Tag: morning

march 15/RUN

4.1 miles
river road north/south
38 degrees / humidity: 84%

Colder today. Back to winter layers: long-sleeved green shirt, orange sweatshirt, black vest, black tights, gray buff, black gloves, purple/pink baseball cap, bright pink headband

A gray sky and a slight drizzle. Bright headlights through the trees where the road curves. Grit. Wet leaves on the trail. Pairs of fast runners approaching.

Listened to other runners’ voices, the sandy grit under my feet, car wheels as I ran north, put in my “Doin’ Time” playlist heading south, including Good Times by Chic. My favorite lines:

I want to live the sporty life

and

Clams on the half shell, and roller skates, roller skates — here’s the full verse:

A rumor has it that it’s getting late
Time marches on, just can’t wait
The clock keeps turning, why hesitate?
You silly fool; you can’t change your fate
Let’s cut the rug, a little jive and jitterbug
We want the best, we won’t settle for less
Don’t be a drag; participate
Clams on the half shell, and roller skates, roller skates

Good Times was released in June of 1979. The clam shells and roller skates line seems ridiculous (and it is, in a delightful way), but it also captures the vibe of 1979.

After seeing several orange things, I decided that would be my 10 things list. I could only remember 8.

8 Orange Things

  1. a giant orange water jug set up on a table for runners
  2. orange lichen (or moss?) on the north side of the ancient boulder
  3. orange bubble letter graffiti on the underside of the bridge
  4. my orange sweatshirt
  5. the flesh of a tree where a branch used to be, newly trimmed and exposed to the elements (water, air): rusty orange
  6. leaves on the ground: burnt orange
  7. an orange effort: a higher heart rate (see 25 may 2023)
  8. hot pink spray paint on the iron fence that I initially saw as orange

ceremony/ritual/circumambulation

A few things related to my planning of a loop run as ceremony:

first, something to chant, from James Schuyler’s Hymn to Life:

Press your face into the
Wet April chill: a life mask. Attune yourself to what is happening
Now, the little wet things

The whole thing, or maybe just the last bit, starting with “Attune yourself”? See also: 14 march 2024, 15 march 2024

Second, the bells! The bells of St. Thomas signaling the start of the ceremony, or the start of some part of the ceremony? Accompanied by:

Then Space – began to toll,

As all the Heavens are a Bell,
And Being, but an Ear,
And I, and silence, some strange Race,
Wrecked, solitary, here –

or

I was still ringing. I had been my whole life a bell, and never knew it until at that moment I was lifted and struck.

Pigrim at Tinker Creek/ Annie Dillard

converted into my 3/2 form:

My whole life
I’d been 
a bell but
never
knew until
I was
lifted and
struck. Now
I am still
ringing.

Third, form inspirations? A psalm, like Julia B. Levine’s Ordinary Psalms?

Megan Feifer: Both of your poems share the words “Ordinary Psalm.” Why did you choose to name these poems as such? Does a psalm lose its reverence when it becomes ordinary? Is that the point? 

Julia B. Levine: I am currently at work on a (hopefully) book-length collection of Ordinary Psalms. In these poems I am interested in the idea that the ordinary, if deeply lived and carefully attended to, are valid entryways into sacred or reverent experience. As a child I attended a Reform Jewish synagogue and always disliked the prayer books, though I loved the Torah. The difference, it seemed, had to do with the formal and vague language of prayer as contrasted with the heroic, vivid, and oftentimes earthy details of the weekly Torah readings. On reflection, this tonal difference in language may be the primary reason I don’t feel any sense of reverence toward an Old Testament God, but I do believe in the transcendent power of myth and stories. So, in contrast to psalms that rely on a formal address to an anthropomorphic God, I wanted to create a kind of personal prayer book that uses the living language of everyday details and experience to name and praise those aspects of this world that, for me, embody divinity.

Writer’s Insight: Julia B. Levine

JJJJJerome Ellis’ litany of names? Mary Oliver’s prayer as the attention before the words? lucille clifton’s praise of impossible things:

All Praises/ lucille clifton

Praise impossible things
Praise to hot ice
Praise flying fish
Whole numbers
Praise impossible things. 
Praise all creation
Praise the presence among us
of the unfenced is.

Oh, that unfenced is! That line gets me every time.

march 14/RUN

4.2 miles
minnehaha falls and back
63! degrees

Last night, I read this on Instagram from a local weather blog: Thursday feels like spring, Friday like summer, and snow on Saturday. What? Reading more, the snow should be north of us. Instead, we’ll get thunderstorms. That’s March (and April, and sometimes May) in Minnesota. This morning does feel like summer: warm. I wore shorts and a short-sleeved shirt and a light-weight sweatshirt. Halfway, the sweatshirt came off. The falls were gushing. I think I overheard some woman exclaim, How can there still be ice?! I didn’t look closely, but I imagine the one ice column beside the falling water is lingering.

Mostly I felt fine while I ran. My back didn’t hurt. Both of my hips are a little sore, but not like they’re injured sore. Almost like I’ve been doing too many core/hip exercises sore.

Listened to the birds and bikers and kids on the playground as I ran south. Put in my “Doin’ Time” playlist at the falls and as I ran north.

