Tag: no headphones

nov 19/RUN

4 miles
minnehaha falls
49 degrees
wind gusts: 25 mph

Wet. Windy. Slick leaves. Squeaks. A light gray sky. Singing pines. The usual puddles. White foam falls. Gushing sewer pipes. Brisk air. Mud.

Greeted Santa Claus (the regular runner whose long white beard reminds me of Santa Claus). Passed a man walking with one leg up in a boot on a scooter. Gave directions to 2 walkers — which way to the falls? follow the path, it’s over there.

The creek was a steel blue and rushing to reach the limestone ledge. A kid at the main overlook was jumping in a puddle. The green gate at the top of the steps leading down to the falls was still open.

Wore shorts and a pink hooded jacket. My legs were only cold for a few minutes. Too warm for mid-November. Today is the last day of warmer air. Tomorrow, below freezing.

I started working on the section of Haunts poem that I’m titling, And. Came up with a few lines while running north. Recited them in my head until I stopped near the Folwell bench and spoke them into my phone:

Before a Victor-
ian’s great love for
ventilation, there
was water wanting
to be something and
somewhere else.

The ventilation bit is taken from an article about the origins of the Grand Rounds, and the Victorian is Horace W.S. Cleveland:

The concept of The Grand Rounds was born from Cleveland’s “preference of an extended system of boulevards, or ornamental avenues, rather than a series of detached open areas or public squares.” This was not only an aesthetic consideration: Cleveland had lost many possessions in the 1871 Chicago fire, and saw parkways as an effective firebreak in built-up urban areas. In addition, Cleveland stressed the
sanitary benefits derived from parkways. Cholera, typhus, and other diseases plagued cities in the late nineteenth century. Parkways could save land from unhealthy uses and, reflecting the Victorians’ great
love for ventilation, carry “winds . . . to the heart of the city, purified by their passage over a long stretch
of living water, and through the foliage of miles of forest.”

The History of the Grand Rounds


nov 18/RUN

3.35 miles
trestle turn around
45 degrees

Another beautiful, late fall morning! Sun, blue skies, hardly a breeze. Running north, my shadow leading me, occasionally drifting to the side and off into the woods. Running south, hiding behind me. I saw her only once when I turned around to check. Everything calm, quiet. Everyone enjoying being alone together. An open view of air and the bare-branched tree line on the other side. Blue river. An inviting bench perched on the edge of the bluff. I saw it as I ran toward the trestle. When I turned around, I stopped at it. Right on the edge, a steep brown slope down to the white sands beach and the river. How many more seasons before this bench, already on the edge, tumbles down? The sour-sweet smell of the sewer — a hint of sharp spice. Pounding hammers–not in a fast, steady rhythm, but in bursts and trading off. A great run.

As I ran, I couldn’t imagine how it could rain this afternoon. So much sun and blue skies! But already, less than an hour later, clouds. Rain is coming.

I’m still working on a section of my poem about progress and time and conservation. The ending turns to a vague reference to conversation of matter, where nothing is lost or gained, just transformed. Somewhere after the tunnel of trees, I suddenly thought, exchanged, and imagined oxygen being traded between lungs and leaves.

Made-up Walking Tours

Here’s an article that I found the other day about the poet, Mathias Svalina’s, surreal waking tours in Richmond: Surrealistic Zillow. Here’s how the tours work:

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.”

nov 16/RUN

3.1 miles
trestle turn around
52 degrees
wind gusts: 36 mph

Ran with Scott in the afternoon. Windy but warm. Wore shorts and a sweatshirt that I took off a mile in. Sunny. We talked about progressive things: insurance (Scott), glasses and degenerative diseases like progressive cone dystrophy (me).

