Tag: morning

june 6/RUN

3.5 miles
47th st loop, short
67 degrees
clouds: cumulus (I think?)

What a beautiful morning for a run! Some sun, some clouds. Coolish air, a breeze. Soft, calm green everywhere. Lots of birds. Not too many runners or bikers. After the frightening, end-of-the-world feelings last week, it’s nice to have a few relaxed, almost normal moments. Ran down past turkey hollow but forgot to look for any turkeys. Didn’t get close enough to the river to see whether it was blue or gray or silver or brown. On the stretch somewhere between 38th and 42nd, heard a dog’s chain clanging below on the Winchell trail. I’ve heard a chain clanging like this on all 3 of my most recent runs–is it at the same spot? is it the same dog? am I just imagining it?

reciting while running

Last week, I memorized Maggie Smith’s “Threshold.” This week I discovered Rita Dove’s “Voiceover” and decided I should postpone memorizing water poems and do a series on inside and outside and traveling in-between them with “Voiceover” as the second poem. So far, I’ve memorized the first half. I recited it in my head a few times as I ran. It’s harder to hang onto the words and think about them during my run as it gets warmer and more humid outside. Haven’t noticed the rhythm in the poem yet. Here are some things I’m noting about the poem today:

  • vast is a great word
  • love the image of smoke coming off the ice on a thawing lake
  • like this idea of being inside a house and still feeling the rooms you’re not in and how feeling them is not the same as observing/seeing them–I want to think more about the limits of vision (as opposed to other senses) in enabling us to be both inside and outside at once
  • I’ve never heard the phrase, “popping a beer.” I get what it means–popping the tab of a beer can–but I’ve never heard it used this way
  • the keyhole sees nothing + stubbing your toe as you move back and forth–a connection to Smith’s threshold!

About 30 minutes after I returned from my run, I recorded the first part of the poem into my phone. I mostly have it memorized, with a few mistakes. I can’t believe I forgot the second sentence, “try it.”

Voiceover/rita dove, pt 1 (june 6)

abolishing the police

It is a unsettling, sad, exciting, and hopeful time in Minneapolis (and around the country) as people who have never–or maybe just barely–questioned the validity of the current police state are thinking deeply about what it might mean to get rid of the police and reimagine how communities/cities might look out for/care and keep each other safe. Intellectuals and activists have been doing this thinking, theorizing, planning work for decades, so there are tons of resources, like this reading list: Reading Towards Abolition: A Reading List on Policing, Rebellion, and the Criminalization of Blackness

june 5/RUN

3.1 miles
2.5 mile loop + extra
62 degrees
humidity: 83%, clouds: none

Sun! Not much wind! Not too many people! A beautiful almost summer morning for a run. Saw my shadow several times. Hello again, friend. Thought I heard some birds–a woodpecker, cardinals, at least one black-capped chickadee. A kid called out to an adult, “look at the runner!” Recited a few lines from Love Song of the Square Root of Negative One and more lines from What Would Root. Steered clear of approaching garbage trucks and bikes. Got a quick glimpse of sparkle–a river sliver. Ran on the river road over clumps of dirt, grass, dead leaves. Yesterday when I ran over the same debris it was dry and made an agreeable crunch and sounded like shredded paper used to cushion objects in a package.

Things here in Minneapolis seem to be settling down–the immediate threat of more violence and destruction could be over, at least for now. Time to return to panic over the pandemic and the inevitable massive spike in cases in the next few weeks. I hope I’m wrong. Such messy feelings about all of this–excitement over the possibility of real change, unwavering belief in the value of people over property, support for many of the extreme actions taken to disrupt normal life and force us to pay attention, fear over the effects of all these public gatherings on the virus, confusion over how/why people seem to be ignoring/forgetting the serious, long term threat of COVID-19. I’m having trouble reconciling my strong belief that these protests/gatherings to collectively share grief and rage were necessary with my equally strong belief that we must socially distance and/or be as careful as we are able to stop the spread of COVID-19. Instead of trying to reconcile these right now, I’ll dwell in the discomfort they create for a while.

Yesterday I posted a Rita Dove poem from the latest issue of POETRY magazine. Today, I’ll post her other poem from that same issue. I love Rita Dove.

Voiceover/ Rita Dove

Impossible to keep a landscape in your head.
Try it: all you’ll get is pieces—the sun
emerging from behind the mountain ridge,
smoke coming off the ice on a thawing lake.
It’s as if our heads can’t contain
anything that vast: it just leaks out.