Playing for Time/ Peter Gabriel
What Time is It?/ Spin Doctors
Time of the Season/ Zombies

10 Things

  1. shadow 1: mine, beside me
  2. shadow 2: fence slats on the trail
  3. shadow 3: a flying bird
  4. a kid at the falls wearing a bright blue jacket with a logo on it that reminded me of a jacket I got from a race a few years ago. Did he run the race too?
  5. my favorite bench above the edge of the world was occupied by a person and a bike
  6. matching bright yellow shirts on 2 bikers biking up the hill between the double bridge and locks and dam no. 1
  7. running under the ford bridge, appreciating the cool, shaded air
  8. the river sparkling silver through the trees as I ran south, below the road
  9. the dirt trail on the boulevard, mostly mud
  10. stopped at the folwell bench to admire the river — all I remember is that it was open and blue

After I finished, I recited the Emily Dickinson poem I memorized yesterday: Crumbing is not an Instant’s Act. I remembered almost all of it, only struggling with this verse:

Ruin if formal — Devil’s work
????? and slow —
Failing in an instant, no man did
Falling Slipping — is Crashe’s law —

I couldn’t think if the right word for the second line. Sequenced? Ordered? Organized? No. It’s “Consecutive.” Of course!

I’ve liked this poem for a few years now, especially the second verse and “An Elemental Rust.” I decided to memorize it as I study time and think about its relationship to erosion (and to my vision).

lunar eclipse

Woke up around 1:30 and realized that there was a lunar eclipse. Got RJP (who was still up, natch) and we sat outside and watched it slowly happen. Well. at least 15 minutes of it. We didn’t have the patience to wait until it was completely covered. RJP and I always check out sunsets and the moon together. It’s one of our things. I am reminds me of a story I read years ago. Can I find it? Yes, but it took a long time. I had a title — October — but not the author or the journal. Lots of searching online and in my files and through my books. Nothing. More than an hour later sitting on the deck, the name Jill popped into my head. How? Why? I searched for “Jill essay October” and found it, except that wasn’t the right essay. This one was about her ex-husband and Texas and leaves; the one I remember was about her daughter and Texas and rain — but it had leaves (or leavings) in the title! Searched, “Jill essay daughter” and bingo! It’s funny how memory works.

Late last night, a surprise rain. My seventeen-year-old daughter and I rushed out to the deluge in bare feet, our T-shirts darkening with each drop. We raised our arms, spinning on the walkway and laughing until lightning seared the sky. I pointed to the tree’s thick arms, thinking about the way they stretch as if waving. We huddled under the light on the porch while rivers swelled against the curbs of the parking lot. When I told her we’ve been running into the rain since she was little, she grinned and nodded, her long blonde hair matted on her shoulders and against her neck.

*

It was there in Utah, when Indie was two and three and four, that I started the tradition: as soon as we hear rain, we throw open the door. During those first rains, I carried her. She was too young to know my sorrow, the way I waited for word from her father, the way I worried about my bank account every month. But when the rain came, all want and worry washed away. And then in the later rains, she beat me to the middle of the yard or the sidewalk or the walkway.

All Our Leavings/ Jill Talbot

march 2/RUN

5 miles
bottom of franklin hill
26 degrees

Hooray for being outside and on the walking trail! Hooray for not much wind! Hooray for running up the Franklin hill! My back was a little tight, but not too bad. My legs felt fine.

The river was open; the only ice was on the edges. The sky was a mix of clouds and bright sun. Before the run I heard some geese — did I hear any during? I don’t think so. Also heard before the run: some kids having fun inside a house — laughing and yelling through the closed windows.

At some point, I had an idea for my monthly challenge: the run as ceremony. Inspired by Ellis’s Aster of Ceremonies, I want to return to Gary Snyder, Mount Tamalpais, and circumambulation. What sort of ceremonies can I make out of my run that brings together my blind spot and the gorge?

10 Things

  1. bright pink graffiti on a foot of the 1-94 bridge
  2. the top of one section of the wooden fence on the edge above Longfellow Flats is missing
  3. the chain across the old stone steps has been removed
  4. the path was almost completely clear — the only bit of snow I recall seeing was under the lake street bridge: a low and narrow ridge — just remembered one other bit of snow: just past the franklin bridge
  5. a full-length mirror left by the trashcan
  6. disembodied voices — coming from inside houses, below in the gorge, far behind me on the trail
  7. sh sh sh — my feet striking the grit on the asphalt
  8. my shadow briefly appeared – not sharp but soft, faint
  9. at least 2 trios of runners, some pairs, several runners on their own
  10. my friend, the limestone slabs propped up and looking like a person sitting against the underside of Franklin, is still there. I’d like to name them and add them to my list of regulars: Lenny the limestone?

lower back pain

My lower back has been sore lately. Sore enough that I took 5 days off of running. Not sure why I’ve waiting this long, but i decided today to look up lower back stretches for runners. I found this video and its 4 helpful stretches — the video claims to have 5 stretches, but they are only 4. I wonder what the missing one was?

The stretches: pretzel, thread the needle, plank to lunge, hip sweep

I’ll see how it feels in a few hours, but right now, having just stretched, it feels good!

a purple spill from march 1

I wrote this yesterday, but didn’t have a chance to post it.

