5.75 miles franklin hill turn around 69 degrees / soft rain
Finally, rain! Not enough, but still helpful. When it stopped for a few minutes, I decided to go out for a run. Ran north on the river road trail all the way to the bottom of the Franklin hill. Turned around, ran all the way back up to the bridge, then walked a few minutes before running again. Everything wet and green. Heard lots of singing birds and imagined their song was a celebration for the rain. So much dripping. I couldn’t tell what was rain and what was water falling from the trees. I didn’t care. It all felt refreshing. Encountered some runners but it wasn’t too crowded for a late Saturday morning. Felt strong and happy and relaxed. I’m running slower these days, but it doesn’t feel too slow, which is nice.
Ran north listening to the gorge, ran south listening to a playlist–Todd Rundgren, The Black Keys, Billy Joel
moment of the run
Heading down into the tunnel of the trees, fog had settled in the mid-story canopy. Everything hazy, a soft white, then a dark green. As I ran deeper into the trees, the air cleared. Then, heading up and out of it on the other side, the fog returned. Such a cool experiences. Mysterious, other-worldly, bewildering.
I’ve been thinking about the way, when you walk down a crowded aisle, people pull in their legs to let you by. Or how strangers still say “bless you” when someone sneezes, a leftover from the Bubonic plague. “Don’t die,” we are saying. And sometimes, when you spill lemons from your grocery bag, someone else will help you pick them up. Mostly, we don’t want to harm each other. We want to be handed our cup of coffee hot, and to say thank you to the person handing it. To smile at them and for them to smile back. For the waitress to call us honey when she sets down the bowl of clam chowder, and for the driver in the red pick-up truck to let us pass. We have so little of each other, now. So far from tribe and fire. Only these brief moments of exchange. What if they are the true dwelling of the holy, these fleeting temples we make together when we say, “Here, have my seat,” “Go ahead—you first,” “I like your hat.”
I love the idea of small, brief moments of exchange carving out a sacred space together. Some might call these “good manners,” but I don’t like how that phrase suggests that displaying/practicing them is about ME and how good and moral I am. Small gestures like thanking someone or moving your legs to let them pass is more about another–about seeing and acknowledging them (beholding their existence and their worthiness). To me, these small, repeated rituals are essential for love and for living in the midst of/ with others.
run: 3.1 miles 2 trails the no-stress way 69 degrees dew point: 64
Decided to try a variation on the 2 trails that would hopefully not be as stressful as the way I’ve been going this summer. Instead of heading south on the river road trail, which involves battling cars at the 4 way stop at 35th, and then avoiding pairs or packs of runners and speeding, crowding bikers, I ran on the grassy boulevard between Edmund and the River Road. I crossed over to the trail at 42nd and only had to run up above, on the more crowded trail, for 2 or 3 minutes. Much better! Love (for other runners and bikers + running by the gorge) restored, irritation avoided. Nice.
Shortly before starting my run, it had rained briefly. Not even enough to dampen all of the ground, everywhere patches of dry, parched dirt. Enough to make it all feel wet though, and to hear sprinkling coming out of the sewer instead of just trickling or dribbling.
Ran by the house on Edmund that posts poems in their front windows. No new poems today. Still 3 poems by June Jordan.
As I ran north on the lower trail, I started thinking about my vision. I imagined that I might need a white cane sometime in my 50s and I thought that it won’t bother me. Well, some parts of it will bother me, I’m sure, but I won’t worry about what other people think.
Yesterday at the eye doctor, during one of the tests the doctor said, “Now, this is the worst part.” It wasn’t bad at all for me, so I asked, “Why is this the worst part? It didn’t bother me at all.” He responded, “That’s because you don’t have any cone cells left.” He was shining a super bright light directly into the center of my eyes. For anyone with “normal” vision, the light would have been painfully bright. I’m glad I learned to ask. It’s helpful to know–a little disturbing too to think about how few cones I have left, and how dead the central vision in my eyes is.
