Tag: no headphones

june 4/RUN

4 miles
minnehaha falls and back
67 degrees

Another successful 9/1 run, where success = picking something and committing to it and keeping steady and relaxed. Yesterday it rained most of the day, so no running. Evn if it hadn’t been raining, I wouldn’t/couldn’t have fun; smoke from the Canadian wild fires made the air quality terrible. Not just hazy; I could smell/feel the smoke. Today it’s much better.

9 Things

  1. mowing
  2. sweating
  3. bugs
  4. shadows
  5. voices
  6. laughter
  7. crowds
  8. cars
  9. potholes

I tried something new today with the 10 things. At the end of my run, I pulled out my phone and recorded a list of things. I ended up with nine because I forgot to count as I was doing it. By the end, I wasn’t sure of how many things I had listed.

On Monday, we moved RJP into her new apartment. She handled the stress of moving very well. What a difference a year makes!

Here’s another bit from Brian Teare’s Companion Grasses I’d like to remember:

from Tall Flatsedge Notebook/ Brian Teare

A guidebook calls it “tall Flatsedge” but at my desk
it doesn’t stick : each sketched notebook detail floats
slowly from what once had make it live. At its smallest
:matter has no ideals” : taking off my socks, I find
several flatsedge seeds hooked : no split of self
from self—it can’t lack—carbon, oxygen, nitrogen—
it’s being & being singly is. All day at Chimney Rock
I’d returned to three thoughts :

you; the “world

we wanted to go out into,
to come to ourselves into”;

& the right form
to bridge two subjects apart

“organizations in the sound of them
verg[e] upon meaning,
upon ‘Heaven;”

As part of this section, Teare includes sources for these ideas in the left margins. I fiddled around with columns to add them in, but I wasn’t able to. Maggie Nelson did a similar thing with sources in The Argonauts. And Alice Oswald does it in Dart to identify the “voice” that is speaking in the poem. I’d like to experiment with this in a piece involving my notes for a gorge run.

I also like his discussion of bridging the gap between two subjects — you and the world. Here I’m thinking of the you and the I, too.

june 2/RUN

2.25 miles
2 trails
70 degrees

14 years ago today, I started running. I wanted to mark the occasion with a longer run, but it’s warm and I don’t have time. This morning we move RJP into her first apartment. It’s difficult to put into words how I’m feeling. I will miss her being here, but I’m not sad. I’m excited for her and for me. She’s ready, and I am too.

10 Things

  1. bugs
  2. breeze
  3. drip drip drip
  4. mulching leaves
  5. bird chorus
  6. hazed surface
  7. distanced
  8. shrill
  9. dark green
  10. wood chipped

Something new to try: if I look at this list in a few days, are these words enough to remind me of what I noticed and experienced on this run? Future Sara, let us know!

Discovered this book today, Hardly Creatures. It looks amazing! I found out about through Poetry Daily, which is where I’m finding out about most of my new favorite poets. I think this should be an early birthday present to me! (update: bought it!)

I found out about this book from this interview, which was linked to on Poetry Daily.

I want to remember this part:

The question I asked at the very beginning, before writing many poems from this, was: what would accessible poetry mean, maybe not in the ways that mean “easy to read” or “intelligible,” but as in “meeting the needs of the reader”? How could a poem do everything a poem wants to do, while also meeting the needs of the reader? That questioning drove the whole book, the individual poems themselves, and especially the access symbols. 

JGJ: “Meeting the needs of the reader” is exactly it. I felt like needs I didn’t even know I had were accounted for while reading this collection. Sometimes there’d be a poem that was just the title, and the rest of the page would be blank. Those moments helped me realize that I actually needed to just sit and take the previous poem in, because maybe it had a lot of heavy material, or had a lot happening in it. Those moments give the reader their own authority over the reading experience. One could choose to just sit there in the blank space, or choose to reread the poem, or move on. 

There’s one poem, “History of Display,” that really stuck out to me. While reading, the poem was at once being really guiding and gentle, but didn’t let that tenderness stop it from criticizing the absurdity of our ableist world. How did you learn to strike such a balance in your writing, of making sure to meet the needs of your reader, while also remaining critical?