It’s March and the purple hour is over, but in true purple fashion, the color can’t be contained to one month. Always it oversteps its boundaries. Reading the poem of the day, “Fog” by Emma Lazarus, purple appeared:

Swift, snowy-breasted sandbirds twittering glance 
Through crystal air. On the horizon’s marge, 
                Like a huge purple wraith, 
                The dusky fog retreats.

wraith

1
a: the exact likeness of a living person seen usually just before death as an apparition

b: GHOST, SPECTER

2

: an insubstantial form or semblance : SHADOW

3

: a barely visible gaseous or vaporous column

f you see your own double, you’re in trouble, at least if you believe old superstitions. The belief that a ghostly twin’s appearance portends death is one common to many cultures. In German folklore, such an apparition is called a Doppelgänger (literally, “double goer”); in Scottish lore, they are wraiths. The exact origin of the word wraith is misty, however, and etymologists can only trace it back to the early 16th century—in particular to a 1513 translation of Virgil’s Aeneid by Gavin Douglas (the Scotsman used wraith to name apparitions of both the dead and the living). In current English, wraith has taken on additional, less spooky, meanings; it now often suggests a shadowy—but not necessarily scary—lack of substance.

Merriam-Webster entry

marge = margin = edge

Wraith — I like that word and what it conjures. And to make it purple? Good job, Emma! I’m not sure about the middle section where she imagines the “orient town,” but I like “Fog,” especially this:

for on the rim of the globed world 
I seem to stand and stare at nothingness. 
                But songs of unseen birds 
                And tranquil roll of waves

Bring sweet assurance of continuous life 
Beyond this silvery cloud. Fantastic dreams, 
                Of tissue subtler still 
                Than the wreathed fog, arise,

And cheat my brain with airy vanishings 
And mystic glories of the world beyond. 

Returning to the purple — I like how she imagines the lifting fog as purple. Back in November of 2022 (how has it been that long?!) when I studied gray, I devoted a day to fog and mist: 23 nov 2022. Last month, purple — especially lavender and lilac or eggplant and dark purple — replaced gray. Where I used to see gray everywhere, now I see purple, or imagine purple.

feb 22/RUN

3.1 miles
ford bridge and back
23 degrees

Feels like spring today! Birds! Warm sun! Melting and dripping snow! It is supposed to warm up all next week. The path wasn’t that crowded, which is surprising because it’s so nice and it’s Saturday. I don’t remember much from my run, other than wondering if my back was hurting (occasionally, a little) or if I should stop to tie my shoelace (I did). Can I remember 10 things?

10 Things

  1. 3 or 4 fat bikes on the dirt rail that is on the other side of the river road and runs alongside Minnehaha Academy, lower campus and Becketwood
  2. a biker and a bike stopped at the bench across from Folwell
  3. the rounded shadow of the light part of a lamp post
  4. a thick layer of snow on the walking path between folwell and 42nd
  5. three runners ahead of me evenly spaced across the whole path
  6. my dark shadow ahead of me as I ran north
  7. the clanging of an unseen dog collar
  8. a walker talking loudly on her phone as she walked, her voice echoing through the neighborhood and then above the oak savanna
  9. a runner in a bright blue jacket turning onto the trail from 42nd
  10. the river, all white, all covered in snow

I listened to voices as I ran south, the mood: energy playlist on the way back north.

the purple hour

1:35 am / dining room

Listened to Monica Ong’s “Lavender Insomnia.“

7:55 am / dining room

The poem of the day on Poetry Foundation is First Fig. Figs can be many different colors but are often associated with purple. Since I’ve posted this well-known poem about a candle burning at both ends before, I decided to find out if Millay had written any other fig poems.

Second Fig/ Edna St. Vincent Millay

SAFE upon the solid rock the ugly houses stand:
  Come and see my shining palace built upon the sand!

First Fig and Second Fig are from Millay’s 1922 collection, A Few Figs from Thistles. Is her use of figs and thistles a reference to Matthew in the Bible?

Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles? Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit.

Matthew 7:16-20 King James Version (KJV)

Speaking of thistles, my mom often had globe thistles in her garden. After she died, I recall wanting to grow them in her memory, but I can’t remember why. Is it because butterflies like their round purple flowers, or because I do?

feb 20/RUN

5.5 miles
bottom of franklin hill and back
9 degrees

Outside! Very bright today. A mix of moments of feeling great and feeling not so great — more feeling great. Foot prints in the snow, lamp post shadows, patches of brown ice. Black capped chickadees! A white river, a barren beach, a fat tire e-bike buzzing past me. A BLUE! sky — wow! Fogged up sunglasses. A delayed greeting: Hi Dave!

During mile 2, I chanted purples:

lavender / lavender / lavender
amethyst / amethyst / amethyst
indigo / indigo / indigo
grape
orchid / orchid / orchid
iris / iris / iris
wisteria

Thought about a blueberry looking more purple than blue, then the shade of purple: sucker. I like the word sucker — a candy, a fool, someone who sucks on something, a person on a straw, or something that sucks on something, a plunger on a toilet, an octopus on an arm.

Listened to the birds, the cars, and the gurgling sewer on the way north. Listened to an energy playlist — Don’t Stop Me Now, Work it, Sabotage — on the way back south.

the purple hour

12:45 am / dining room

restless, difficult to be still enough to type/think

(remembering, 7:05 am) looking out the kitchen window, seeing 2 dark forms in the white snow — bare patches or something more? Staring for a few mnutes — am I imagining that slight shift? No, 2 animals, standing still for minutes. What are they doing? Quick movement, then bounding figures. Rabbit-like. But these animals look so dark — is it a trick of the dim light — bunny fir darkened in the lilac light? [there is no indigo in a backyard illuminated by neighbor’s security lights.] Or, could these creatures be racoons?

