougher waves
wider glitter path = rougher water narrower path = calmer water
“the faces of the waves act as mirrors”
seeing faces in waves / pareidolia: the habit of our brains to find patterns and ascribe meaning where there may be none
orange!
If you are gazing down into cloudy water looking at your own shadow, there are a couple of extra effects worth keeping an eye out for. The first is that your shadow may have an orange-hued fringe around it. This happens because the tiny particles in the water don’t reflect all wavelengths (and therefore all colors) back equally to you. Orange makes it back more easily than the others. The second effect, which, if you see the orange “halo” effect, is definitely worth looking for, is that you may spot shafts of sunlight emerging from your shadow and radiating out away from it underwater. This effect is sometimes nicknamed the “aureole effect.” These radiating rays are caused by an optical effect of looking in the opposite direction to the sun
How to Read Water
swim: 3 loops lake nokomis open swim 83 degrees
Warm, buoyant, calm water. I felt fast and strong and confident. Lots of swimmers, a few floating vines. No ducks or fish or dragonflies. At least 2 military planes — black — screaming across the sky. The far green buoy looked robin’s egg blue to me again today. My nose plug squeaked. The water looked mostly light greenish blue with a think layer near the surface that almost looked white. I saw some orange off to the side and shafts of light rising up from the bottom. Translucent bubble encased my hands.
I recited bits from AO’s Dart and Nobody as I looped.
Noticed a swimmer looking so far away from the orange buoy and wondered how much of it was my off perspective and how much of it was them being off course. Probably more me; I struggle with depth perception.
almost forgot: during the second half of a loop, the water suddenly got a lot darker for many seconds — a minute? However long it actually was, it felt like a long time. I couldn’t see what caused it, but I’m imagining the darkness was caused by a cloud. On other days, I felt a shorter darkness pass when a plane passes over the sun.
4.25 miles monument and back 71 degrees dew point: 64
Hot! I’ve never liked running in the heat but now that I’m taking lexipro my heat intolerance has increased. For some moments of the run I felt great, other moments I didn’t. So I walked some, ran some, and walked again at different stretches.
10 Things
I kept seeing orange flashes — a sign, a cone, a tree marked for removal
kids yelling and laughing outside at a daycare attached to a church
the river from above, on the bridge, heading east: brown, and looking shallow — were those sandbars I was seeing near the surface?
trickling water out of the limestone below the bridge
the sound of shadow falls, falling
a kid’s voice rising from the ravine
construction on the other side of the lake street bridge — orange cones, trucks, yellow-vested workers, the buzz of equipment
the river from above, on the bridge, heading west: blue and covered in the reflections of clouds*
click clack — a roller skier
seen, not heard: a dog, by the clanging of their collar
*stopped at the bridge overlook to take a picture of the clouds reflected on the surface of the water. Is it just me, or does this look like an impressionist painting?
river with clouds, 7 july 2025
the color of water
How to Read Water is fascinating. Here are some things I’d like to remember from the chapter on color:
The colors we see in water depend on the brightness and angle of the light and the water’s depth, as well as what’s on, in, and under that water.
How to Read Water
something to consider: are you looking at water, or something in or under the water, or a reflection on water’s surface. Is it the color of water, or the color of the ground beneath the water (a puddle), or the color of cloud on its surface? What angle are you looking from?
. . . in many circumstances when we think we are looking at the water, we are actually looking at something different and in the distance. Looking out to the sea in the distance is a great example: What we see in that situation is dominated by the reflection of the sky even further in the distance. This is why the distant sea appears blue in fine weather and gray on overcast days.
How to Read Water
This water looks blue because it’s reflection the sky is one I’ve heard a lot, but I think I’ve always heard it as the reason, not one reason under certain circumstances.
What about when we see different colors — which I often do as I run across the bridge and look down at the water? The different colors are based on how much of the water we are actually seeing. Sometimes I see brown, sometimes blue.
You will notice this if you look for it, but not if you don’t because our brain has gotten used ot this effect and so oesn’t register it as at all peculiar.
something to try: Can you find the area/the moment where the shift takes place from looking only at reflections to being able to see water?
the exact color that can travel furtherest through the water without being absorbed: blue-green color, wavelength = 480 nanometers
Is it a big cloud or Jaws? People often think it has gotten deeper or there are fish around when the water darkens, but it might just be a big cloud.
eutrophication = excessive nutrients — algal blooms reduce light, use up a lot of oxygen, change the color of the water
oligotrophic = low in nutrients, clear
my sparkle friends! “A lot of the particles that see in water will be inorganic, a mixture of mud, sand, clay, silt, chalk, and other substances, each one affecting the colors we see.” Do I see them as anything other than the color sparkle?
Today I’m swimming at Cedar Lake, which is much deeper than Lake Nokomis. It is also more of a “natural” lake than nokomis. What impact do these factors have on its colors and my experiences of them?
swim: 2.5 loops (5 cedar lake loops) cedar lake open swim 82 degrees
The water by the orange buoy closest to Point Beach was almost hot — so warm! It was a little cooler in the middle of the lake and near Hidden Beach, but not that cool. It was also calm. Not much wind, no waves. A few vines floating over and under and around me. Some milfoil by the beach. I forgot to look at the color of the water from above, but I did look below. Blue-green, a few hints of yellow. Opaque.
10 Things
driving past another part of the lake: the surface covered with green vegetation
clear blue sky, then a few clouds, the more clouds, then dark
the first orange buoy seemed much farther out in the water
breathing to my right, seeing some other swimmers halfway across the lake
yellow safety buoys
something in the sky — a plane? a bird? I’m uncertain
the warm water was buoyant; I felt higher on the water
bubbles around my hands
a line of white buoys at hidden beach
a breaststroker, stroking with intensity — are they trying to race me?
Is that what bothers me about breaststrokers I encounter: that they always look so intense and like they are trying to race me or keep up with me? I think of breaststroke as a chill stroke, where you glide and kick as you travel on the surface of the water, able equally to see above and below. But, there’s nothing chill or relaxed about the breaststrokers i encounter!
Before swimming, I worked on memorizing some more lines from Alice Oswald, this time from Nobody, but I got stuck on the beginning and wasn’t able to recite them in my head as I swam:
There are said to be microscopic insects in the eye who speak Greek and these invisible ambassadors of vision never see themselves but fly at flat surfaces and back again with pigment caught in their shivering hair-like receptors and this is how the weather gets taken to and fro and the waves pass each other from one color to the next (Nobody/ Alice Oswald)