10 Things

  1. still a few YELLOW leaves clinging to the trees
  2. a beautiful almost purple blue river
  3. soft brown trunks
  4. a whining leaf blower, disrupting everyone — runners, walkers, roller skiers, squirrels
  5. a twin mattress with a ripped cover next to a trash can
  6. another runner in dark tights (purple?) with a green shirt
  7. in the tunnel of trees the path was covered with leaves
  8. adjusting my cap, worried the wind would knock it off
  9. a navy blue glove propped on a branch
  10. the water-logged black stocking cap still on the post above the steps

I’m working on a section of my Haunts poem that plays with the idea of progress and challenges the belief that progress is always better and that our lives move in strictly linear ways. I’ve written about progress before, on 7 feb 2022.

nov 14/RUN

4.1 miles
trestle turn around
45 degrees

Moist this morning. Wet sidewalk, wet leaves, wet air. Something was squeaking — my shoes on the leaves or the leaves on my shoes? Only one stone on the boulder, looking lonely and flat. The black stocking cap I mentioned yesterday was still there on the pole. Today I remembered that it was above the old stone steps. Greeted Dave, the Daily Walker with a good morning Dave!, greeted Daddy Long Legs with a wave. He was with his walking partner again. Smiled and gave a head nod to another walker who I think I’ve mentioned before. They always wear a long skirt with tights, and most of the year, a blue puffer jacket. They have gray hair in a long braid. I looked it up, and when I wrote about them before (26 jan 2024), I described them as wearing a dress and tentatively named them, All Dressed Up.

Anything else? I’m pretty sure I looked at the river, but I don’t remember what I saw. No fat tires or roller skiers or geese — where are all the geese? — or turkeys. More YELLOW leaves, falling fast. Some sour sewer smells, puddles, empty benches.

I listed to squeaking leaves and thudding feet as I ran north, then my Color playlist returning south: “Not Easy Bein’ Green,” “Roxanne,” “Mellow Yellow,” and “Let’s Go Crazy.” Speakig of color, I discovered this excellent color poem yesterday afternoon:

Night Comes and Passes Over Me/ Carl Phillips

There’s a rumor of light that
any dark starts off as. Plato speaks
here and there of colors, but only
once, I think, does he break them
down into black and white, red,
and a fourth color. By then they’d
reached for California high country
where, knowing none of the names for
all the things that grew there, they

began to make names up. But to have
trained an animal to come just a bit
closer because here, here’s blood,
doesn’t mean you’ve tamed it. Trans-
lations vary for what Plato calls his
fourth color: what comes closest
to a combination of (since they
aren’t the same) radiant and
bright–what shifting water does,

with light? Violence burnishes
the body, sometimes, though we
call it damage, not burnishing, more
its opposite, a kind of darkness, as if
to hide the body, so that what’s been

done to it might, too, stay hidden,
the way meaning can, for years, until
some pattern by which to trace it
at last emerges. There’s a rumor of light.

I need to give more time to this poem; there’s so much I don’t quite get. But I love the discussion of Plato and color and what shifting water does to light.

nov 13/RUN

5.85 miles
ford loop
42 degrees / humidity: 78%

November! A day for singing a song of gray. A pale, sunless sky, some wind, lots of bare branches. The tree outside my window and a few others by the gorge were YELLOW! Greeted Dave, the Daily Walker — hey Dave! Almost tripped on a few rocks on the dirt path next to the trail on the east side. Admired the waves from the bridges: from ford, little scales and from lake, a slight current down the center — from a sandbar? Heard a chickadee — chick a dee dee dee dee — and the constant grumbling of the city beneath everything.

Thought about different time scales and how time works for me while I’m running — encountering memories of past Saras, echoing their movements. Imagining the gorge before Cleveland created the Grand Rounds, before Longfellow was a neighborhood, before the gorge was a gorge. Having no idea how much time had passed — never hearing the bells of St. Thomas or looking at my watch. Having no memory of small stretches of the trail — being lost in a thought or the motion or my effort.