You can be inside a house and still feel
the rooms you’re not in—kitchen below
and attic above, bedroom down the hall—
but you can’t hold onto the sensation
of being both inside the walls
and outside looking at them
at the same time.

Where do we go with that?
Where does that lead us?

There are spaces for living
and spaces for forgetting.
Sometimes they’re the same.
We walk back and forth without a twitch,
popping a beer, gabbing on the phone,
with only the occasional stubbed toe.

The keyhole sees nothing.
Has it always been blind?

It’s like a dream where a voice whispers,
Open your mouth and you do,
but it’s not your mouth anymore
because now you’re all throat,
a tunnel skewered by air.
So you rewind; and this time
when you open wide, you’re standing
outside your skin, looking down
at the damage, leaning in close …
about to dive back into your body
and then you wake up.

Someone once said: There are no answers,
just interesting questions.
(Which way down? asked the dove,
dropping the olive branch.)

If you think about it,
everything’s inside something else;
everything’s an envelope
inside a package in a case—

and pain knows a way into every crevice.

I want to spend some more time with this poem, thinking about the idea of inside and outside/inner and outer and how we can’t be both at the same time. And, what do I do with that last line?–“pain knows a way into every crevice.” Wow. I’d also like to put it beside a poem by Maria Howe that I discovered last year.

The Affliction/ Maria Howe

When I walked across a room I saw myself walking

as if I were someone else,


when I picked up a fork, when I pulled off a dress,

as if I were in a movie.


                                    It’s what I thought you saw when you looked at me.


So when I looked at you, I didn’t see you

I saw the me I thought you saw, as if I were someone else.

I called that outside—watching. Well I didn’t call it anything

when it happened all the time.

But one morning after I stopped the pills—standing in the kitchen

for one second I was inside looking out.

Then I popped back outside. And saw myself looking.

Would it happen again? It did, a few days later.

My friend Wendy was pulling on her winter coat, standing by the kitchen door

and suddenly I was inside and I saw her.

I looked out from my own eyes

and I saw: her eyes: blue gray    transparent

and inside them: Wendy herself!

Then I was outside again,

and Wendy was saying, Bye-bye, see you soon,

as if Nothing Had Happened.

She hadn’t noticed. She hadn’t known that I’d Been There

for Maybe 40 Seconds,

and that then I was Gone.

She hadn’t noticed that I Hadn’t Been There for Months,

years, the entire time she’d known me.



I needn’t have been embarrassed to have been there for those seconds;

she had not Noticed The Difference.

This happened on and off for weeks,

and then I was looking at my old friend John:

: suddenly I was in: and I saw him,


and he: (and this was almost unbearable)

he saw me see him,

and I saw him see me.

He said something like, You’re going to be ok now,

or, It’s been difficult hasn’t it,

but what he said mattered only a little.

We met—in our mutual gaze—in between

a third place I’d not yet been.

june 4/RUN

3 miles
47th st loop variation (return north on 43rd ave)
67 degrees

Another quiet night last night. No cars or explosions or sirens. Today is the George Floyd memorial service in Minneapolis. Last night the Minneapolis Parks Board unanimously voted to stop using the Minneapolis Police Department. Wow–the U of M, Minneapolis Public Schools and now the parks department. Momentum.

Ran with Scott this morning. Already feeling warm and green. Didn’t notice as many bugs today. Also, not too many people. Definitely more bikers than runners. Saw 2 turkeys crossing the road, heading to turkey hollow. As we ran we talked about what it might look like to reimagine or eliminate the police, and then about our very limited and disappointing experiences with the police in the past. (Such privilege in our lack of experience with the police).

Random memory: Last summer–or was it the summer before last?–we had just arrived home from a trip. For the brief minute we were away from the car, bringing our bags in through the backyard to the house, someone broke into our garage, stole an old iPod from the car, the garage remote, some tools/pump from my bike, and a few other things. It never crossed my mind to call the police. Instead, we talked to several of our neighbors and we all kept a closer eye on the alley for the next few weeks. I can imagine safe/r communities without the police.

Almost forgot: at some point, while we were running on the river road, I looked up at the clouds and remembered Aimee Nezhukumatathil’s suggestion to learn all the cloud types. I can’t remember what today’s clouds looked like. Maybe I should try to describe the clouds in each log entry? Here’s a cloud identifier, in case I’m having trouble figuring it out.

