Tag: no headphones

june 24/RUNSWIM

4.75
veterans home
64 degrees

The heat broke. Yes! Still overheated by the end, but much easier to run in the 60s than the 80s. Did my 9/1 again. About 2 minutes into the third segment of running, nearing a steep hill, I briefly contemplated taking another walk break. Then I remembered that I took an extra walk break around the same time yesterday. This might become a habit, I thought, so I decided to keep going. Make it to the top of the hill. Make it to the parking lot. Make it to the bench above the edge of the world. Then I was at 9 minutes. Victory!

Before I went out for my run, I revisited CAConrad’s TL;DR and their advice for listening:

listen to the most immediate sounds in the building. Let the layers reveal themselves, shifting to what you hear further away, then further.

When you feel you have heard everything, wait. Sit there a little longer, listening for the faintest of traffic in the sky or a faraway rumble.

As I ran, I listened for the the layers. Running above the falls, on the other side of the creek, I tried to listen to what was beyond the soft rushing of the water over limestone. Cars, a train horn, birds, my foot steps. I tried to listen for voices at the overlook. Did I hear any? I don’t think so.

10 Sounds

  1. a car, whooshing by me on the street
  2. a few pebbles crunching under the wheel
  3. the soft knocking of a woodpecker
  4. kids laughing on the playground
  5. the creek, tumbling over rocks
  6. the soft rush of the falls
  7. scraping — someone working on the new trail below me
  8. the clicking of a roller skier’s poles across the road
  9. the sharp clanging of a dog collar
  10. the shifting of a bike gear

what is a tree?

Yesterday, walking on the gravel road that leads to the cedar lake beach, I noticed the husk of a tree — a sad-looking trunk with no top and no branches. When I pointed it out to Scott he said, that’s not a tree. Trees have branches. Even little trees have branches. Running today, I suddenly wondered about a tree’s root system and what was underground. Can that define a tree? Looked it up, and according to several sources, there is no universal or official scientific definition of a tree. The generally accepted idea is that it has a single, thick trunk, branches, a root system.

run 5

broke
still
again
about
third
steep
world
cedar

below
heard
water
think
wheel
creek
trail
beach

skier
break
might
extra
habit
bench
sharp
thick

I have a third wheel habit.
again, water, my break below.
a beach bench thick with habit
trail-think, creek-think, beach-think: one is still, one sharp, one thick
world — break what broke again
steep bench habit
beyond the linear layer, a wheel world could be heard

floating again

I returned to Anne Carson’s Float today and found many delightful things in her pair of lectures, “Uncle Falling,” including this:

Uncle Falling / Anne Carson

I like to write lectures. My favorite part is connect-
ing the ideas. The best connections are the ones
that draw attention to their own frailty so that at
first you think: what a poor lecture this is–the
ideas go all over the place and then later you think
but still, what a terrifically perilous activity it is,
this activity of linking together all the threads of
human sin that go into making what we call sense,
what we call reasoning, an argument, a conversa-
tion. how light, how loose, how unprepared and
unpreparable is the web of connections between
any thought and any thought.

CHORUS 1:
Here’s a thought

CHORUS 2, 3:
Here’s another

CHORUS 1, 2, 3, 4:
How about getting from here to there

CHORUS 4:How about spending some time in mid-air

CHORUS 3:
Much depends upon the fact

CHORUS 2:
that one falls

CHORUS 1:
or one does not fall

swim: 3 loops
open swim lake nokomis
80 degrees

A wonderful night for a swim! Warm water, hardly any chop, no glaring sun. So many sparkle friends and bubbles and muscles being worked. And, a ferret on the loose? The lifeguards caught a ferret and kept asking if anyone was missing a ferret. I felt strong and fast and free — no worries about getting off course. Who cares? A great swim.

june 23/RUNWALKSWIM

run: 4.05 miles
minnehaha falls and back
71 degrees
dew point: 66

It felt warmer than 71, the air thicker than a 66 dew point. Had to remind myself a few times that I could stick to my 9/1 plan. And I did — at least through the first 3 cycles. Had to do an extra minute of walking at 32 or 33 minutes in, but then I got right back on track. A victory!

overheard: Just starting my run, I overheard one woman say to the other: that was the first time I ever saw a spider biting me! As opposed to waking up with spider bites, not knowing when you got them, I suppose.

10 Things

  1. one of the recently re-mulched trails that leads down into the oak savanna looked dark and deep and mysterious — partly due to a late June abundance of green leaves blocking out the light, partly the sun behind the clouds
  2. a smattering of young runners in small groups — a high school cross-country team already in training?
  3. empty benches
  4. the steady hum of some construction equipment
  5. a sour smell coming from a trash can
  6. a packed shopping cart parked on the lowest part of the trail that dips below the road
  7. the flash of a very small bird — a hummingbird? — flying past me
  8. an over-the-shoulder sideways glance at the falls: all white foam
  9. 2 people waiting to pay for parking at the falls
  10. mostly overcast with a few stretches of pale sun

A good run. A low average heart rate. A steady pace. A chance to be above the gorge and the river. And, interesting thoughts. Earlier this morning, I was reminded of some ideas about movement and death and the Homeric mind, and they fluttered like loose threads behind and beside me as I ran.

thread 1: entangled, murky, thick-layered

As I ran on the Winchell Trail through the thick green, I thought that when I’m running by the gorge, I think of it in broad, basic ways: tree, rock, bluff, bird, water. Then my mind wandered, and I wondered: (Why) do we need more specific, “technical” names in order to connect with the land? I thought about the importance of names and the violence of occupying and renaming, the value of knowing the history of a place, understanding how it works scientifically, and placing it in a larger context (space, time). Then, as I ran up the short, steep hill by Folwell, I thought about how important it is to learn to think on all of these levels at once, or at least be able to switch back and forth between them. I can experience the gorge as water, rock, tree, bird, wind, or as stolen land occupied and used, abused, restored, protected, ignored, exploited. As a geological wonder, slowly–but not really slowly in geological time, 4 feet per year–carved out by the river eroding the soft St. Peter sandstone. As both wild/natural and cultivated/managed–the site of erosion due to water, and erosion due to the introduction of invasive species, industry, too many hikers, bikers, houses nearby. There isn’t an easy way to reconcile these different understandings and their impacts.