10 Things

  1. the fast slapping of a runner’s feet passing me from behind
  2. the clear open view from a bluff on the east side of the river, looking over to the west side
  3. 3 stacked stones on the boulder
  4. a black stocking cap placed on the top of a pole beside the trail
  5. the frantic bark of a dog, bothered by a nearby leaf blower
  6. the barricades blocking the sidewalk in front of Governor Walz’ house
  7. the ravine near Shadow Falls, mostly yellow from leaves on trees and the ground
  8. voices from below, near Longfellow flats beach
  9. a sour sewer smell near the Monument
  10. a man call out a command — drop it! — to his dog near the south entrance of the winchell trail

While looking for something else, I came across this beautiful poem by Minnesota’s first indigenous poet laureate, Dr. Gwen Westerman:

Breathe Deep and Sing/ Gwen Westerman

We sing for the mussels,

we, the otters and beavers, the frogs and dragonflies,

the waterbirds and songbirds, the coyotes too.

We breathe deep, and sing for the mussels

who are the lungs of the Mississippi River.

Our river—polluted by

sewage and wastewater,

dredged and dammed,

pockmarked by dead zones

of chemicals and dyes,

banked by the edge

of destruction.

Our river—

A global super-flyway,

it flows through the heart of us,

flowed through the heart of us

for centuries, beyond centuries,

beyond memory.

Through wetlands and backwaters,

communities and economies,

plagued by invasive species,

invasive humans—

environmental degradation

that flowed through the heart of us.

Our river—

It calls to us, it beckons us,

our dreams flow along with it.

So, we sing for the mussels,

we, the otters and beavers, the frogs and dragonflies,

the waterbirds and songbirds, the coyotes too.

We breathe deep and sing for the mussels

who are the silent sentinels of our river.

They hold the stories and the pain of

our river—40, 70, 200 years ago.

Like the trees above them

along the banks of

our river, the rings of the mussels’ shells

are a living record of our environment

and of our river.

They mark the resilience,

the struggles, the restoration

of floodplains and river bottoms,

the restoration of health and hearts.

How do we heal our river

without healing ourselves?

Our river—

It calls to us, it beckons us,

our dreams flow along with it.

Its water shapes us, embraces us,

and is our first medicine.

So, we sing for the mussels,

we, the otters and beavers, the frogs and dragonflies,

the waterbirds and songbirds, the coyotes too.

Breathe deep and sing with us for the mussels.

nov 11/RUN

5.45 miles
franklin hill turn around
38 degrees
wind: 13 mph / gusts: 27 mph

Sunny, windy, cooler. Wore one of my mild winter combinations: running tights, shorts, long-sleeved shirt, sweatshirt, vest, gloves, headband that covers my ears. I overdressed. Had to take off the sweatshirt near the top of Franklin. A good run. I’m running 30 seconds faster per mile and feeling stronger in the cooler weather than I did when it was warmer.

Yesterday, I woke up feeling not quite right. I slept a lot during the day. Almost a sore throat. Took a covid test: negative. Still feel a little off today. Is it a cold? Should I cancel my annual check-up that’s scheduled for tomorrow?

I deactivated my twitter account and haven’t checked the news since the election. Mostly I’m not thinking about what is coming, and instead focusing on writing, trying to help my kids with their struggles, and living (temporarily?) in the world I’ve built through my practice.

10 Things

  1. the surface of the river was burning white through the bare trees
  2. forest branches creaking and moaning in the wind
  3. one or two trees in the floodplain forest still green
  4. bright pink bubble-letter graffiti under the 1-94 bridge
  5. 4 stones stacked on the ancient boulder
  6. Daddy Long Legs walking with someone today — I think every other time I’ve seen him, he’s been alone
  7. a pale blue sky with one or two puffs of cloud
  8. a biker slowing climbing the franklin hill on the road, a car following behind impatiently then hastily passing him
  9. an empty bench facing an open view — so much air and sun and softness
  10. walking up the hill close to the trees on the slope, I noticed a blanket spread out, hidden in the grass — was someone sleeping in it?