It’s Thursday, so usually I’d be doing open swim too but the threat of a severe thunderstorm forced them to cancel. No storm. Bummer.
This month I’m thinking about love. In particular, I’m trying to think about love in new ways, beyond the clichés of what it means to love and how we represent that love. Here are 2 poems that complicate the ultimate symbol of love, the heart. Before posting them I just want to add, in my most grumpiest voice: I really don’t like the heart gesture that so many athletes are making with their hands at the Olympics as a way to signal their love to friends and family back home. Bring back Carol Burnett’s tug of the ear, I say! Much more personal and meaningful than the trendy, empty gesture of the hand-heart, popularized by Taylor Swift in the 2010s. I read that she tested out several different gestures on her audience and stuck with this one when it got the biggest response. Expression of love focus-grouped. I mentioned my complaint to my daughter and she showed me the heart hand signal that her favorite band, BTS, does. A fist with 2 fingers crossed. To me it looked like an actual heart with the fingers representing the aorta. Probably not, but I thought it was cooler.
Heart/ Maggie Smith
A child of, say, six knows you’re not the shape she’s learned to make by drawing half along a fold, cutting, then opening. Where do you open?
Where do you carry your dead? There’s no locket for that–hinged, hanging on a chain that greens your throat. And the dead inside you, don’t you hear them breathing? You must have a hole they can press their gray lips to. If you open– when you open–will we find them folded inside? In what shape? I mean what cut shape is made whole by opening? I mean beside the heart.
It’s neither red nor sweet. It doesn’t melt or turn over, break or harden, so it can’t feel pain, yearning, regret.
It doesn’t have a tip to spin on, it isn’t even shapely— just a thick clutch of muscle, lopsided, mute. Still, I feel it inside its cage sounding a dull tattoo: I want, I want—
but I can’t open it: there’s no key. I can’t wear it on my sleeve, or tell you from the bottom of it how I feel. Here, it’s all yours, now— but you’ll have to take me, too.
Rita Dove and Maggie Smith are two of my favorite poets.
A nice morning for a run, even if the smoke from the Canadian wildfires is still lingering. We are in a drought and everything is dry. Only a trickle out of the sewer at 42nd. My steps on the dirt and gravel sound sharper, crisper and the rustling in the bushes, more ominous. All around the leaves and vines droop, gasping for moisture. Running on the lower trail, I could smell the sewer more than usual. Overripe. Unpleasant. Near the start of my run, I could hear the coxswain calling out on the river.
Mostly I enjoyed my run, but I struggled to find the love for others and not just annoyance. Bikers cutting too close, walkers not giving me enough room. Running south on the upper trail in the morning is a challenge. Too many walkers and bikers, all seeming closer with my vision. I uttered, under my breath, “what the fuck?” several times. After the second or third time I thought, “what is wrong with people?,” I decided that it was not them, or me (which is often my next conclusion in these situations), but the trail. From the spot above the oak savanna to 44th, this stretch is a problem. The running and biking paths only separate a few times, and the bike trail is almost always right next to the road and to speeding cars, traveling too fast on a windy, narrow road intended for pleasure drives not commuting. So, to find the love, I will try to avoid running on this part of the trail. Because of how narrow it is and my constant need to look out for others when I’m on it, it isn’t usually much fun. I’m fine with finding other ways to run south. I might try running on Edmund or in the grassy boulevard again.