23 june 2021

thread 2: moving as death rearranged

from To chlorophyll, refineries, coal, furnaces beneath early skyscrapers, fossils/ Caroline Kenworthy

Life’s long inhale of nutrients, and longer, hotter exhalation in decay. Packed, still, silent.

Hard to remember that matter hums constantly.
These cars and highways— how much of moving is death rearranged.

I kept thinking about this idea of death rearranged. At point, I thought, of course — recycling, decomposing, rebirth = rearranging. I like this word choice — rearranging.

thread 3: Homeric mind

this physical thing that moves. So, if you imagine a place over the sea, your mind actually has to get there. So, even though it may be as fast as the light, it is physical movement.

 A Conversation with Kit Fan and Alice Oswald

The mind as moving — not just through associations, but literally moving, traveling.

As I thought about movement and connection, and death rearranged on my walk back after the run, I passed by a painted rock at the edge of neighbor’s side garden that read, We are our ancestors with an arrow pointing to plants. Yes. No one is gone, just rearranged, reconfigured. And, we are connected deeply to the green.

walk: 3 miles
east lake library and back
78 degrees

Walked to the library to pick up Anne Carson’s Float. I’ve checked it out once or twice before but I’m thinking this time I might be more interested in it. (2 hours and several naps later: nope. Still don’t understand it or why it’s called float, but I found a review of it and Mary Ruefle’s My Private Property that might help.) It was fun walking through the neighborhood, looking at how different neighbors deal with their slanting lawn. FWA is interested in re-doing ours for us. Wood, rock, stone, mulch, hostas, ornamental grass. My favorite flowers: the vines with the bright purple flowers — clematis, I think, and the dozens of cacti with beautiful yellow blooms. Saw a lime green door, like mine, on a bright blue garage. A perfect blue for the green, but maybe too much for a whole house. And, it clashed with the purple fence. Heard some loud christian rock blasting from a backyard and a 2 story tall skeleton wearing a green t-shirt in a front yard. Kids on scooters, yelling from inside houses, lounging by the pool at longfellow park.

Speaking of kids, we live next to a daycare. It’s never been a problem because the kids usually stay inside so I never hear them. A few months ago, Sheila (our neighbor and owner of the daycare) began letting 2 little girls play outside in their front yard and our side yard. They are very loud and like to scream a lot. And they are right outside of my windows so I hear them and see them flitting and darting out of the corner of my eye. Thankfully they haven’t opened our gate . . . yet. It doesn’t seem like they are being supervised. Today Scott noticed that one of them had picked up a giant branch — taller than them — and was waving it around — through the air, at the other little girl. No adults stopped them until about 15 minutes later when they were scolded. Yikes.

5

point
could
stick
least
first
extra
right
track
other
green
light
cloud
empty
group
cross
smell
front
never
being
story

trash
trail
below
heart
above
loose
thick
gorge
think
basic
bluff
water
order
value
place
short
steep
giant
adult
until

forth
abuse
carve
house
death
early
decay
still
there
about
after
arrow
plant
check
twice
might
later
stone
mulch
hosta

empty group smell
basic bluff order
thick heart track
cloud water light
green house plant
extra loose trash
never think twice

swim: 5 cedar loops (2.5 lake nokomis)
cedar lake open swim
80 degrees

First open swim of the season at Cedar Lake. Wonderful conditions. Warm-enough water and no chop. I felt strong and fast and smooth. I didn’t stray too far to the center. They have a new lifeguard who was actually telling people dogs weren’t allowed in the water and requiring people to have swim caps. Is Cedar Lake going to lose some of its chill vibes?

The water was olive green, but more yellow than the blue of lake nokomis. I didn’t see any fish or get wrapped in vines. No canoes crossed my path, either. Not too many clouds in the sky. No planes or birds.

A great early evening for a swim!

june 22/RUNBIKESWIM

run: 2 miles
2 trails
81 degrees
dew point: 73

Before biking over for a swim, I decided to run a few miles in the heat. 7 am and already 81. Ugh. Even with the heat, it was nice to get out by the gorge. Was able to greet Mr. Morning. I know I looked at the river, but I don’t remember what I saw. Was it blue? Probably. Was it shimmering? Possibly. Didn’t hear any rowers or roller skiers. A few bikes on the trail, 4 bikes on the road, out for a serious ride, hugging the curb to let cars go by. I heard sprinklers and dripping water and scattered voices.

image: walking up the 38th street steps from the winchell trail to the river road trail, the undersides of the steps had a faint colorful glow — one step was purple, another pink, orange, green, red, yellow. Was it the light? No someone had used chalk to color the steps. For Pride month, I’m assuming. Very cool.

The Alchemist/ Louise Bogan

I burned my life, that I might find 
A passion wholly of the mind, 
Thought divorced from eye and bone, 
Ecstasy come to breath alone. 
I broke my life, to seek relief 
From the flawed light of love and grief.