Since memorizing Rita Dove’s “Ode to My Right Knee” last month, I have realized that I love her writing. Here’s a great one that was just published in the June issue of Poetry magazine:

Mirror/ Rita Dove

Mirror,
take this
from
me:
my blasted gaze,
sunken
astonishment. Resolve
memory & rebuild; shame’ll
dissolve
under powder pressed into
my skin.

Oh, avalanche, my harbor:
can I
look
over you;
pit & pustule, crease & blotch
without seeing
you through you—
if all I am
(Am I all?)
is Woe is
me?

Mirror,
this take
from
me:
gaze blasted, my
sunken
resolve, astonishment.
Shame’ll rebuild & memory
dissolve
into pressed powder under
skin, my

harbor, my avalanche. Oh
I can
look
you over;
blotch & crease, pustule & pit—
seeing without
you, through you.
Am I all if
all I am
is Woe is
me?

I love the form of this poem! I want to experiment with it soon. So creative and fun and powerful.

june 3/RUN

3 miles
river road, south/42nd st, west/43rd ave, north/edmund, north/34th st, west
65 degrees
humidity: 90%

Back in Minneapolis. Ran around the neighborhood with Scott this morning. We were gone for a few days and when we came back it was summer. Even more green. Buggy. Overgrown. Last night was quiet. Haven’t heard about any fires or explosions or mayhem. Everything looks peaceful today. Running on the river road, there was no view of the river, only green trees and haze. Surprisingly, I handled the humidity and sun better than I have in the past.

I forgot that yesterday was my 9th anniversary of running. Even if I had known, I don’t think I would have run. By the time we got home to Minneapolis, it was over 90 degrees. I’ll take today as my celebration. 3 relatively easy miles, running with Scott through a neighborhood of resilient people working to create a better city.

I haven’t been thinking about poetry for about a week now. Too overwhelmed with all that’s happened. I want to return to it now. Here’s a poem I’d like to spend some more time with. (Listen to a brief discussion about the poem + Brimhall reading it here.)

Resistance/ TRACI BRIMHALL

I must be the heavy globe
of hydrangea, always bowing
by summer’s end. Must be salt,
like sadness at a burning city,
an ethical disobedience. I must be
a violet thorn of fire. These days
I don’t taste good, but I must
be singing and boneless, a lily.
I must beg for it, eyes flashing
silver as a fish. Must be a rosary
of listening. This is how I know
to love. I must hide under desks
when the forecast reads: leaves red
as meat, sleeping lions, chandelier
of bone, moon smooth as a worry
stone. I must want my life and fear
the thin justice of grass. Clouds
hunt, wound the rising tide. I must
be paradised. On my knees again.

may 28/RUN

2.5 miles
1.5 miles loop + extra
68 degrees
humidity: 45%

Last night was heartbreaking and scary. Peaceful protests, escalated by the police, turned violent. Building looted, burned. I live about a mile and a half away and could hear the sirens and smell the smoke all night. Will it happen again tonight? Such justified anger and rage over decades of racist policies and practices.

Wasn’t sure if I would run this morning but decided it might help me feel slightly less panicked and upset. Listened to my playlist and ran a few stretches much faster than usual. Running helped. Didn’t think about the poem I recently memorized–Threshold/Maggie Smith. Didn’t hear any birds or see any roller skiers. I did see the river briefly through the trees.

A few hours after I was done, sitting on the couch, almost drifting off for a nap, I thought about the lines in Smith’s poem: “Imagine yourself passing from and into. Passing through doorway after doorway after doorway.” The first few times I read these lines I wasn’t sure I liked the idea of passing through more than one doorway/threshold. But I’m warming to it. I kept thinking about the different doorways I pass through–and what I exit (from) and enter (into)–as I make my way to the river. The door to my house, the end of my block, the boulevard and parkway before the trails, the warming up of my body, the loosening of my mind. Not sure if that makes sense, but I’d like to think about it some more.

As I’m writing this, I’m also thinking about Smith’s desire not to be on both sides of the door at once, but to pass through doorway after doorway after doorway, to keep moving, which is the name of her new book.

This poem. Wow.

What Kind of Times Are These/ ADRIENNE RICH

There’s a place between two stands of trees where the grass grows uphill
and the old revolutionary road breaks off into shadows
near a meeting-house abandoned by the persecuted
who disappeared into those shadows.

I’ve walked there picking mushrooms at the edge of dread, but don’t be fooled
this isn’t a Russian poem, this is not somewhere else but here,
our country moving closer to its own truth and dread,
its own ways of making people disappear.