For the first half of the run, I listened to the gorge and my feet and the wind. For the second half, I put in my “It’s Windy” playlist.

nov 9/RUN

5.25 miles
bottom of franklin hill and back
47 degrees

A great November morning. Most of the trees bare, almost everything light brown and steel blue. A few yellow leaves still on the trees. I felt relaxed and was able to run without stopping — until I needed the port-a-potty. Found a freshly cleaned one at the bottom of the hill, then ran back up it all the way without stopping. For the last 2 miles I felt strong and resilient and ready to resist.

10 Things

  1. roller skiers — at least 3 of them, not together. All of them looked graceful and strong and ready for it to snow
  2. the awkward slapping of oars on the water from a rowing shell far below
  3. the bells of St. Thomas ringing briefly
  4. more awkward slaps from oars, this time from a shell with 3 people. I heard them when I was at the bottom of the hill and watched as they angled across the river. One of them had on a bright yellow — or was it orange? — shirt
  5. a man sitting on a bench, his back to the gorge, reading a book
  6. faint voices getting louder — was it runners or bikers? both
  7. the floodplain forest is open — no more leaves — I glanced down the steep slope to the forest floor
  8. a runner on the other side of the road in black shorts and white tights
  9. 4 stones stacked on the ancient boulder
  10. a walker bundled up in a coat with a scarf

I had a thought about my Haunts project near the start of my run. I’m writing a lot about looping and orbiting, but I haven’t written about pacing back and forth — all of my out and back or turn around runs, when I cover the same ground twice, and stay on one side of the river. I’m thinking about the difference between restless pacing and cycles/loops/orbits.

I didn’t see any eagles or hear any geese. No regulars or fat tires or music blasting from car or bike speakers. No one singing or doing something ridiculous. Only one honking car horn. No chainsaws or sirens or leaf blowers.

Today I checked out Carl Phillips’ poetry collection, which won the Pulitzer Prize, Then the War. Here’s an early favorite of mine:

The Enchanted Bluff/ Carl Phillips

You can see here, though the marks
are faint, how the river must once have coincided
with love’s most eastern boundary. But it’s years now
since the river shifted, as if done with the same
view both over and over
and never twice, which
is to say done at last with conundrum, when it’s
just a river—here’s a river . . . Why not say so,
why this need to name things based on what
they remind us of—cattail and broom, skunk
cabbage—or on what

we wished for: heal-all;
forget-me-not. Despite her dyed-too-black hair
wildly haloing her soulders, not a witch, caftanned
in turquoise, gold, turning men into better men,
into men with feelings—instead, just my mother,
already gone crazy a bit, watching the yard fill
with the feral cats
that she fed each night.
Who says you can’t die from regret being all
you can think about? What’s it matter, now, if she
learned the hard way the difference finally between
freedom and merely
setting a life free? As much
as I can, anyway, I try to keep regret far from me,

though like any song built to last, there’s a
rhythm to it that, once recognized, can be hard
to shake: one of by fear, with its double flower—
panic, ambition; two if by what’s the worst thing
you’ve ever done?

I love these lines:

But it’s years now
since the river shifted, as if done with the same
view both over and over
and never twice, which
is to say done at last with conundrum, when it’s
just a river—here’s a river . . .

I’d like to use, as if done with the same/view both over and over/and never twice.

I want to fit it into my 3/2 form and use it my Haunts section about looping and doubling back. Maybe something like this:

Occasionally
the girl does not run
on the rim, changes
her route, as if done
with the same view, both
over and over and
never twice.

nov 4/RUN

5.75 miles
franklin loop
59 degrees / mist and drizzle

Wow, wow, wow! What a cool (vibe, not temp) morning beside the gorge. Everything damp and dripping, bright orange leaves, mist. I first noticed the mist in the floodplain forest, then on the river. Looking to the north while crossing the franklin bridge, the river disappeared into it. I greeted Daddy Long Legs — good morning! Saw a rowing shell on the river, gliding. From high above I couldn’t hear their awkward oars slapping the water. Noticed the reflections of trees in the water near the east shore.