2:44 am

a word appears in my head: amethyst — February stone, quartz, ancient Greeks believed it would prevent intoxication

7:49 am / dining room

A journal: Amethyst Review

In a Robert Frost poem, October:

Release one leaf at break of day;
At noon release another leaf;
One from our trees, one far away.
Retard the sun with gentle mist;
Enchant the land with amethyst.
Slow, slow!
For the grapes’ sake, if they were all,
Whose leaves already are burnt with frost,
Whose clustered fruit must else be lost—
For the grapes’ sake along the wall.

A myth created in the 1500s about a nymph and Bacchus:

In his poem “L’Amethyste, ou les Amours de Bacchus et d’Amethyste” (Amethyst or the loves of Bacchus and Amethyste), the French poet Rémy Belleau (1528–1577) invented a myth in which Bacchus, the god of intoxication, of wine, and grapes was pursuing a maiden named Amethyste, who refused his affections. Amethyste prayed to the gods to remain chaste, a prayer which the chaste goddess Dianaanswered, transforming her into a white stone. Humbled by Amethyste’s desire to remain chaste, Bacchus poured wine over the stone as an offering, dyeing the crystals purple.

wikipedia

A cluster of grape gems to buy.

In a Dan Beachy-Quick poem:

Anniversary/ DAN BEACHY-QUICK

You are for me as you cannot be
For yourself, chaos without demand
To speak, the amethyst nothing
Hidden inside the trinket shop’s stone,
Dark eyes dark asterisks where light
Footnotes a margin left blank. You
Don’t look up to look up at the sky.
Your ears parenthesize nothing
That occurs, that I keep from occurring,
In the poem, on the page, as you are
For me, not a shadow, but a shade
Whose darkness drops from no object
But is itself yourself, a form of time
Spanning nothing, never is your name.

9:46 am / kitchen

Telling Scott about how the word amethyst popped into my head and that it was the birthstone for February, he said that he knew that because his grandmother was born in February and she often wore amethyst jewelry.

12:31 pm / front room — chair

Thinking more about Dan Beachy-Quick’s lines:

not a shadow, but a shade
Whose darkness drops from no object

Thinking about shade as a hue with black added to make it darker (as opposed to tint, where white is added to make something lighter). Also thinking about shade as relief on a hot day, a welcomed darkness.

added hours later: Rereading the poem, “Anniversary,” I looked it up: amethyst is given for the 6th wedding anniversay.

feb 16/RUN

note: I’m starting this post at 9:50 am. The temp is 4 degrees / fees like -11. The wind is 11 mph with gusts up to 20 mph. At this point, I’m thinking I will run inside on the treadmill. Will I, or will some part of me convince the rest to run outside?

3.5 miles
ford bridge and back
7 degrees / feels like -10
50% snow-covered

We did it. Good job legs and lungs and heart, you convinced brain that we really needed to be outside this late morning! Almost all of the layers were on: 2 pairs of black running tights; dark gray tank top; green long-sleeved shirt; orange pullover; dark purplish/blueish/grayish pullover with hood; purple jacket; orange striped buff; black fleece cap with ear flaps; black gloves; pink striped gloves; 2 pairs of socks — gray (long) / black (short). At times, I was too warm.

It was wonderful and sometimes hard, especially when I was running into the wind on the way back. It was also bright — glad I had my sunglasses. Encountered someone in orange with their hand up to shield their eyes as they walked south. Saw the round shadow of a street lamp and the jagged shadow of a small tree. Passed a group of four walkers, laughing and yelling and having fun on the double bridge.

Did I think about purple at all? I can’t remember now. The only color I recall noticing was orange.

the purple hour (15th and 16th of feb)

3:38 am / dining room / 15 feb

the heat turnning on, the house shifting settling, my legs restless
purple mountains — in Japan, looking out at the mountains, different shades of purple — fall, 1994
Emily Dickinson purple — sunsets and sunrises
someone shoveling at 4 am

[discussion below added at 10:30 am on 16 feb]

Where Ships of Purple—gently toss — / Emily Dickinson

Where Ships of Purple—gently toss —
On Seas of Daffodil—
Fantastic Sailors—mingle—
And then—the Wharf is still!
F296 (1862) 265

No one does sunsets better than Dickinson. I wonder if Amherst sunsets are still so colorful. Where I’ve lived sunsets are primarily red, pink, and gold, but the ones she describes often have purple. This one does, too. Here she sees great ships, large purple clouds, gently tossing in their moorings. The sea beneath them is tinted golden, “Daffodil,” from the setting sun. The mingling and fantastic sailors are no doubt smaller clouds that move among the larger ship-like ones, their shapes constantly changing. When the sun sets the sky turns dark and “the Wharf is still!”

the prowling bee

The prowling bee has been such a wonderful resource for me. Reading the comments for this poem, there was speculation about why the Amherst sunsets were so brilliant and purple:

Romantic era sunsets WERE particularly vivid, due to volcanic ash from several cataclysmic eruptions worldwide. The Hudson River School artists and their sunsets might not have been hyperbole, after all, nor were ED purple sunsets.