Here’s one of Maggie Smith’s most well-known poems. It feels fitting for a month about love and finding the love in spite of the world:
Life is short, though I keep this from my children. Life is short, and I’ve shortened mine in a thousand delicious, ill-advised ways, a thousand deliciously ill-advised ways I’ll keep from my children. The world is at least fifty percent terrible, and that’s a conservative estimate, though I keep this from my children. For every bird there is a stone thrown at a bird. For every loved child, a child broken, bagged, sunk in a lake. Life is short and the world is at least half terrible, and for every kind stranger, there is one who would break you, though I keep this from my children. I am trying to sell them the world. Any decent realtor, walking you through a real shithole, chirps on about good bones: This place could be beautiful, right? You could make this place beautiful.
swim: 2.25 miles / 2.3 loops lake nokomis open swim 85 degrees
Choppy tonight. So choppy that they removed the green buoys; they were drifting too much. On my first loop, heading towards the little beach, my eyes began to burn. I hadn’t washed enough of the baby wash out that I used to anti-fog my googles. It got so bad, I swam much of it with my eyes closed. Didn’t matter; I still swam straight. I stopped at the white buoy off of the little beach and rinsed my eyes out. Ouch. On the second loop, my feet started feeling weird. Almost like they might cramp up. Unsettling. I paused a few times mid-lake to try to relax them. Stopped after loop 2 thinking I was probably done. Not tired, just scared of foot cramps in the middle of the lake, too far from a shore. Decided to try one more loop. Still felt weird, so I turned around at the second buoy and headed back. Not as much as I would have liked to swim, but still over 2 miles. Met STA for a beer at Sandcastle. Even with the problems in the water, it was a nice night.
Keeping up the Saturday tradition of running the marshall loop. Got a later start so it was sunnier, with less shade. Listened to a iTunes playlist that I created a few years back–The Black Keys, Fall Out Boy, Billy Joel, ACDC, Pat Benatar, Jamirquai, and perfect timing for John Williams’ Theme from Raiders of the Lost Ark: running up the last stretch of the marshall hill, almost at the top.
Running over the lake street bridge to St. Paul, I watched a big bird–I think it was a turkey vulture–soaring high above the river. Running back over the lake street bridge to Minneapolis, I looked down at several shells. Rowers! Right below me, just crossing under the bridge heading south, was a single scull. The rower was wearing a bright orange shirt. Since they were facing me, I thought about waving, but then decided I was too high up and moving too fast.
Reaching the top of marshall, running by Black Coffee and Waffles, I could smell the waffles and their sweet bakery smell. I used to love waffles, piled high with whipped cream and chocolate. Now that much sugar gives me a headache. What a drag it is getting old.
There is still a lot of smoke in the air. It didn’t bother my breathing too much. Crossing the bridge, the smoke made everything hazy and the sky was almost white.
what is water in the eyes of water loose inquisitive fragile anxious a wave, a winged form splitting up into sharp glances
what is the sound of water after the rain stops you can hear the sea washing rid of the world’s increasing complexity, making it perfect again out of perfect sand
oscillation endlessly shaken into an entirely new structure what is the depth of water from which time has been rooted out
the depth is the strength of water it can break glass or sink steel treading drowners inwards down what does it taste of
water deep in it sown world steep shafts warm streams coal salt cod weed dispersed outflows and flytipping
and the sun and its reflexion throwing two shadows what is the beauty of water sky is its beauty
4.5 miles minnehaha falls and back (on the winchell trail) 72 degrees
They canceled open swim today; the air quality is dangerous (176, which is unhealthy). The smoke from the fires up north is still here. I’m disappointed but also relieved. I can still feel the effects from the smoke of last night’s swim. I went out for a run instead, which made me feel better. I didn’t have any trouble breathing. Ran to the falls and back. The falls were low; no roaring, rushing water. I saw a large bird–a turkey vulture? hawk?–high up in the sky. I don’t remember hearing any black capped chickadees or cardinals or woodpeckers. Running at the start of the Winchell Trail, I (too?) quietly warned the walker ahead of me that I was coming. He had headphones on and didn’t hear me. Then he turned, saw me, and uttered, in surprise, “Oh God!” I wasn’t running fast, so it was no big deal. Just funny. Heard some water trickling out of the sewer pipe at 42nd. Don’t remember what I thought about, but I do remember trying to forget the increased anxiety I have over wildfires and Delta variants. Some days it’s a struggle hanging onto joy and delight in the midst of so much evidence that everything is falling apart.