10 Things

  1. drips of water tinkling from the trees — or was it wind moving through leaves?
  2. leaves + puddles = muck: yuck!
  3. the bright white boat glowing on the dark river
  4. a broken slat on a freshly painted fence
  5. a group of glowing orange trees near the base of the bridge
  6. walkers with raincoats, their hoods up
  7. no stones stacked on the big boulder
  8. a dirt trail leading down near meeker dam, just past a wrought-iron fence
  9. a sandbar just below the surface, under the lake street bridge overlook
  10. white sands beach, glowing through the bare trees on the other side of the river

As I ran, I was thinking about water and stone and how I feel like both. Water, flowing and carving out new possibilities, and stone, slowly being worn down, transformed, losing layers. I also thought about air and its relationship to water and stone. Octavio Paz has a wonderful poem, Wind, Water, Stone. I also kept returning to the idea of erosion.

Reading through past entries tagged with “water and stone,” I found this bit from march 13, 2024. Some of the same thoughts I was having this morning! Such loops and repeated cycles of thoughts!

restless water satisfied stone erosion movement 

not 1 or 2 but 3 things: water and stone and their interactions
erosion, making something new — gorge

Then: Water as a poet / stubborn Stone yields, refuses, resists
water = poet / stone = words/language
erosion = absence, silence, making Nothing
me = eroding eyes / stone being shaped / a form of water shaping stone

I wear down the stone with my regular loops

Add a variation of this line, originally in my mood ring, Relentless, somewhere:

I am both limestone and water. As I dissolve my slow steady flow carves out a new geography.

In other rock-related news, FWA is planning to play the epically awesome bass clarinet Concerto for a Aria competition this spring. It’s called Prometheus and the four short-ish movements are based on Kafka’s short story about the myth:

There are four legends concerning Prometheus:

According to the first, he was clamped to a rock in the Caucasus for betraying the secrets of the gods to men, and the gods sent eagles to feed on his liver, which was perpetually renewed. According to the second, Prometheus, goaded by the pain of the tearing beaks, pressed himself deeper and deeper into the rock until he became one with it. According to the third, his treachery was forgotten in the course of thousands of years, the gods forgotten, the eagles, he himself forgotten. According to the fourth, every one grew weary of the meaningless affair. The gods grew weary, the eagles grew weary, the wound closed wearily. There remained the inexplicable mass of rock.—The legend tried to explain the inexplicable. As it came out of a substratum of truth it had in turn to end in the inexplicable.

Prometheus / Franz Kafka

What to make of that inexplicable rock?!

nov 1/RUN

5.6 miles
ford loop
40 degrees

I overdressed this morning in a long-sleeved shirt, sweatshirt, tights and gloves. The sun was warmer than I thought. Most of the leaves are off the trees and on the ground. The ravine near Shadow Falls was a beautiful rusty red. The thin creek running through it shimmered in spots.

It helped to get outside and be beside the gorge. It’s an exhausting time. Both of my kids are supposed to be in college this semester, neither of them are. They are each working on their mental health. It’s hard to see them suffer. On top of that, the impending election is terrifying. While I ran, I forgot about all of this.

10 Things

  1. the bells of St. Thomas tolling twelve times as I crested the Summit hill
  2. 2 small bowls on a neighbor’s front steps, filled with full-sized reese’s peanut butter cups
  3. a man walking a dog listening to talk radio without headphones — I couldn’t tell if it was about politics or sports
  4. water falling softly from shadow falls
  5. the river from lake street bridge: gray, rippled, a shimmering line of light near the east shore
  6. a graffitied port-a-potty with the jar very slightly ajar — was it open, or was the door unable to fully close?
  7. the trees on the west side of the river near locks and dam no. 1 were bare and a fuzzy brown
  8. the sudden start of sirens close by — a fire truck coming up the hill from the locks
  9. the stinky mulch that had been piled on the edge of the path was gone
  10. an opening on the bluff — what a view of the river and the other side!