Another commenter doubted this suggestion, so I did a quick search and found a pop science article about a study on sunset paintings and volcanic ash: How Paintings of Sunset Immortalize Past Volcanic Eruptions

Volcanoes can cause some of the world’s most spectacular sunsets. An eruption spews small particles of gas, dust and ash, called aerosols, high into the atmosphere where they can spread around the world. The particles can’t be seen during the day, but about 15 minutes after sunset, when conditions are right, these aerosols can light up the sky in brilliant “afterglows” of pink, purple, red or orange.

The impact of climate/climate disruptions on how we see color? Fascinating. Earlier this morning, while doing my “on this day” practice, I reread my entry from 16 feb 2024. In it, I described a photo I took above the gorge.

The most important thing about this image is how the branches create a net which mimics how my vision often works — I can almost see what’s there, but not quite. Secondary, but connected, is the feeling of being disoriented, off, almost but not quite, untethered, which comes from swirling forms and the climate crisis — there’s almost always snow on tthe ground here in February. Where are my Minnesota winters?

This last bit about climate crisis and lack of snow returns me to the ash in the sky and its effect on how 19th century artists saw and depicted the world. Many places to go with this, for now I’m thinking about how my vision loss (or the making strange of my vision) has enabled me to be more open (than many people with “normal” vision) to understanding vision as complex and not as simple or straightforward as “what you see is what you get.” Does that make sense?

1:50 am / dining room / 16 feb

doorways/thresholds are definitely purple — a deep, dark purple
the air above the gorge: different versions (tints/shades) of purple
purple hums, a soft lavender static in my ears
lachrymose purple 
originally wrote violet static, but looked up the color again and thought it was too dark for the static I was hearing in my head

9:46 am / front room / 16 feb

Thought more about violet. Decided to search, “Alice Oswald violet.” Found this beautiful poem:

Violet/ Alice Oswald

Recently fallen, still with wings out,

she spoke her name to summon us to her darkness.

Not wanting to be seen, but not uncurious,

she spoke her name and let her purple deep eye-pupil

be peered into.

‘Violet,’ she said

and showed her heart under its leaf.

Then she leant a little frightened forwards

and picked a hand to pick her.

And her horrified mouseface, sniffed and lifted close,

let its gloom be taken and all the sugar licked off its strangeness

while we all stood there saying, ‘Violet! Violet!’

fingering her blue bruised skin.

Finally she mentioned

the name of her name

which was something so pin-sharp,

in such a last gasp of a previously unknown language,

it could only be spoken as a scent,

it could only be heard as our amazement.

“purple deep eye pupil”: so good!

“the name of her name” — I wrote in my notes: the flower is never one solid, consistent color — the color is an abstraction, a taking one part for the whole, a disconnection — to name a color is to reduce the experience and perception of that color to one thing — colors cannot be fully named

What is lost — in our perception, experience of the world — when we reduce what we see to a fixed color/fixed name?

This question reminds me of something I read in Turning to Stone on the importance of naming yesterday:

The names themselves are, of course, human constructs, but the act of naming requires making distinctions that sharpen the powers of observation.

*

Taxonomy is comforting because it creates a sense of control and finitude in a chaotic and open-ended world.

Turning to Stone / Marcia Bjornerud

Lists! I love lists. My lists aren’t taxonomies, but something else . . .

The proper name of God is a list.

Valentina Izmirlieva in Aster of Ceremonies

Once I get the audiobook of Aster of Ceremonies, I want to put name as taxonomy and control in conversation with JJJJJerome Ellis’ “Liturgy of the Name” and “Benediction.”

feb 14/RUN

4.5 miles
minnehaha falls and back
18 degrees / feels like 6

The bike path was clear and not crowded. The air was cold. I heard a few birds, kids on the playground, dry leaves still on the trees imitating the waterfall. My legs felt heavy, my lower back a little sore. Waved a greeting to almost everyone I encountered. Thought maybe I heard some kids on the sledding hill at minnehaha park but couldn’t see anyone.

About a mile in, I started thinking about how purple represents both very hot temperatures and very cold ones. Purple = extreme. Then I thought about Basho’s line about poetry as “a fireplace in summer, a fan in winter.”

small victories: thought about stopping to walk under the ford bridge but kept going until I reached my favorite observation spot, stopped to put in a playlist, then kept running until I reached the double bridge. also: have mostly reached my winter goal of lowering my average heart run to under 160 — today it was 157.

10 Things

  1. cloud-covered sun
  2. yellowed leaves on an otherwise bare tree — a compliment to the violet air
  3. the river was covered in white and looked wider and colder than usual
  4. at least 10 people were standing near my favorite observation spot by the falls
  5. through the slats of the double bridge on the walking side I noticed bright blue graffiti
  6. one car was parked in the far parking lot at the top of the sledding hill
  7. the bright pink plastic bag I mentioned last week was further in the woods today — was it filled with snow?
  8. the falls were frozen and not falling
  9. stopped at the bench above the edge of the world: open, empty, a few tracks in the snow
  10. a small part of the fence near 38th is missing a panel

the purple hour — 2 days

3:18 am (bedroom floor) / 13 jan 2025

Still life painting
Heavy shadows and light

Sitting in the dark, wanting to keep the quiet and how I’ve adjusted to the dark, I’m reluctant to take out my iPad and write or to speak into my phone. Now, later (10:00 am) in the morning, I remember the moon (a full moon!) coming through the slats — not as dramatically as the past few nights — and the window-sized square of light with its soft slat shadows and the deep, solid shadow of the couch and the dark almost emptiness of the closet — almost empty because I could see the hint (inkling?) of the exercise ball with the slightest outline of light. The image of the ball just barely emerging from the shadow reminded me of a still life painting — the one that Diane Seuss writes about in Quince, Cabbage, Melon, and Cucumber/ Diane Seuss (see 3 may 2024).