With mounting beat the utter fire 
Charred existence and desire. 
It died low, ceased its sudden thresh.
I found unmysterious flesh—
Not the mind’s avid substance—still
Passionate beyond the will.

mind/body split described as thought divorced from the eye and bone, and breath alone

unmysterious flesh — not pure mind but something passionate beyond mind and will

I like the rhyme here; it doesn’t feel forced

bike: 8.6 miles
lake nokomis and back
84 degrees (there) / 88 (back)

So windy and hot! Difficult, especially on the way there. I seemed to be always biking straight into the wind and out of the shade. Other than the heat and the wind and the bright sun, it was great. I’m feeling comfortable on my bike this year.

5 Bike Things / 5 Swim Things

  1. bike: a big bird — eagle? turkey vulture? — soaring above the falls parking lot
  2. bike: another biker far ahead, looking small and just in the center of my vision, reminding me of the far off barn in the vision test
  3. bike: so many e-bikes on the trail, which I think is good and not good — it’s complicated
  4. bike: more kids splashing and swimming and yelling in the creek — didn’t see them, but heard them and saw an inner tube on the side of the trail
  5. bike: the stand of trees to the right of the bike trail in the stretch between lake hiawatha and lake nokomis looked deep green and cool and inviting
  6. swim: minnows and small 6 inch fish near the shore
  7. swim: the underwater plants looked orange or greenish brown and they didn’t look like plumes or feathers, but like christmas tree branches. did they have an attitude of a plume? what would that be — ornamental? showy? preening? Nope, these plants had an attitude of a fungus or rash or disease — spreading, taking over, menacing
  8. the light underwater: I can see them as bars, a series of them, slanted and spread out from one central point
  9. sparkling water above, sparkle friends below
  10. so choppy from the wind, rocking me — not gentle but not rough either

swim: 3 loops
lake nokomis open swim
86 degrees

It was so windy and choppy that they couldn’t put the green buoys in. Just 3 orange buoys today and out and back. I thought maybe I would only do 2 loops, but I felt good enough to do a third. Nice work! The choppy water was difficult — especially breathing — but I liked it. I thought about a poem I wrote that has yet to find a home about stroking straight into waves. Not fighting the lake but taking up its challenge.

The water is still fairly clear and I enjoyed looking at the vegetation and the lake floor as I approached the shore. Much easier to tell when it’s shallow enough to stand up!

During one loop, noticing the sparkle on the water, I suddenly felt happy and grateful and content. What a life! I love swimming in this water.

Just remembered something else: stroking roughly through the water, being buffeted by waves, I felt like a boat moving across choppy water, half-submerged. Yesterday, I was talking to FWA about how I imagine myself less of a fish, more of a boat.

more from Anne Carson and “An Essay on Swimming”:

Saturday 6:30 a.m. Swimming.

the motion of the strange white hands. Gold rungs slide past beneath. Red water plants waver up from the bottom in an attitude of plumes. How slow is the slow trance of wisdom, which the swimmer swims into.

Are my hands white when I swim, or is it just the legs and feet of other swimmers?
Not shafts of light but gold rungs?
The water plants are orange or green, but never red, right? (I’ll check tomorrow).
Plumes is a better description than feathers.
The slow trance of wisdom. Swimming for over an hour in lake nokomis puts me in a trance, for sure.

Friday 8 a.m. Swimming.

On the surface the water is navy blue and
corrugated by wind. Spots of white foam crowd hectically up
and down the waves. there is an urgency to it as if a telephone
were ringing in the house. But there is no telephone in the house.

I don’t know if I’ve ever seen the lake surface navy blue, but I have seen it corrugated. I like that word as a description for a rough surface.

urgency like a telephone ringing in a house, but there is no house. Is there a name for experiencing the same feeling but in a different context. I don’t think this is just metaphor, or is it?

Wednesday 8:30 a.m. Swimming.

the swimmer inserts himself into the dark green glass.

Wednesday 5:45 p.m. Swimming.

The lake is cool and rippled by an inattentive wind. The swimmer moves heavily through an oblique greenish gloom of underwater sunset

from an earlier essay in The Anthropology of Water: “The Wishing Jewel: Introduction to Water Margins:

My brother once showed me a piece of quartz that contained, he said, some trapped water older than all the seas in our world. This line reminds me of a poem I re-encountered yesterday during my “on this day” reading practice:

from Conversation with a Pebble/Alyson Hallett

I kiss the pebble,
Watch the moisture from my lips sink in.

That’s what I’m hiding,
It says. Water. The tiniest Rivers, lakes, seas.

Ideas of what water
Can be. Yes, pebble says,
I am hiding all the world’s memory.

5

I’ve probably missed some, but here are the five letter words (minus plurals) that I found in this entry:

gorge
greet
river
trail
heard
water
voice
street
trail
faint
green
light
chalk
color
pride
month
split
alone
rhyme
windy
shade
great
eagle
above
ahead
small
think
creek
inner
stand
right
brownplume
point
below
rough
today
maybe
third
still
clear
floor
shore
happy
being
about
white
slide
waver
trance
other
never
check

rough windy rhyme
stand still today
below color trance
waver above water
faint floor shore
above gorge being
think inner creek
never point alone
happy water slide
great white check

This is fun!

june 21/RUN

4 miles
the Monument and back
82 degrees
dew point: 74

Last night I decided I would get up early and do a 7 mile run. Then I checked the forecast. 80 at 6 am. What? No thanks. I went to bed thinking I might skip running today and tomorrow (the low is 80). Then I woke up at 6 and even though it felt oppressive outside, I decided to go for a run. Maybe a 5k. Somehow, without meaning to, I ran 4 miles. It was hard. I felt almost dizzy once as I walked up the lake street bridge steps. And I’m glad I did it. Even with a few extra walk breaks I consider this run a victory.

Yes, it was warm and uncomfortable, but it was worth it for the quiet and for the strange light: darker, a little ominous, the green so deep, not glowing but pulsing? not sure what word I would use.