Water: a smoky river, not glittering in the hazy sun; a subdued waterfall; a receding creek; dripping ponytail, forehead, back; trickling pipes; thirst and the desire for some sips from a water fountain; an empty, swimmer-less lake
Hot. Sweaty. Too many bikes biking in pairs beside each other, taking over the path. Still, a good run. Just before starting, I listened to a recording of myself reciting 2 poems I’m working on. Thoughts about them came and went as I ran above the river. On the Winchell Trail, right before running up the short, steep hill near Folwell, I thought about how I don’t always notice the river when I’m running next to it. Sometimes I’m distracted by other thoughts or an approaching person. Sometimes the river is hidden behind a veil of green. And sometimes I’m too lost in the dream world. Then David Foster Wallace’s commencement speech with the refrain, “This is water” popped into my head. I decided to stop at the top of the hill and record my thoughts:
thoughts while running/ 29 july
Okay, I’m running and I had an idea. Thinking about how when I’m running on the Winchell Trail above the river, sometimes I don’t remember to look at the river, to acknowledge the river, behold it, recognize that it’s there. And I started thinking about David Foster Wallace and “this is water” and how sometimes it’s important to notice and behold and say, “this is water.” To say, “this is water,” is to stand outside of it, to have some sort of distance, to be beside it. Sometimes we want to be immersed in the water. We want to be immersed in a dream world or a now that is not outside, not as distant, not beside. That means we don’t notice that this is water because we’re in it, and that’s a good thing too.
I reread the transcript of Wallace’s speech. I like many of his ideas about the value of a liberal arts education for giving us the tools to think critically, to be aware, to notice a wider range of realities beyond our limited, selfish one, to move past our unconscious “default” settings. Much of it is based on choice and will and our ability, which we must cultivate through education/practice/habits, to be open to understanding situations in new, potentially more generous, ways.
I like these lines:
If you’re automatically sure that you know what reality is, and you are operating on your default setting, then you, like me, probably won’t consider possibilities that aren’t annoying and miserable. But if you really learn how to pay attention, then you will know there are other options. It will actually be within your power to experience a crowded, hot, slow, consumer-hell type situation as not only meaningful, but sacred, on fire with the same force that made the stars: love, fellowship, the mystical oneness of all things deep down.
In his speech, Wallace’s primary default setting is that we are selfish–everything is centered on us–and that we passively and consistently frame the world in this way. His solution: actively and deliberately think about the world in other ways. Seriously consider others’ perspectives, their struggles. Be actively critical, not passively uncritical. But, as I’m learning through poetry and various other things I’m reading about attention, sometimes letting go, being vulnerable and not in control, not trying to see things more generously but just being out in the world, moving and breathing and attending to it, sharing space in it with others (and not claiming it as yours) enables us to transform our experiences of it. I feel like I’m not quite making sense here, but I’m trying to get to the point that there are different forms of caring and giving attention, and some of them don’t involve deliberate, controlled focus on something. I’m thinking of soft fascination and being beside/entangled and the periphery.
bike: 8.6 miles lake nokomis and back 80 degrees wildfire smoke from Canada
No problem biking to the lake even though it was very smoky. They finished the sewer work they were doing by the mustache bridge so the bike trail was finally open again. Hooray! So much easier and safer not having to bike on the road and cross back and forth so many times. Very happy to feel mostly comfortable on my bike, able to see most things and not feel scared all the time.
swim: 2 miles / 2 loops lake nokomis open swim
Dark tonight. Strange, unsettling. Eerie on the lake with the sun covered with smoke. My googles fogged up again, even though I treated them, making it harder to see. I think Johnson’s Baby Shampoo doesn’t work, only Johnson’s baby wash does. Heard lots of sloshing and splashing. Enjoyed the swim, but felt less buoyant. At one point, it almost seemed like my foot was about to cramp up so I briefly stopped to stretch it. I’m getting better at stopping, taking my time. Another military plane flew low above me, roaring in the sky. That, with the waves and the smoke, make it feel almost apocalyptic. Noticed a bird flying in the sky too, near the plane. From my perspective in the lake, looking up from the side as I breathed, they looked the same size and shape. Funny how being the lake makes everything seem the same. Because of the smoke, I tried to take it easier, so I only swam 2 loops.