At night, when others are asleep and it’s more dark than light, the world stills for my restless eyes. The static stops. Finally objects freeze. Mostly I do too. A chance to look for longer, to stare and study.

I like “seeing” the darkness in the closet — its accordion doors wide open — as a deep purple. It’s not pure black; there’s color there but it’s dark and deep.

Writing this last sentence prompted me to search for Monet and purple. Why? I can’t remember now, a few minutes later. Jackpot. First, a quotation wrongly attributed to Claude Monet on the search, but actually spoken by Manet — poor Manet. How often is he overshadowed by Monet? Anyway, here’s the quotation:

I have finally discovered the true colour of the atmosphere. It’s violet. Fresh air is violet. I found it! Three years from now everyone will do violet!

found in The Secret Lives of Color, which sites Bright Earth: The Invention of Color, 208.

Bright Earth? This books looks great. Just requested it from my local library!

The impressionists were enamored with violet. Critics claimed they were afflicted with violettomania. Some theories on why:

  • a belief that shadows were never merely black or gray but colored — this sounds familiar!
  • complementary colors: bright yellow and soft purple. Robin Wall Kimmerer and Goldenrods and Asters!
  • vision problems — Monet and cataracts

*

Talking with my sister on the phone in the afternoon about my purple hour, she mentioned a paint color made from human remains. I think she meant this one:

Caput mortuum, Latin for “dead head,” is a dark brown paint that looks violet in some lights, maroon in others. It is earthy and intense, and like many browns, it can run in opposite chromatic directions when diluted. Some versions of caput mortuum paint tend toward the yellow end of the spectrum, while others wash into a light, yet slightly murky lavender. Despite its foreboding name and strange history, it is a rather simple, homey color. The substance reached the height of its popularity in the 18th and 19th centuries. It gets its hue from pulverized, mummified bodies (both human and feline) and its name from alchemy.

source

2:06 am / dining room / 14 feb

That moon! noticed a thin line of light on the kitchen floor then went over to the side (south facing) window and noticed the moon through the thick wooden slats. wow!
sitting at the dining room table, the heat kicked in — creaking everywhere through the vents. I have a short, repeated passage from one of our community band pieces running through my head. looking off to the side I caught a glimpse of myself in a mirror, my face-blob glowing from the computer screen — wistful wisteria — all parts of wisteria are toxic to humans — small purple flowers

I’m not sure why the phrase “wistful wisteria” popped into my head. Where do I know wisteria from? Searched for poetry wisteria and found a poem by Lucie Brock-Broido, Extreme Wisteria

Wisteria is, first: a hardy, deciduous, capable-of-earnest-grasping shrub which bears small flowers. After that, it can be pressed (violently if you will) into an attar of its former self. In this poem, wisteria is also a state (of mind), the place one heads toward when feeling wistful.”

QA with Lucie Brock-Broido

7:53 am / dining room / 14 feb

  • aubergine, agitated, almost/approximate
  • bathos, bruised
  • cancer: pancreatic, cough medication
  • Dino or Daphne, deep
  • eggplant, emperor, Easter dress
  • fibs faint falsehoods, fake fruit flavor, FWA’s favorite color
  • Grape Ape, grief, (ornamental) grass
  • heliotrope, haze, heaviness, hair color?!
  • iris, ink, iffy, iodine
  • jealousy, jazz, jackets
  • kingly, Kristen’s post-college car
  • lilac, lavender, Lumpy Space Princess
  • mauve, magenta, mold, mystery, magic
  • non (binary/entity/sense)
  • orchid, outrage(ous)
  • pansy, petunia, plum (fruit and Professor)
  • queer, question
  • restless, rusty/rusted
  • shadows, slant, snail-snot, scar
  • Tyranian, tantrums, teletubby, toe
  • unfenced, undulating, underwater, unique, uncertain, undecided
  • violet, violence, vapor
  • wisteria, wispy, whelk, wood with soft inhabitants, wet, wild
  • eXcessive, exasperated, extremities — oxygen-starved, excess
  • yellow’s compliment, yelling
  • zeal

10:30 / front room, my desk / 14 feb

Wandering with purple: Part of this purple hour project, part of any of my projects really, is to find reasons to wander and wonder about new, unexpected things that I might not otherwise encounter or care about. Mission accomplished! It started last night with a random phrase that whispered to me, wistful wisteria. This led to reading about the purple-flowered vine, wisteria, then Lucie Brock-Broido’s poem, then her Q&A about the poem in which they discuss Emily Dickinson, especially her poem, “Essential Oils — are wrung –“. Then the idea of ED as a hard nut to crack. Then this line from some commentary on ED:

When I read Walt Whitman, we jauntily walk side by side down the road within his multitudinous world of wonder. When I read Dickinson, I don’t know if I am inside her mind or if she is inside mine. But I am always in a mysterious, perplexing, deeply thought-provoking, sometimes scary but always beautiful place.

source

Which led me back to the Q&A:

I think we’re all in conversation on the page with that which came before us, or even during us. We inherit whatever canon we’re in the midst of, a great collective influenza.