10+ Things

  1. on the lake street bridge from east to west, to the right a pale blue sky, to the left darker blueish-purple
  2. on the lake street bridge, wind blowing hard from the south, a bird getting a boost and flying so fast
  3. from the monument, I could her Shadow Falls dripping
  4. small white caps on the river
  5. the gentle slope of a mowed stretch of grass between Shadow Falls and the Monument
  6. the shuffling of a runner’s feet across the road
  7. the clicking and clacking of ski poles through the trees and on the other side of the ravine
  8. at the Monument, the line of narrow paving stones near the water fountain — they looked old — when were they placed here and who did it?
  9. the swirling and waving of some wildflowers in the wind
  10. taking off my cap on the bridge because of the wind, feeling it hit my face and grab my hair
  11. encountered the runner who wears bright orange compression socks*

*I’ve encountered this runner enough that they’re officially a regular. I think I’ll call him Mr. Orange Socks

Listened to the wind and dripping water and the heavy air for 3 of the miles. Put in my “It’s Windy” playlist for the final mile. Windy has stormy eyes that flash at the sound of lies.

Encountered two Anne Carson poems this morning and it feels like a sign, or a nudge, to keep reading her The Anthropology of Water. One of this poems was from an 21 june entry in 2022 (Could I), and this one from today’s poem of the day:

Between Us And/ Anne Carson

BETWEEN US AND
animals is a namelessness.
We    flail    around
generically      —
camelopardalis   is   what
the Romans came up with
or  ”giraffe” ( it looked to
them like a camel crossed
with a leopard ) or get the
category wrong — a musk
Ox isn’t an ox at all but
more closely cognate with
the  goat —  and   when
choosing   to    name
individual  animals  we
pretend they are objects
(Spot) or virtues (Beauty)
or just other selves (Bob).

The idea of knowing the names of things has come up before on this blog. There’s the act of naming something, which is addressed in this poem and evidenced in my naming of “regulars,” and there is also the act of learning the name that a living thing calls itself. Robin Wall Kimmerer (Gathering Moss in 22 march 2024 entry), JJJJJerome Ellis (“A Litany of Names” from Aster of Ceremonies), and Alice Oswald (“Violent” in 16 feb 2025 entry) all describe this in their writing.

an hour later: Taking up the nudge to read more Anne Carson, I returned to The Anthropology of Water. I focused on the final section, “Margins: An Essay on Swimming By My Brother.” Wow! So many great descriptions of what it feels like to swim in a lake! I need to make a list.

I may have posted this bit before, but here’s Carson’s answer to the question, How does swimming figure into your writing?

It keeps me from being morose and crabby. Sometimes I think in the pool. Usually it’s a bad idea. The ideas you have in the pool are like the ideas you have in a dream, where you get this sentence that answers all questions you’ve ever had about reality and you get up groggily and write it down, and in the morning, it looks like “let’s buy bananas” or something completely irrelevant. Plus, I like water. Some people just need to be near water.

Interview in Paris Review

I am one of those people who needs be near water.

Back to the “An Essay on Swimming.” I like how it’s structured: journal entries titled with day of the week and time and either swimming or not swimming. Here’s the second entry:

Friday 4:00 p.m. Swimming.

In late afternoon the lake is shaded. There is the sudden luxury of the places where the cold springs come flooding up around the swimmer’s body from below like an opening dark green geranium of ice. Marble hands drift enormously in front of his face. He watches them move past him down into the lower water where red stalks float in dust. A sudden thin shaft of fish smell. No sleep here, the swimmer thinks as he shoots along through the utterly silent razor-glass dimness. One drop of water entirely awake.

I like how there’s no date. It’s placed in time, but vaguely.

that sudden luxury! I welcome those cold patches in lake nokomis when I swim but I don’t think they’re from cold springs. What are they from? Now when I feel them I will think: I’m being flooded with a dark green geranium of ice!

marble hands — yes! that’s how I should describe the pale legs and hands of swimmers that I’ve seen recently.

where red stalks float in dust — for me: curled green feathers that do more than float, they seem to reach up to/for me.

that’s me: one drop of water entirely awake

Recap, and to put on a list of Carson’s water descriptions to use/think about as I swim:

  • I’m being flooded with a dark green geranium of ice!
  • marble hands and legs
  • stalks that reach to/for me
  • me as one drop of water entirely awake

june 19/RUNBIKESWIM

2.75 miles
trestle turn around
73 degrees
dew point: 63

Ugh! Too warm for me today. I wanted to get up earlier, so I went to bed at 9:45, but I still slept poorly and didn’t wake up until 8. A small victory: I wanted to turn around at a mile, but I kept going until I got to the trestle. Took a walk break, then ran a faster mile. I heard rowers and kids yelling. Greeted Dave, the Daily Walker and Daddy Long Legs. Dodged a pack of people emerging from the rowing club entrance. Admired the cottonwood fuzz looking light green on the edge of the trail. Counted the stones stacked on the ancient boulder: 3, with another stone waiting for a friend. Stopped and stared at the ironwork of the trestle stretching to the east bank of the river.

before the run

Yesterday, this was the poem of the day:

Altitude/ Airea D. Matthews

Icarus, he advised,
heed the warning: don’t fly 
too near the sun or sea; 
stay the path.

But I mistook the sky for an iris,
and entered at the northern horizon,
where map edges blister,
and the compass wasps. 

I was dutiful but unwooed
by chisel and bench, contracts
scribbled in fig sap, or watching
Ariadne ungold time.

          What awe is there
in earthen labyrinths?

Wax molds itself sublime,
shapes wings each night.
Light refracts my name in
dialect only moths comprehend.