A few days ago (july 26) I foolishly asked how much choppier it is in Lake Superior than it was at cedar lake while I was swimming. Here’s one answer by the poet laureate of the UP (poet laureate? very cool!):
Dawn, a lit fuse. The radioman says “bombogenesis,” like agates tumbling from a jar—system as meteorite off Whitefish Point. In other words, water
lynx, Mishipeshu, lathered up in red. In a heartbeat, rollers mass two stories trough to insatiate tempest, unquelled by prayer nor cigarette, careless, mean,
a cold-blooded indifference so pure, a strong swimmer won’t last ten wet minutes. At the Keweenaw, surf pummels the stamp sands with ochre fists, ore boats stack up lee
of the stone, and entire beaches stand up to walk away. At Marquette, two lovers walk onto Black Rocks, sacrificial lambs— their bodies will never be recovered.
4 miles trestle turn around + extra 73 degrees humidity: 85% / dew point: 68
Woke up to dark skies. An hour later: thunderstorms. Around 10 it stopped, so I went out for a run. It was warm and humid but not oppressive. How is that possible? Forgot (again) to greet the welcoming oaks, but checked for stacked stones by the sprawling oak tree. Zero. Everything was dripping. Including me, after about a mile. I don’t remember seeing the river. Too much green. Noticed one of the unofficial trails leading down into the gorge just before lake street. Also noticed a tent set up under the lake street bridge, right next to the portapotty. All zipped up. I wondered how hot they were last night, when the low was in the upper 70s. I also wondered if they were in the tent because they’d been evicted (looked it up and the 15 month eviction moratorium is ending but landlords can’t evict until Sept).
delight of the day
As I approached the trestle, I began hearing a loud rumble. At first I tuned it out, but then I realized: a train! It was hard to see with all of the green blocking my view of the bridge, but slowly I saw the cars. The train was still there, rumbling along, as I passed under the trestle a minute later. Very cool. In the hundreds of times I’ve run under this trestle, I have only encountered a train on the bridge 3 or 4 times. These tracks are hardly ever used. Why was the train crossing today? I kept waiting for the beep beep of the horn but it never came. Only booms as the car lumbered over the old tracks.
After the rain, it’s time to walk the field again, near where the river bends. Each year I come to look for what this place will yield – lost things still rising here.
The farmer’s plow turns over, without fail, a crop of arrowheads, but where or why they fall is hard to say. They seem, like hail, dropped from an empty sky,
Yet for an hour or two, after the rain has washed away the dusty afterbirth of their return, a few will show up plain on the reopened earth.
Still, even these are hard to see – at first they look like any other stone. The trick to finding them is not to be too sure about what’s known;
Conviction’s liable to say straight off this one’s a leaf, or that one’s merely clay, and miss the point: after the rain, soft furrows show one way
Across the field, but what is hidden here requires a different view – the glance of one not looking straight ahead, who in the clear light of the morning sun
Simply keeps wandering across the rows, letting his own perspective change. After the rain, perhaps, something will show, glittering and strange.
Wow, I love this poem. I’m very glad I searched “after the rain poetry” and found it. The different view he discusses in the later stanzas is what I’m exploring. It’s ED’s slant truth and my sideways/peripheral. It’s also the practice of soft fascination–what we don’t notice we’re seeing when we’re focused on other things. And it’s learning new ways to see without certainty.
Hot and humid this morning. Not too bad in the shade. Heard some birds, noticed the river. Can’t really remember what I thought about as I ran. The paved trail near the road was crowded with walkers, runners, and bikers. On the trail below, I was one of only a few humans. It was a good run.