RMC: I paid a lot of attention to my own experiences reading. I’m not always the best reader… I’m a very tired and sleepy person, and I would sort of pay attention to things like, Okay, how many poems can I get through before I feel like I need to stop? Or, What order of poems is helpful to keep me reading? If while reading I encounter a super dense, lyrical poem on one page, enough to make me think, I hope the next one’s shorter, and then the next one would be just as dense, it would pull me out of the work. I would feel bad about that because it’d be wonderful work, but because my needs weren’t being met, I wasn’t able to give my fullest attention to the work. 

My inclination towards form was very helpful, because it helped to break apart the book into smaller units, poem by poem, and then wing by wing. It was a lot of reading, paying attention to how reading felt, and thinking about what made me feel better when I was reading.

I can’t read a lot of words; it hurts my eyes/brain and I often fall asleep. I’m drawn to shorter forms that I can easily hold in my head. One approach to accessible could be making all the words available in a recording, but I’d rather reduce the number of words altogether!

june 1/RUN

3.15 miles
trestle turn around
56 degrees

Excellent weather this morning for a run. I decided to run without stopping to walk, instead of doing the 9/1, just to see if I could do it. I could. At the end of the run, a thought: I should do a 3 mile run like this on the first of each month and compare times and effort. Maybe I should do this test twice a month?

The thing I remember most about the run was the orange light. It’s from wildfires up in Canada. I didn’t see an orange sun, or orange light in the sky. I saw orange light on the paved trail. Strange. I wondered if it really looked orange, or it just felt orange. And, was anyone else seeing the light on the trail and thinking, orange?

The thing I remember second most was the cottonwood fuzz, everywhere. Lining the trail, turning the grass pale green. I think I inhaled some; it got caught in my throat and made it hard to breathe.

There were chatty bikers and small packs of runners and walkers, a few dogs. I think I might have heard the rowers briefly. I didn’t look for the river or hear any geese. I did witness a car ignore a stop sign. And I admired another runner’s bright orange compression socks. I noticed that the grass near the trail had been trimmed and wondered how short the parks had trimmed it. No more rubbery dandelion stalks.

To keep a steady pace, I chanted in triple berries: strawberry / blueberry / raspberry

Picked up Brian Teare’s Companion Grasses from the library. I’m particularly inspired by the sections/pieces/poems? that combine his hiking notes with descriptions and references to other thinkers.

from Tall Flatsedge Notebook/ Brian Teare

A mile’s hike outside the fence-enclosed vista point
we sat hillside so inside experience I wrote the wrong date
down–March twenty second–noticing no thought
but things : “when I think they animate my interior speech,
they haunt it as the little phrase.” Oceans tilted, the whole thing
leaning green, coastal prairie poised pre-Spring
a prosody for seeing landscape as aural, ambient trick
to hear the ear’s eye : far bass, near treble, I saw

I heard
low drone wind
cut by distant cliffs’ sheer fall

Above it below the hill

surf’s purr
& nearer

wind-shirred grass
bright brown birdsong

in back of one bee far
barking seals–

*

I wanted a hello sort of like I know you as if
to call a grass a subject like I can’t back home :
urbanity : a class-based lack of grasses shared
people, fog, sidewalks, architecture, money,
the smells of jasmine & feces, & five sounds :

suck of tread in water

window clicking against frame

recycling knicked from bins

footsteps above

heater’s hiss

A few pages later, he offers this quote:

at the edge
of what is bearable
in an image.

In the margins he provides a source: The Object Stares Back/ James Elkins. I looked this source up and got very excited. It’s all about how we see and our myths about what we think we’re seeing and doing when we see. Very cool. I requested the book from the libary; it should be ready in a few days.

may 31/RUN

3.5 miles
top of wabun hill and back
67 degrees

Hot! Sunny! It’s summer. Another successful 9 min run/1 min walk session. Building up discipline. I wasn’t sure what my route would be; I just went where my feet lead me, which was halfway down the hill at Locks and Dam no. 1, then all the way up the hill to Wabun park. At the top, I turned around and descended to the parking lot, then to the river road trail heading north.

10 Things

  1. goose
  2. beard
  3. sliver
  4. hiking poles
  5. twang
  6. braid
  7. bench
  8. LOUD!
  9. trail
  10. chartreuse

A honk, then a big shadow on the path in front of me. A goose flying overhead!

At the top of the Wabun hill, a guy in a wheelchair, at an angle, looking down at the river. His white beard glowed in the sunlight.

Remembered to look for the river. Only saw a sliver of it through the tree.