I belong elemental, where trees 
chance to become constellations,
where the bar-headed goose flies
past with the heart of a clock and

Zeus is a silver kite tethered
to Olympus by harp strings
trembling an offering. 

          Of bliss? To remember
the why of it all. 

Bliss is a body absconding
warp speed toward 
a dwarf star whispering,
Unsee the beheld.

My fall, well, yes,
those depths matter less.
What I learned by height—
that’s the story.

Iris? A flower? Part of the eye?

map edges blister
compass wasps
I love these nouns as verbs

ungold time — love how that sounds, but what does it mean to ungold something? to tarnish it? Looked up Ariadne — from Green mythology, gave Theseus a thread to help him survive the labyrinth, kill the Minotaur, known to some as goddess of weaving, also her diadem ends up in the sky as a constellation

light refracts in dialect only moths comprehend — I might want to use that — so good

a goose with the heart of a clock, to belong elemental

bliss
the why of it all
bliss is a body

Unsee the beheld — I want to devote some time to thinking through what this idea might mean to me

And here’s the poet’s expanation:

About this Poem

“‘Altitude’ reimagines the myth of Icarus not as a cautionary tale of hubris, but as a meditation on ecstatic pursuit, disobedience, and the search for transcendent knowledge. The speaker rejects Daedalus’s pragmatic warnings, drawn instead to a metaphysical journey—flying not for safety or ambition, but to answer an elemental, inner urge to transform, no matter the consequence.”

during the run

As I suffered through my run, when I wasn’t thinking about wanting to stop or how hot it was, I thought about the command, Unsee the Beheld. I held onto the thoughts and spoke them into my phone at the end of the run:

Unsee as different than not-seeing (which I ‘ve thought/written about before). Not seeing is a static thing; you just don’t see it. To unsee is more active and also suggests a process of unravelling which is where my vision is at.

A few minutes later in the walk, I thought about flipping the phrase to, behold the unseen.

after the run

I like thinking about to unsee as a verb, an act, a process, a type of prayer? Just as seeing is not a static thing, where you simply see, but a process of light and signals and filtering and guessing by the brain, unseeing is a process of slow (or sporadic) unravelling then adapting — a brain doing mysterious and magical things with the scrambled and limited data it receives, a mind developing new ways to witness/behold without stable and dependable eyes.

And now I’m thinking of unseeing as eroding/erosion and the creation of the gorge. Rock erosion occurs in 2 main ways at the Mississippi River Gorge: 1. soft sandstone slowly and gradually wears away as it encounters water and air and 2. this wearing away weakens the foundation for limestone until it breaks. My unseeing process could be similar: the slow and gradual dying/not working of cell cones until a final break and no central vision. Is this how it will happen? Maybe, but maybe not.

a volta

A few months ago, I briefly wrote about the volta. When? Just remembered: it was during my study of time and thinking about the cyclical time and turning while I was listening to the Byrds — to everything turn, turn, turn. This morning, reviewing a poem I posted on this day in 2022, I think I found a good example of it in Ada Limón’s poem, Calling Things What They Are. For much of the poem, she is writing about what a difference it makes to know the names of birds or trees and how she likes to call things in the natural world what they are. Then she ends the poem with this:

I like to call things as they are. Before, the only thing I was interested in was love, how it grips you, how it terrifies you, how it annihilates you, and resuscitates you. I didn’t know then that it wasn’t even love that I was interested in, but my own suffering. I thought suffering kept things interesting. How funny that I called it love and the whole time it was pain.

a thought on time from the novel. The Bear

I’m reading a beautiful novel, The Bear by Andrew Krivak. A bear and a young girl are discussing how all creatures can speak. Skeptical, the girl asks, What about the trees? After instructing her on how and where to listen to the trees the bear said,

the voices of the trees were the voice of the forest, and that when they spoke, they spole with such indifference to time that it would take the girl several moons to hear one of their conversations, the better part of one just to hear a single word.

bike: 8.6 miles
lake nokomis and back
84 degrees

Another anxiety-free bike ride, and no knee pain. Hooray! Hotter and harder on the way there. It felt like I was biking into some wind. The bike back was wonderful. A little cooler, the glow of a lower sun and my satisfied muscles. I thought about how I don’t ever want to take biking for granted. I never know when my last cone cells will go and I’m not sure what that will mean for biking. Will it be too scary and unsettling? I want to bike more this summer.

5 bike things, 5 swimming things

  1. bike: nearing lake nokomis I heard a siren, then saw an ambulance by the lake. Was it coming from the beach?
  2. bike: 3 or 4 kids yelling and running across the path toward the creek with inner tubes. A dad called out to one — not to caution or scold but to collect their glasses
  3. bike: a recumbent bike, slow and low to the ground
  4. bike: going slower so I could keep a good distance between me and a group of bikers up ahead. The last one in line was wearing a dark pink shirt
  5. bike: turning onto the part of the path that’s between hiawatha and the creek and looking down at a part of the creek that I don’t know very well
  6. swim: olive green water
  7. swim: waiting in the shallow water before it started, the kids were so LOUD — I flinched as they screamed near my ear
  8. swim: the visibility underwater was good — I saw a lot of pale legs kicking
  9. swim: clear enough that I could see how deep the water was as milfoil stretched up from the bottom — delightfully creepy!
  10. swim: my sparkle friends were joined by shafts of light

swim: 3 loops
lake nokomis open swim
84 degrees

Got to the lake early — a half hour before it started — to make sure I got a spot for my bike and my bag. I was hoping they’d start as early as they did on Tuesday. Nope, but still 5 minutes early. My left shoulder hurt a little at the beginning, but by the end it was okay. It wasn’t the easiest swim — I’m out of shape — but it was still amazing. I kept thinking about how I’ll feel after a couple of weeks of steady swimming: amazing.