Entanglements
the gnat swimming in the liquid in my eye
the darting chipmunk who crossed my path and made me stutter-step down in the savanna
the coxswain’s voice floating up from the river
the runner and 2 bikers side-by-side, approaching me on my left and right at the same time, too fast and too close
the calling cardinal
encroaching vines brushing my face, my shoulders, my ankles
the dog and their human walking near a big boulder, another pair on the gravel just past the ravine
the jingling collar of another dog, far below me, much closer to the water
the branch of a tree, waving from the weight of a critter–a squirrel? bird?
yellowed leaves littering the dirt trail
the stones studding the trail, a few making me slow to a walk so I didn’t trip over them
swim: 2 miles/ 2 loops lake nokomis open swim 91 degrees
Very warm at the lake tonight. The air was warm, the water too. When I started swimming, I went through a few cold spots. Nice. Mostly breathed every 5. The water was much smoother, less choppy. Still had trouble seeing the buoys, but no trouble staying on course. Another great swim. I love how much time I’m spending in the lake this summer.
water thoughts
1
I have seen this commercial several times in the last few days, while watching the Olympics, especially the swimming events:
Are our hearts really made up of 73% water? Checked it, and yes, according to H.H. Mitchell, Journal of Biological Chemistry 158:
the brain and heart are composed of 73% water, and the lungs are about 83% water. The skin contains 64% water, muscles and kidneys are 79%, and even the bones are watery: 31%.
If you have ever seen the ocean throwing cold waves from her hand pulling shells from mighty depths tossing each upon wet sand, you can understand how sound waves move like water through dry air. One-by-one, vibrations follow pressing sounds from here-to-there. Sounds can pass through liquids. Through gases. Solids too. But sounds waves moving through the air are sound waves meant for you. Violin or thunderstorm — each will reach your waiting ear to play upon a tiny drum. This is how you hear.
3
…underwater sound waves pass directly into your head, bypassing your ears altogether. That’s because body tissues contain such a large amount of water. Try plugging your ears underwater and listening for another splash of someone jumping in. It will be just as loud as the last splash when your ears were not plugged.
No swimming today. First time since last Saturday. It’s already warm at 8 am. 90s in the afternoon. Ran the marshall loop. No stopping at the top of the hill–ran past Real Wicker and Black Coffee and Waffles. Is it called that because they only serve black coffee, no lattes? Never thought about that before. Chanted some triple berries: strawberry/blackberry/raspberry. Don’t remember noticing much. Looked down at the river as I crossed it–no rowers, a few logs near the shore. Don’t remember feeling any bugs or hearing any birds. No planes or trains. I might have heard a roller skier’s clicking poles. No music blasting from a radio or a bike speaker.
Water Thoughts: Fish
It’s still July, so I’m still finding water poems, which is getting harder, at least with my amateur approach to researching them. Anyway, here’s a few fragments about fishes. An entire poem, some parts of others, a poem of mine, a few fish sounds, and an excerpt from a commencement speech.
Look at them flit Lickety-split Wiggling Swiggling Swerving Curving Hurrying Scurrying Chasing Racing Whizzing Whisking Flying Frisking Tearing around With a leap and a bound But none of them making the tiniest tiniest tiniest tiniest tiniest sound
There is a fish in me . . . I know I came from salt-blue water-gates . . . I scurried with shoals of herring . . . I blew waterspouts with porpoises . . . before land was . . . before the water went down . . . before Noah . . . before the first chapter of Genesis.
from The Nude Swim/ Anne Sexton
All the fish in us had escaped for a minute. The real fish did not mind. We did not disturb their personal life. We calmly trailed over them and under them, shedding air bubbles
Imposter/ Sara Lynne Puotinen
Part of me wants to be a fish forever submerged in the middle of the lake but most of me wants to stay human and crawl back to shore.
With each loop I wonder if a transformation will occur before the beach is reached. Will I sprout scales gain gills lose lungs?
Yet as the loop ends and my feet touch sand I always remain the same— a human only pretending to be a fish.