I won’t tell you where the place is, the dark mesh of the woods
meeting the unmarked strip of light—
ghost-ridden crossroads, leafmold paradise:
I know already who wants to buy it, sell it, make it disappear.

And I won’t tell you where it is, so why do I tell you
anything? Because you still listen, because in times like these
to have you listen at all, it’s necessary
to talk about trees.

I knew I recognized this poem. I encountered it a few months ago in this poem: November 30, 2016. And I watched Adrienne Rich read it here.

may 27/RUN

3 miles
river road, south/river road, north/edmund north/edmund, south
64 degrees
humidity: 94%/ dew point: 61

Another sticky morning. Rained all last night. About a mile from my house, people protested the murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis Police. I’ve been sitting here for a few minutes trying to think of what to write after that last sentence. I have no words, or too many words about structural racism and white supremacy and the urgent need to confront it and how to hold a deep love for a place beside a recognition of how racist and unjust it has been and continues to be.

Encountered an entire troop of roller skiers this morning on the river road. Usually I consider roller skiers to be a good omen for my run but not when there are at least a dozen of them not social distancing and taking over half of the road. The rest of the runners and walkers were alone or with only one other person.

I don’t remember too much for the run. Saw 2 construction trucks moving the barricade so they could enter the road, heading to their work site just above the tunnel of trees. Didn’t see the river. Heard some birds, I think, but can’t remember which ones. I’m sure there were some cardinals and black capped chickadees. Also heard water rushing loudly through the drain, making its way to the sewer pipes dumping into the gorge. Don’t remember hearing any fragments of conversation or music but I do remember hearing some sirens–police? ambulance? Not sure.

It was sticky and hot and thick but not too bad. Lots of sweating and dripping. Wore my black twins baseball cap with the velcro in the back–the one I got for free at a game 2 or 3 years ago, handed out at the entrance to the stadium by Dairy Queen. I have at least 2 of these free twins hats. Missing baseball this summer.

reciting while running

Memorized a non-green poem yesterday: Threshold/ Maggie Smith. Thinking about how the west river parkway (aka, the river road), edmund boulevard, and the grassy patch in-between are all part of the threshold between neighborhood and the river gorge. In a management plan from 2002, they describe one purpose of the west river parkway:

To function as an effective transitional zone, the boulevard should retain the natural character of the Gorge but also be visually acceptable to local residents and those using the boulevard and its pedestrian trails.

Thinking about Maggie Smith’s opening lines:

You want a door you can be
       on both sides of at once,

              You want to be
       on both sides of here

and there, now and then,

A door you can be on both sides of: park and neighborhood, civilization and wilderness, houses and river, asphalt and dirt, inside and outside, dreaming and awake. A transition as an easing away from and into (Smith’s line, “passing from and into”).

As I recited this poem, it was hard to think about it too much with all of the humidity, but when I did think about it I wasn’t aware of the rhythm too much. I did notice these pleasing rhymes: “now and then, together and” and “passing from and into/passing through.”

may 26/RUN

3.25 miles
3 mile loop
67 degrees
humidity: 91%/ dew point: 64

At some point, there was sun, but mostly clouds, thick air, humidity. Heard a black capped chickadee calling out as I started my run with no response from another chickadee. I kept hearing, “Hello? Hello? Hello? . . . Hello?” Also heard some cardinals. Reaching the river road, I noticed an older man–probably in his late 70s, early 80s–walking on Edmund. Tall, extra lean, his back slightly hunched but otherwise looking wiry and athletic, wearing running shorts and a tank top. I bet he was a runner.

Was able to run on the trail for a few, short stretches, but mostly stayed on the road. Not too crowded. Managed to get a few quick glimpses of the river–slashes of grayish-blue in between all the green. Ran all the way to under the ford bridge for the first time in more than 2 months. Last time I remember running under it was at the very beginning of all of this pandemic mess, when another runner, way on the other side of the wide path, called out jokingly, “I’m running from the virus!” That was on March 12th, I checked, and it wasn’t the last time I ran under the bridge. I ran to the falls again the next week, but after that I stopped running the trail and started running on the road.