At one point when I was ready to be done, I had a flash of a thought: what would happen if my body just shut down right here in the middle of the lake. No panic, just curiosity. At another point, I thought about unsee the beheld, both the unsee and beheld part. what was beheld? swimming, a practice in unseeing.

This just popped in my head: See no cola, Hear no cola, Drink uncola. That’s on my favorite sleeping bag from the 70s.

june 18/RUN

4.2 miles
minnehaha falls and back
72 degrees
dew point: 63

Went to bed early (before 10!) with the hopes of getting up early and running before it was too warm. Woke up at 7:30 and didn’t start running until almost 9. It was hot! Still, I did my 9/1, with only one extra break. A small victory: I didn’t fall apart after the extra break, even though I thought I might. I got right back on track and ran the rest until I reached 9 minutes. Wore my compression socks again today — they make a big difference.

10 Things

  1. a broken fence rail — I have been calling the wooden fence a split rail, but is it? It’s not a picket fence. It is 2 horizontal wooden slats, painted brown. Looked it up — ranch?*
  2. yellow caution tape blocking off the new trail-in-progress just past the double bridge
  3. someone at the playground, pushing their bike through the mulch or pebbles or whatever’s in the playground pit, making a scraping noise
  4. 2 people on the bridge overlooking the falls, holding a giant selfie stick
  5. the dirt trail leading into the woods near ford bridge, looking dark and mysterious and inviting
  6. the rush of the creek and the falls
  7. someone sitting at the bench above the edge of the world
  8. a voice below, on the winchell trail, commanding (or scolding) a dog
  9. a dozen roller skiers on the trail
  10. the coxswain’s voice below — rowers!

*Looked up what type of fencing Minneapolis Parks uses and found this in their latest planning proposal:

Fencing and Guardrails

  • Locate fencing and guardrails to protect park users from injury near steep bluffs, drop-offs along trails, overlooks, boardwalks, and bridges. They can also be used to protect pedestrians and bicyclists from conflicts with motor vehicles in certain situations.
  • Fencing and guardrail design and materials should be consistent throughout the park to convey a strong sense of park identity and character.
  • Fencing materials and design in high use areas such as along the parkways, urban parks, and other highly visible areas should be more formal. The existing black metal picket fencing along many portions of the park is a good example of this type of character.
  • Fencing in less formal and natural areas, such as along the Winchell
  • Trail, should use less formal fencing and guardrail materials and design character. Here, timber and chain link fencing may be more appropriate.
  • All proposed fencing and guardrails shall meet MPRB standards.

converting notes into poetry

Yesterday, during my On This Day practice, I came across a line from Dan Beachy-Quick that led me from his poem, This Nest, Swift Passerine, to Dorothy Wordsworth’s journal, which her brother, William Wadsworth, used in his poetry. I recall encountering D Wordsworth’s journal then, in 2023, and thinking I’d like to read more of it, but I was busy with some other project. Maybe I put it on my epic “To Do” list that I rarely return to.

I wanted to read more of DW’s journal because I’m fascinated by how writers might use their journals and observing-while-moving notes in their poetry.

I’m also thinking about how poets incorporate research into their poetry. Read this morning, in an interview with Kristin Dykstra, about her new poetry collection, Dissonance:

I’ve been interested in contemporary works that explore the use of research, which takes us outside our own individual points of view on the world. In creative works encompassing research, there’s a fundamental tension between one’s own perspectives and what we learn to see through other people.

Lines that Linger

In the amazing poem, “Lake Superior,” Lorine Niedecker condenses her 100+ pages of typed notes into a few dozen stanzas.

A few days ago, I read Kaveh Akbar’s “Love Poem with Tumor and Petrified Dog” and was delighted by how he incorporated “facts” about Pompeii into his poem.

I’d like to experiment with different ways to take my notes and research on the cultural and geological history of the gorge and put them into poems/creative writing. The wilder, stranger experiment, the better!

a few hours later: Rereading this last paragraph, I suddenly thought of Mathias Svalina’s Surreal Zillow tours, which I read about last November.

Here’s how the tours work (from my log entry, 18 nov 2024):

You show up at the appropriate time and place and look for a man with a bullhorn. “Because I’m a man who owns a bullhorn now,” Svalina says. “[Then] I’ll point to buildings and lie about them for 90 minutes.”

and part of its purpose:

“I’m particularly interested in civic history because of the ways that cities use, rewrite, and often weaponize their histories as promotional agents, or as ways of ignoring populations,” he explains. “So, I like the idea of inventing histories that could not have ever existed.”

I’m not interested in making up or twisting my research, but this popped into my head, and I wanted to remember it here.

soft vision

Just started listening to the novel, Havoc, which I’m really enjoying. The main character is an octogenarian living in a grand hotel during the pandemic in Cairo and causing chaos with her desire to “help” others. Early on, she describes the faded beauty of a grand hotel:

A bit of advice: if you fear mice, don’t peer too closely into the corners. I suggest walking around the hotel in a happy, glaucomal squint.

Havoc/ Christopher Bollen

june 17/RUNBIKESWIMBIKE

4 miles
river road, north/river road, south
67 degrees / dew point: 63

Started my run at 8:30, which was too late for how warm and humid it is. Even so, I felt strong and relaxed and confident that I could stick to my 9/1 plan and I did. As the runs get longer, I’m going to need to get up earlier. Chanted in triple berries — strawberry/blueberry/raspberry — then in other favorite triples — mystery history — then in triples that describe the world around me — worn dirt trail / old oak tree / cloaked green view / rushing cars

10 Things

  1. at least 2 roller skiers standing at the top of the franklin hill
  2. voices below — rowers!
  3. 2 minneapolis park trucks on the path, both hauling riding lawn mowers
  4. Mr. Morning!
  5. a big branch loaded with green leaves on the ground near the welcoming oaks, blocking a small section of the path
  6. 2 or 3 stones stacked on the ancient boulder
  7. the sliding bench was empty
  8. encountering Max, a big and gentle German Shepherd
  9. a mini-peloton on the road — a dozen or so bikes
  10. an older runner in bright orange compression socks standing in the middle of the walking path, gathering himself

I don’t remember thinking about much as I ran, other than that it was hot and that I knew I could keep going.