*

What I mean to say is that, in my own work, often, I may have been with Dickinson, but she was not with me.

feb 12/RUN

5.5 miles
bottom of franklin hill
6 degrees
100% snow-covered

A fine mist of snow. A few patches of ice, some slight slips. Cold. Fresh air. Sun behind clouds. For the first mile I didn’t see anyone else on the trails. Then, a few runners and walkers. No bikers or skiers. Sometimes I felt strong, sometimes I felt sore, all the time I was happy to be out there by the gorge.

today’s small victories: wasn’t sure how far I’d run but made it to the bottom of the hill. Almost stopped to walk near the top for a minute, but didn’t, kept going until the bottom. Ran from the bottom to under franklin — 3/4 of the hill — instead of walking like I planned

10 Wintery Things

  1. patches of ice on sidewalk that wasn’t shoveled
  2. cold air on my face — not quite cold enough to give me a brain freeze or to freeze the snot in my nose
  3. small, soft flakes or freezing rain freezing on my eyelashes
  4. the sharp thrust, grinding noise combo of feet walking on snow
  5. the river: a mix of white ice and dark (purple?) open water
  6. white, heavy sky
  7. bird song: cheese burger cheese burger
  8. the bluff on the other side of the river: a mix of white with bare brown branches
  9. all of the walking trails were covered in a few inches of snow, some of it untouched, some marked by tracks — feet and skis
  10. leaned over the wall in the flats and listened — a soft, sharp tinkling of snow hitting the ice on the surface of the river

Discovered Lee Ann Roripaugh’s awesome collection #string of pearls yesterday through her poem, #meteorology on poems.com. I’m thinking of buying the collection. Here are a few bits of it — it’s all tankas — that I thought of during my winter run:

from #meteorology/ Lee Ann Roripaugh

yesterday’s snow sleeps :: late this morning in quiet :: white sheets / while rickety
trees comb out fog’s heavy shanks :: of tangled, unruly hair

*

as gusted leaves buzz :: and whorl over snow-sugared :: roofs / but oh! this blown
fluttering’s not a swirling :: of leaves, but winter sparrows

~

ugh! snotted hoody :: pinkened tinge faint litmus stain :: (yes or no / minus
or plus) watercoloring :: blown-through tissues / torn storm blooms

*

wet-dark tree beaded :: in pearled bits of wintry mix :: excited finch swoops
in manic parabolas :: to sip from the leaky eaves’

icicle /

the purple hour

2:40 am — dining room

too restless to notice or think about anything . . . purple mauve lavender orchid magenta is this restlessness a light or dark purple? whatever it is, it’s thick

3:15 am — bedroom floor

shadows slats moon carpet
the slats are soft, barely visible
the shadow of the lamp, its long neck, and something else. the cup? tin of nuts? nope the arm of the sofa
the moon — so bright! how many more days of this moon? this clear sky?

*

  • grape jelly
  • eggplant, japanese
  • eggplant, italian
  • plum
  • pansy
  • Daphne’s dress (Scooby Doo)
  • Violet’s turning violet!
  • purple banana
  • hubba bubba (grape)
  • grape juice
  • raisins
  • easter dress
  • FWA’s favorite color
  • purple toe
  • vikings
  • Barney
  • Dino (Flintstones)
  • Professor Plum

feb 10/RUN

4.5 miles
minnehaha falls and back
7 degrees
75% snow-covered

Sun, not much wind, cold. Wore by yaktrax today. Even though there were big stretches of bare pavement I still think it was a good idea; lots of icy patches. At least once, I felt the yaktrax help me stay upright. Encountered walkers, runners, one bike, dogs. One dog was with a runner and tried to lunge at me. Luckily the runner had a tight hold on their leash.

10 Things

  1. sharp street lamp shadows
  2. strong smell of tobacco from a passing car
  3. tinted snow — usually I’d say it was a bit blue, but I thought purple today
  4. kids laughing and yelling on the playground
  5. tracks through the snow at the park, skipping the sidewalk and taking a shortcut
  6. tracks on the walking path — skis and human feet
  7. minnehaha creek at the falls was slow, thick, frozen, only one dark and open spot
  8. couldn’t see the falls falling, but heard their quiet dripping muffled behind the thick columns of ice
  9. empty benches
  10. empty falls — I don’t think I saw a single person by the falls today

About halfway to the falls, while thinking about purple I suddenly remembered mimeograph machines and the purple ink on the handouts we get copies of in elementary school. Later, on a walk break, I tried to think of as many purple things as I could. I had a list of at least a dozen, but all I can remember is purple Kool-aid. At the end of my run I thought about the Vikings and how purple is strongly associated with Minneapolis because of them and Prince. Prince made me think of a local radio station, the Current, and how they pull the “purple lever” for the first snow of winter: purple lever = a marathon of Prince music.

the purple hour

12:46 am — dining room
to leave a mark, to be marked, bruised, purpled

silence, then a hollow knock, but not silence, buzzing or ringing in my ear, like static
cold air (hear turned down at night)

periwinkle, heather, thistle, lilac, lavender, mauve, grape

purple purple purple purple violet violent violence silence silvery lilac plum plumb — the depths — plump — soft plums of cloud — plume of purpleish smoke

three white lights illuminating the outlet — not night lights plugged into the outlet, but lights embedded in the outlet — they are white and bright at the top, then fading out at the bottom, giving off gray light that reads as pale purple to me — got up to look closely at the lights and realized I was never looking directly at the light, the white and purplish gray shadow were all reflections on the wall, the lightbulbs were at the bottom of the outlet — what is the real light? where it originates, or where it casts?