Anything else I remember? Didn’t think about green or any poems I memorized. I was too preoccupied with the humidity and the sweat dripping into my eyes and–I almost forgot–my visor slipping down on my forehead. I think it’s time to retire the visor. What will I wear instead–another baseball cap?

may 25/RUN

3 miles
47th st loop, short
72 degrees
humidity: 81%/ dew point: 66

Rained this morning, stopped around 11. Decided even though it was warm and humid and thick, to go out for a run. Not too bad, but still difficult. 3 miles was all I could manage. I do not handle heat and humidity well. Still, very happy to get out there, and most of it felt good. Heard lots of dripping water. My favorite: the gushing of the ravine–I couldn’t see it, but heard so much water rushing out of the pipe, down the limestone ledge and then the concrete. Also heard the water rushing out of the sewer pipe near 42nd. Wow! Don’t remember being irritated by any bugs or road-hoggers or loud talkers. The path was crowded, but I managed to get my 6+ feet of distance except for once. Anything else: lots of puddle and muddy grass which I successfully avoided.

reciting while running: green and color

After learning Farris’s epic “What Would Root,” I’m not sure where to go with my green poems. I have a few more in the queue to memorize but I don’t know–should I stop learning more green poems? Spend more time with the three I already have? This morning I found several articles about poetry and color. Right now, I’m reading Dorothea Lasky’s “What is Color in Poetry.” She writes:

Perhaps when we connect color to language, to sound, in the space of a poem we reconnect and resist what Breton has named the tragic bifurcation of the so-called real and dream worlds that happens to all adults. Perhaps this is poetry’s purpose in our lives, to reconnect the real and dream worlds to one’s own dormant light. Of course, I believe the easiest way to do this with language is through the perfect use of color. 

What are some perfect uses of color? How, where is green used perfectly?

Here are some other color sources to read/listen to:

may 24/RUN

2 miles
1.75 loop + extra
63 degrees
humidity: 94%, dew point: 62

Established another loop for my summer loop project: 1.75 loop/ start at 36th, north on Edmund, then north on the river road at 33rd, loop around 32nd, south on edmund, then south on river road at 36th, loop around 38th, north on edmund, end at 36th. Sounds more complicated than it is. If they weren’t doing some big sewer project near the tunnel of trees which has shut down the river road for a small stretch, this loop would be north on edmund, south on the river road. Found out this morning that this project is expected to last until the fall. Bummer.

Everything was thick and green. Heavy, but also calm and slow. Wore a tank top today which helped with the heat. Heard lots of birds–some robins I think. (Later, walking with Delia the dog, I heard 2 black capped chickadees doing a call and response–except for it was more a response and call. I heard the response first. I’d like to imagine what they might be saying to each other in their reversed conversation. Anything else? No view of the river, no roller skiers, no Daily Walker. No running path, no spazzy squirrels, no woodpecker. No sun, no bugs, no shadows. Only green–green sky, green view, green air.

Thinking some more about “What Would Root” and what is and isn’t mentioned in the poem: it’s May, there’s some sun, but no wind or humidity or weather at all. No shadows. There are scolding squirrels, birds, and lizards, but no bugs–mosquitoes or gnats or moths or butterflies. No evidence of other humans. No road or path or dirt trail. There is a smell–“the air was sweet with pine and Island Mountain lilac,” taste–“I could taste the granite in the spring,” sight–“the land spread itself greenly for me,” and touch–“the rock was very hard,” but no hearing–no wind rustling through the trees, no noises from the scolding squirrels, or slurps from the red hummingbirds dipping their beaks into the little red hoods of penstemon.

Here’s another poem I found on twitter the other day involving vision. Will I have to memorize a series of poems about vision sometime this summer?

Eyesight/ A.R. Ammons

It was May before my
attention came
to spring and

my word I said
to the southern slopes
I’ve

missed it, it
came and went before
I got right to see:

don’t worry, said the mountain,
try the later northern slopes
or if

you can climb, climb
into spring: but
said the mountain
it’s not that way
with all things, some
that go are gone

may 23/RUN

2.4 miles
1.5 mile loop + .75 loop + extra
62 degrees
94% humidity/ dew point: 61

Humid and thick and sticky. Hard to breathe. Yuck! I already miss the fresher, cooler air. Oh well. Decided to run a few miles this morning before the rain arrives. It’s supposed to rain here all weekend. Lots of other people–runners and walkers–had the same idea. I should start getting up much earlier, when it’s cooler and less crowded. Heard some woodpeckers and a bunch of other birds that I couldn’t readily recognize. Don’t remember much else from my run except that there were lots of puddles on the sidewalk, lots of dripping trees. At some point during the run, I got a nice little shower when the wind nudged some wet leaves and they misted me. Recited “What Would Root” a few times. When I finished my run I recited it into my phone.