Yesterday, during my vision assessment, I mentioned reading about a way of training the eyes so that they could see outside of your blind spots. It was in a book by a famous author, but I couldn’t recall who. I knew they were from the 1900s and that they were male and I thought they were a philosopher, but I was drawing a blank on the name. At some point during the appointment, I was convinced it was Henry James. I was wrong. I looked it up today: Aldous Huxley and his book, The Art of Seeing. I wrote about it in this long on 13 sept 2020, including this quote from Huxley in the introduction:

Ever since ophthalmology became a science, its practitioners have been obsessively preoccupied with only one aspect of the total, complex process of seeing—the physiological. They have paid attention exclusively to eyes, not at all to the mind which makes use of the eyes to see with.

The Art of Seeing/ Aldous Huxley

How true is this assessment in 2025? Well, the study I am hopefully participating in is a collaboration between Ophthalmology and psychology at the U of M.

In the process of searching for the Huxley reference, I came across an article about low vision and reading. The specific ways that reading is difficult for me are different than this author, but the strange, and sometimes frustrating, sometimes delightful ways it (doesn’t) work resonate:

I try to figure out how apples connect to the topic, and how a noun just there might fit into the sentence, then give up and go back, to see the “i” that I missed when I first read “applies.” All those mistakes don’t happen at once. When my splotchy vision is not making me fail to grasp the point of an essay or fail to see the word “salt” in a recipe, it keeps me amused, keeps me aware of language itself. Who knew that “apples” is only one letter different from “applies”? Who could regret noticing that? 

As My Vision Deteriorates, Every Word Counts/ Alice Mattison

Reading more of the article, I find that her perspective on audiobooks resonates less:

Listening to an audiobook, I wouldn’t hear punctuation. True, an actor could produce the pauses, hesitations, and buildup that punctuation merely signals. But I like punctuation. I wouldn’t know whether the author had chosen a period or a semi-colon for the end of that main clause, wouldn’t know about em dashes, colons, parentheses, ellipses. Audiobooks are mediated. Another person would be present as I read. Worse, that person would have interpretive power, power over speed. Audiobooks happen in time, not space, like music or dance. Performance is indispensable but it isn’t the same as reading. 

My first reaction was to disagree with this assessment, but it has thinking more about the idea of an audiobook as performance. I like listening to a good audiobook actor. And I love listening to an author who can read their own book well, like Zadie Smith. So what? Does that mean I’m not reading, and do we need to gatekeeper what reading is? Now I’m wondering: what is reading?

Some thoughts about punctuation:

  • As I memorize poetry, I often struggle to write it down again later; I often mess up the punctuation. I memorize words, but rarely semi-colons or em dashes.
  • In Lucille Clifton’s rules for writing poetry, she suggests that a poet should write their lines in such a way that punctuation is never necessary — not sure where I stand on this
  • Isn’t the writer’s choice of punctuation a sort of mediation between reader and word?

bike: 8.7 miles
lake nokomis and back
78 degrees

Hooray for no problems on the bike! I could see well enough and I didn’t have to do any awkward passing. My left knee was a little stiff at the end, like it was 2 summers ago, but otherwise it was good. I liked biking to the lake before my swim, and biking back home after. Some things I remember: a line-up of traffic near the falls; kids playing in the creek; the pleasing curve of the new bike trail at lake hiawatha; the rush of water gushing out of the sewer pipe and into the ravine at 42nd; a surrey slightly off course; the bouncy stride of a runner.

swim: 2 loops
lake nokomis open swim
79 degrees

Open swim! A wonderful night for a swim. Not much wind, hardly any waves. I would have liked to do more than 2 loops but I didn’t want to push it and have a sore shoulder again. No problems going off course even though I could barely see the buoys. So little data, so much trust and belief in my ability to swim straight!

10 Things

  1. put my bag down under the lifeguard stand, next to some kid’s swim trunks that were swarming with gnats (gross!)
  2. milfoil reaching up from the bottom, thick and pale orange until it faded into the dark blue-green water
  3. cold water with pockets of warmer water
  4. baby bros (15 or 16? year-olds) playing football in the shallow water, cheering every time someone caught a pass or missed a pass
  5. the legs of another swimmer doing breaststroke, looking pale underwater
  6. bubbles! the translucent, almost white ones, that remind me of the bubbles in scooby doo
  7. my sparkle friends! the small glittering particles floating in the water
  8. open swim was set up a full 15 minutes early! the lifeguards have their shit together again this year
  9. the familiar form of the beach house dome, viewed mid-lake
  10. calling out to another swimmer — have fun! / you too!

A great swim. No deep thoughts or reciting water poems or noticing sounds or clouds or planes. As I get more fit, and spend more time in the water, these things will happen.

june 14/RUN

6.1 miles
flats and back
55 degrees
drizzle

10 Things

  1. boom! crash! construction noises above me as I ran under the I-94 bridge
  2. voices cheering below, near the rowing club
  3. a soft mist
  4. beep beep beep — far ahead of me
  5. a chair set up behind a column at the base of the lake street bridge
  6. 2 people fishing in the flats
  7. the limestone slabs that were stacked in a way that looked like a person have been removed
  8. a pink and white kid’s bike propped up against the bottom of the franklin bridge
  9. an orange cone tucked into the bushes, mostly hidden from view
  10. water gushing out of the limestone in the flats

A great run! A steady 9/1, even up the franklin hill. A big mental victory! An average heart rate of 157. A big physical victory, too!