There are these two young fish swimming along and they happen to meet an older fish swimming the other way, who nods at them and says “Morning, boys. How’s the water?” And the two young fish swim on for a bit, and then eventually one of them looks over at the other and goes “What the hell is water?”
***
It is about the real value of a real education, which has almost nothing to do with knowledge, and everything to do with simple awareness; awareness of what is so real and essential, so hidden in plain sight all around us, all the time, that we have to keep reminding ourselves over and over:
“This is water.”
“This is water.”
It’s fun to put together these fragments around a theme. I used to love doing it when constructing a syllabus–maybe one of my favorite parts of teaching and syllabus writing: creating a conversation between different voices that might lead to more conversations in a class. I might do more of these…
run: 3.55 miles 2 trails 68 degrees air quality warning, smoke from fires in canada
The air didn’t feel too smoky this morning, not hard to breathe. Overcast. A dark green. For a few minutes, heard a roller skier approaching from behind, their ski poles click click click clicking. Encountered more runners than walkers, a few bikers. Turned down at 44th to the start of the Winchell Trail. A wonderful dark, mysterious green. Heard the steady dripping of the sewer pipe. Also heard the rowers on the river. 2 coxswains, 1 male and 1 female, instructing the rowers: “Make sure you use your legs in the first half of your stroke. It should be mostly legs.”
Last week I mentioned to STA that there was some asphalt on the part of the dirt trail between 38th and the savanna. He didn’t think so. Today, running, I noticed that it was almost all dirt, but that there were a few chunks of asphalt–at least it looked like asphalt to me as I ran by it. Was it? I think so. How long ago was this trail abandoned to the dirt–the glacial till? The chain link fence beside it is in rough shape–this is the spot where there’s a tree trunk growing through the fence and a fence growing out of the tree limbs. Was it in the last century–the 1980s or 90s–that they repaired the fence or repaved the trail here?
Ran by the ravine up the steep gravel hill. Past the overlook and the ancient boulder–no stacked stones today. Down through the tunnel of trees, voices floating up from below. Rowers on the river, or hikers on the trail?
First forget what time it is for an hour do it regularly every day
then forget what day of the week it is do this regularly for a week then forget what country you are in and practise doing it in company for a week then do them together for a week with as few breaks as possible
follow these by forgetting how to add or to subtract it makes no difference you can change them around after a week both will help you later to forget how to count
forget how to count starting with your own age starting with how to count backward starting with even numbers starting with Roman numerals starting with the old calendar going on to the old alphabet going on to the alphabet until everything is continuous again go on to forgetting elements starting with water proceeding to earth rising in fire
forget fire
swim: 2.25 miles / 6 loops cedar lake open swim 85 degrees
Another wonderful swim! Windy. The water wasn’t choppy, but it was moving. Pushing everything off course, including the buoy. I didn’t notice it in my first loop until I realized I was way off course–far into the other side, almost swimming parallel to the shore instead of towards it. In other years, this would have bothered me. Not today. No panic or fear or frustration. Just getting back on course. This year, I am enjoying the challenge of figuring out how to adjust. Tonight the solution: swim hard at an angle into the current. At times, it felt like I was swimming in place. I wonder how many others swimmers enjoy this like I do?
The milfoil or whatever aquatic vegetation it is (I couldn’t find any more information), felt feathery today as it brushed past my arm and shoulder. The vegetation is thicker, growing up from below, at Hidden/East Beach, but in the middle of the lake, there were only a few stray plants being carried by the current.
Anything else I can remember? My left (OG) knee felt a little sore, so did my back. I don’t recall hear any strange sounds. No music or snippets of conversation. At one point, I thought I saw some big and dark hulk off to the side. Was something there? I never checked. In my first loop, I thought I saw the lifeguard on a kayak marking the edge of the course so I swam slightly away from them. Realized it was the buoy. Later, thought I was swimming towards the far buoy, realized it was a lifeguard. My skin felt itchy after I exited the water, on the drive home.