What Would Root, may 23

Listening back to the recording, I’m pleased with how I remembered almost all of it and struck by how many birds I can hear in the background. As I listened to the line, “that they were a part of my body, I could not doubt; they were living and enervated and jutting out”, I thought about how I am not entirely sure what “enervated” means. Looked it up and was surprised: exhausted, fatigued, weary. I was thinking it would mean the opposite of that but as I think about the rest of the poem it makes sense. The next line is, “I sat down” and a few lines later the narrator says, “I lay down beneath my own branches.” So, does that mean rooting is akin too resting here? Stepping away from the world, “to nuzzle into the earth”? Or maybe it means being restored, revitalized–for me, that fits better with the color green. I love the world Farris creates here and I want to lay beneath my own branches and nuzzle into the earth–at least for a while, until this terrible pandemic is over and the assholes who are making it much worse are gone.

Speaking of the pandemic, we are entering a new phase. Things are opening back up and it seems like some people think this means things are getting better. Who thinks this and why? I can’t decide how much of this attitude is coming from “actual” people, and how much of it is propaganda designed to get us to risk our lives for the sake of spending money. I do not like this phase; I like it less than the last phase.

Found this poem after using the search word “green.” I want to think about it some more as it relates to my vision and how I see color and forms.

I Look Up from My Book and Out at the World through Reading Glasses/ Diane Seuss

The world, italicized.

Douglas fir blurs into archetype,
a black vertical with smeared green arms.
The load of pinecones at the top,
a brown smudge which could be anything: a wreath
of moths, a rabbit strung up
like a flag.

All trees are trees.
Death to modifiers.

A smear of blue, a smear of gold that could be a haystack,
a Cadillac, or a Medal of Honor without a neck to hang upon.

I know the dog killed something today, but it’s lost in fog.
A small red splotch in a band of monochromatic green.
And now, the mountain of bones is only a mountain capped in snow.
 
It’s a paradise of vagaries.
No heartache.
Just an eraser smudge,
smoke-gray.

All forms, the man wrote, tend toward blur.

added 6 april 2024: Here is the source of the “All forms tend toward blur” ending:

The specific reference is on page 243 – the quotation below gives a lot more context to what Bryson is talking about with that particular phrase:

Chardin’s solution to the problem of defamiliarisation is to cultivate a studied informality of attention, which looks at nothing in particular (figs. 13 and 14). He shows no signs of wanting to tighten up the loose world of the interiors he presents. On the contrary, his own intervention is unassuming, and seems so ordinary as to relax rather than heighten attention. This is clearest in his compositional technique. Usually com- position involves a staging of the scene before the viewer, a spectacular interval or proscenium frame between the subject and the scene. The placement of the wafers in Baugin’s Dessert with Wafers, for example, is calculated with immense and evident pains. But Chardin avoids composition of this self-conscious kind. He does not want to disturb the world or to reorganise it before the subject, as though to do so would be to keep the viewer at arm’s length and to push him or her out from the scene, when what is valued is exactly the way the scene welcomes the viewer in without ceremony, to take things as he or she finds them. For the same reason his compositions tend to avoid priorities: one thing is not intrinsically more important than another; to suggest otherwise would be to upset the evenness of regard as it moves with equal interest and equal engagement across the visual field. Chardin undoes the hierarchy between zones that composition normally aims for, by giving everything the same degree of attention, or inattention; so that the details, as they emerge, are striking only because of the gentle pressures bearing down on them from the rest of the painting.

For the same reason also, all the forms tend towards blur–perhaps Chardin’s greatest formal innovation–as though he were trying to paint peripheral as well as central vision, and in this way to suggest a familiarity with the objects in the visual field on such intimate and friendly terms that nothing any more needs to be vigilantly watched. The scene contains no surprises and harbours no shocks, and vision can relax its grip. The blurring of the forms marks a kind of homecoming of the subject into the ground of being: the sign that we really are at home in this world is that we no longer have to strain our eyes.

The balance between ‘Medusal’ vision and ‘anti-Medusal’ vision is a delicate matter, and Chardin’s preference for an informal blurring of forms can be thought of as a critique of still life’s tendency to dwell for too long on the face of familiarity, and thereby to produce visual unease. But the balance can be upset by another potent force, that of display. (pp. 241-244)

Chardin and the Text of Still Life by Norman Bryson. Critical Inquiry, Winter 1989, Vol. 15, No. 2. (jstor)