Returned from the run to get shocking news from Scott. Somebody impersonated a police officer then shot and killed the head of the Minnesota DFL and her husband in the early morning in their home. He shot another senator too and has not yet been caught. There’s a manhunt and a shelter in place for Brooklyn Park. Police are asking that people don’t attend the No Kings protest today or open their doors to any police officers.

june 13/RUN

3.1 miles
ford bridge turn around
58 degrees / damp, post-rain

Pre-run Sara

Friday the 13th! Tonight, Scott and I will watch the original movie. Today, I run between rain drops. No open swim last night or this morning because of rain. Ordinarily I’d be upset, but I overdid it on Tuesday’s first open swim and my left shoulder hurts. If there was open swim, I’d be tempted to do it, which might further injure my shoulder. Now I don’t have a choice. That’s good. Speaking of injuries, my left knee is a bit stiff and it feels like there’s some sort of swelling on the back. It doesn’t hurt too much, just feels tight and stiff. I don’t think it’s a big deal, so I’ll do a short run this afternoon. Post-run Sara, let me know how it goes!

Mid-run Sara

a spasm of sirens ringing across the river
the usual puddles to leap over
a chorus of hammers
dark green
rich brown
rusted red leaves
a new trail descending deeper into the gorge
empty benches
no walk breaks
a triple chant: history / mystery / first story / my story / her story

Post-run Sara

I’m happy to report that the run felt great and because I wore compression socks, my left knee and calf don’t hurt. Hooray! I also wore a different pair of shoes — did that help, too? The run seemed to also loosen up my left shoulder.

On my walk home, after the run, I recited Wallace Steven’s excellent vision poem, “Tattoo.” The light is like a spider. . . This led to more thoughts about light as an insect, or a spider, or a fish, or a tiny robot. Then I remembered the song in my new favorite musical, Maybe Happy Ending about dragonflies as little robots. Never fly away/little robot. I started imaging little robots of light helping me to see, and what that technology might look like.

june 11/RUN

5.3 miles
ford loop
65 degrees / steady drizzle

Thought the rain wasn’t coming until later today so I got ready for my run — changed into my running clothes, stretched, put on my running shoes — then opened the door to drizzle. Decided to go anyway. At first, it was intermittent drizzle, but halfway through it became a steady, soft rain. Not enough to soak my shorts but enough to cool me off and to inspire a chant:

drip drip drop
drop
drip drip drip
drop

drop drip
drop drip
drop drip
drip drop

drip drip drip
drop drop drop

drop drop drip
drop drop drip
drop drop drip
drip

I continued my 9 minutes of running, 1 minute of walking plan and was successful. In the last mile, my left started to hurt a little, then my left calf, and my foot. It’s fine, but to be safe, I stopped at 5.3 miles. The run was never easy, but it also wasn’t hard to keep going, knowing that I had a walk break coming.

10 Things

  1. a soft green everywhere
  2. an empty river
  3. new trees wrapped in plastic looking like wild turkeys
  4. a dark tunnel of green with a bright circle of white at the end
  5. on your left / thank you!
  6. front yard tree with a giant boulder just in front of it
  7. empty benches except for the one near folwell: 2 people not sitting, but standing behind it
  8. the rumble of planes sounding like thunder
  9. the sharp clang of a mailbox lid falling shut
  10. chains from a trailer rattling and scraping on the rough road

green haze: Running on the east river road, quick glances over to the gorge — a soft green and silver view of trees and sky

I was delighted to discover halfway in that the poem-of-the-day on the Poetry Foundation is about rust! The entire poem is wonderful, but it’s long, so I’ll only post most of the rust part:

excerpt from “Que Sera Sera”/ A. Van Jordan

Like when a song gets so far out
on a solo you almost don’t recognize it,
but then you get back to the hook, you suddenly

recognize the tune and before you know it,
you’re putting your hands together; you’re on your feet—
because you recognize a sound, like a light,
leading you back home to a color:

rust. You must remember
rust—not too red, not too orange—not fire or overnight
change, but a simmering-summer
change in which children play till they tire

and grown folks sit till they grow edgy
or neighborhood dogs bite those not from your neigborhood
and someone with some sense says Down, Boy,
or you hope someone has some sense

who’s outside or who owns the dog and then the sky
turns rust and the streetlights buzz on
and someone’s mother, must be yours, says
You see those streetlights on don’t you,

and then everybody else’s mother comes out and says
the same thing and the sky is rust so you know
you got about ten minutes before she comes back out
and embarrasses you in front of your friends;

ten minutes to get home before you eat and watch
the Flip Wilson Show or Sanford and Son and it’s time for bed.
And it’s rust you need to remember
when the cop asks, What kind of work you do?

It’s rust you need to remember: the smell
of summer rain on the sidewalk
and the patina on wrought-iron railings on your front porch
with rust patches on them, and the smell

of fresh mowed grass and gasoline and sweat
of your childhood as he takes a step back
when you tell him you’re a poet teaching
English down the road at the college,

when he takes a step back—
to assure you, know, that this has nothing to do with race,
but the rust of a community he believes
he keeps safe, and he says Have a Good One,

meaning day as he swaggers back to his car,
and the color of the day and the face behind sunglasses
and the hands on his hips you’ll always remember
come back gunmetal gray

for the rest of this rusty afternoon.

Rust — I’ve been wanting to write a poem about rust for some time. Is this a sign that I should try today?