Yes, That’s When/ Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer

I like my body when I’m in the woods
and I forget my body. I forget that arms,
that legs, that nose. I forget that waist,

that nerve, that skin. And I aspen. I mountain.
I river. I stone. I leaf. I path. I flower.
I like when I evergreen, current and berry.

I like when I mushroom, avalanche, cliff.
And everything is yes then, and everything
new: wild iris, duff, waterfall, dew.

oct 28/RUN

1 mile
river road, north/32nd/edmund, south
57 degrees

Even though I ran on Saturday and Sunday, it’s beautiful this morning, so I decided to go out for a quick run. Wow! The floodplain forest was almost all golden. And it was warm enough to wear shorts! The mile was easy, relaxed — my average heart rate = 137. I recited my favorite Halloween poem in my head — A Rhyme for Halloween — and tried to think about the latest section of my haunts poem. It’s about restlessness and water and control and the idea of enough and the army corps of engineers and locks and dams and hydroelectric power and energy and constant movement and . . . . Did I have any helpful thoughts? I can’t remember. Did I look at the river? I can’t remember that either. I think my view of it was still blocked. All I saw was open air.

The air over a gorge is different than the air over a field. Why? Sometimes when I’m being driven* on the river road and I can see the air but not the river, I think about this question. If I were seeing this for the first time and didn’t know anything about it, would I still be able to tell the air I could see was over a gorge and not a big open field? What’s different?

*usually I write driving and not being driven, but I don’t drive anymore because of my vision. I haven’t driven in 3 years and only briefly. I haven’t driven regularly in at least 5 years.

I was feeling good as I walked back through the neighborhood, happy to be outside, and then it happened. No warning, out of the blue: my kneecap briefly slid out of its groove. It went back in right away, but not before reminding me that it could do it again whenever it wanted. I recovered and wasn’t too anxious, but was cautious with every step, wondering if it would happen again. Sigh. One reassurance: while these slips and slides are still disruptive, they don’t bother me nearly as much as they used to. I will be fine, my knee will be fine.

water, preliminary thoughts

I mentioned above that I’m working on a new section of my haunts poem. It’s about water and restlessness. Before my run, I was free-writing about it: relentless, obsession, wearing down, transforming, constantly moving, never still.

Then I wrote this: the falls never stopped, just put on hold, all that restless energy built up. This is a reference to the fact that the falls didn’t run out of rock and peter out, but was stopped by a concrete apron under the water, built over 100 years ago. I can’t quite remember the details, so I better review the history.

My notes continue: dammed, locks and dam, hydroelectric power, tamed, removing the dam, letting water flow freely. Then I remembered reading about efforts to restore creeks and streams that have been buried in concrete as cities built up. It’s called daylighting. Yes! I could include something about that, too!

For some time, people and organizations (like Friends of the Mississippi River) have been advocating for removing some of the locks and dams (there are 3) and restoring the river. Here’s a description that I might like to use in my poem:

The Mississippi River, one of the most iconic, important waterways in the world, is also one of the most altered. Dams drown once-vibrant rapids, levees stop the river’s meander, and dredging and river-training structures keep the Mississippi locked into a prescribed path.

Restore the River

I’m particularly interested in the river-training bit and the efforts to lock the river into a prescribed path. To contrast this, I might also want to include my work/thinking around seeps and springs and their ability to leak and find ways through rock and asphalt.

Whew! I’ll need to edit and whittle it down to something manageable, but it’s fun to let the ideas take me wherever I want to go — to flow freely, not be locked in a certain path!

Thinking about all of these ideas, I was reminded of how the poet Wang Ping describes restoring the dam in their poem, And the Old Man Speaks of Paradise:

Do not dam me. To move freely is to evolve is to live
Lock feeds fear feeds hate feeds violence to the base of paradise

added a few minutes later: I love Tim Walz and I love this interview he did while running:

When he said, about Minnesotans, “we run in the winter,” I yelled out to the screen and the empty room, Yes!