3:00 am (remembered later) — bedroom
closed blinds, bright moon beaming through in the form of a strange double circle on my hand in light and dark purple

a thin line of light near the closet door

*

My description of the moon light made me think, purple moon, so I looked it up. A video game developer, a type of cheese, a modern furniture company, the name of a dispensary in Oklahoma, a variety of gourmet kale, the cycle when you start your period during a waning moon, the second full moon in April, a Chardonnay, a preschool, an arrangement of flowers with “lavender roses, purple carnations, and cheerful daisies”, a band, a branding company, a color evoking mystery.

Left my desk briefly to tell Scott about the purple moon and he asked, Have you mentioned “The Purple Rose of Cairo” yet? Wow, no! I haven’t seen that movie in almost 30 years. I think it was my favorite in my early 20s — this was before I knew what a creep Woody Allen was. Anyway, I want to watch it today.

This note, “to leave a mark, to be marked, bruised, purpled,” makes me think of two things:

1

This is the light of autumn, not the light of spring.
The light of autumn: you will not be spared.

You will not be spared, now will what you love be spared.
(from October/ Louise Glück)

2

According to the second, Prometheus, goaded by the pain of the tearing beaks, pressed himself deeper and deeper into the rock until he became one with it.

Kafka on Prometheus

Not becoming one with the gorge, but striving to press deeper and deeper into it, to leave a trace/mark on it, and be marked by it (from log entry on 29 dec 2024).

Another purple thing I just remembered: on a weather map, purple represents very cold temperatures.

a screenshot from local weather forecast for this week

feb 9/RUN

3.
under ford bridge and back
9 degrees / feels like 0
100% snow-covered trail

Winter running! Sun, low wind, shadows, snow. I wouldn’t say it was an easy run, but it felt great to be outside and above the river. I don’t remember breathing in the cold air, but I do remember hearing the strange crunch of my foot as it struck the ground. Maybe not a crunch. Some noise that sounded like my foot was slipping or sliding on the snow. A thrust then a momentary stuck-ness before lifting off.

10 Things

  1. the sharp shadow of the street lamp with its pointy top
  2. my shadow crossing over and through another street light shadow
  3. the smell of weed down below in the oak savanna
  4. the thin, crooked shadow of a small tree cast on the snow
  5. an equal mix of solitary and paired runners
  6. the river was mostly covered in still white snow with a few patches of darker ice
  7. a few walkers below on the winchell trail
  8. a bird, singing
  9. a bird, laughing
  10. the sky, a very bright blue

I chanted triple berries — strawberry/raspberry/blueberry — then: purple grape/grieving loss.

today’s small victory: Instead of stopping at the turn around — which is what I usually do — I ran through it and back north, past locks and dam no. 1, past the part of the trail that dips below the road, and up the hill.

With the bright blue sky and the fresh white snow, I would have described the light as blue, but today I saw it as a faint purple. Another purple thought: purple grief is grief tinged with and/or beside joy. Dark, difficult, but more than that, too.

the purple hour

Up twice last night/this morning for the purple hour. Here are my notes:

12:04 am dining room

  • too many naps today? rich dinner? restless legs
  • uncomfortable purple
  • purple gas, purple ache, purple discomfort
  • the purple buzz of the refrigerator
  • the purple clicking of the coputer keys
  • everything chilled, a heavy stillness — not still, as in resting, calm, quiet, but still as in trapped — a purple pause
  • a memory from a run by the gorge: l.e.d. car headlights — not white but bright and purple, or the suggestion of purple

2:01 bedroom

  • Womanist is to feminist as purple is to lavender (Alice Walker)
  • The color purple — should I read it again?
  • The lavender menace — Betty Friedan’s homophobia
  • 2 sets of snores: dog, Scott
  • purple light — the air in the room almost gray, but not, soft, dull, patches of very deep purple, and in-between shadows that are lighter than deep purple, but darker than the purple air

morning reflections: Sitting at my desk, bright from the cold sun, I look around and see blue and green and red and yellow and cream. Purple demands a different sort of light, or lack of light. I thought, suddenly, purple is peripheral. Then I remembered standing in front of a mirror this morning, looking directly into it, not seeing my face, but a purplish gray glob. So, purple is my central vision. Maybe it’s both, but in different ways?

Looked up “purple peripheral” and the first page of search results were all about cyanosis and a lack of oxygen to the extremities (hands, feet).

Somewhere in this search I remember something else about purple: it’s the color associated with pancreatic cancer. You wear a purple ribbon to support pancreatic cancer research. My mom died from pancreatic cancer. Looked it up and it’s a purple ribbon in honor of the founder’s mother whose favorite color was purple and who was diagnosed with and died from pancreatic cancer in 1996.