Running up the hill at the locks and dam, passing by 2 people powering up the hill, using hiking poles.

A car — or was it a bike? — blasting country music. Not sure who or what it was. All I could hear was twang.

Approaching then passing another runner from behind, noticing her long, white braid. I couldn’t quite hear, but I think she called out, good job!

A bench facing a wall of green. Someone was sitting on it, taking in the green view.

A mini peloton of 30 or so riders on the road. Their whirring wheels were so LOUD!

Running down the short stretch of the path that dips below the road, I noticed a steep trail descending to the river. I’d like to take it some day.

Seen on the wabun hill: a walker wearing chartreuse shorts.

I did it. I struggled to come up with 10 things. Maybe because it was a shorter run or because I was hot or because not much was happening on the trail this morning. No — not that last one. There’s always something happening on or near the trail!

may 29/RUN

4 miles
minnehaha falls and back
62 degrees

Another 9 min run/ 1 min walk day. Ran a little faster, felt a little bit easier. Not easy, but easier. A small victory. I’d like to continue stacking these small victories to draw on when the runs get harder and longer this summer.

Walking before my run, I was passed by someone walking a lot faster than me. I marveled at how quickly she was almost out of sight then wondered if I would pass her again when I started running. I did, and felt slightly smug about it. Walking after my run, I encountered a turkey. I think it’s the same one from yesterday that was staring at a neighbor’s garage. I enjoyed watching the turkey’s small head bobbing awkwardly.

I’m close to finishing my collection of color poems! I’m also working on a submission for a special issue on blurred genre pieces. I had a thought during my run: submit my mood ring poem, Invincible, and include a how-to guide + an image of my blind spot + a few notes about the process.

Listened to the zipper on my running belt softly hitting my shirt with each step as I ran south. Put in my “It’s Windy” playlist — because it’s windy today! — as I ran north.

may 28/RUN

4 miles
past the trestle turn around
62 degrees / drizzle

Drizzle. Refreshing. All around, dark green, deep brown, gray. The sky was a pale blue, and so was the river. I decided to be disciplined today: 9 minutes of walking, 1 minute of running until I reached 4 miles. I did it. Not easy, but not difficult or, was it both easy and difficult?Walking to the river, I saw something strange by a neighbor’s garage. I looked again — a turkey! Staring at the wall, making a noise, not quite a gobble.

I’m thinking about yellow today. Running north, I started chanting:

yellow is
yellow is
yellow is
is yellow
is yellow
is yellow

Did I see anything yellow? The dotted, dividing lines on the bike path — if you count that as yellow. Scott calls that orange. No yellow flowers or yellow signs or bright yellow shirts. The only color I remember noticing was the bright blue of the recycling bin on the trail.

may 27/RUN

2.6 miles
river road trail, south/winchell trail, north
64 degrees

Thought briefly about biking to the lake and swimming, but it’s drizzling off and on, and it’s not that warm, and I imagine the water isn’t that warm yet. Just checked the temp: 61 degrees. What’s the coldest water I’ve been in? Probably colder than 61 as a kid in Lake Superior, but as an adult, I’m not sure. Too cold for me today, so I did a short run.

I wanted to run to the south entrance of the Winchell trail but there was a very large — 40 or more? — kids up ahead, walking and blocking the trail, and I didn’t want to encounter them. So I turned down at 42nd. Before I turned, I enjoyed witnessing the kids from afar. They kept trying to get passing cars to honk by yelling honk! honk! honk! They were not quite in unison, and sounded almost like a vee of geese flying overhead. Nice! A few cars honked, one for several seconds — no quick tap, a long HONK! At first I thought they were part of a school group but would teachers let students yell at cars like that? Maybe it was a walk-out protest?

My weather app disagrees, but I think it was very humid. Now that funding for gathering weather data has been taken away, I don’t trust any forecasts. How could it only be 64% humidity when I ‘m sweating this much, and it is drizzling a little?

I ended my run on the dirt trail that climbs up the edge of the grassy boulevard. I had to watch carefully for roots or rocks. On either side, vivid, abundant (or excessive) green grass. In the middle, bare dirt — brownish gray, fuzzy, almost a nothingness that was difficult to see. The green, dizzying, disorienting. Inspiration for my green sonnet?

excerpt from Desire/ Christopher Buckley

Shuffling down
the path in the park, I go on whistling what was once
considered a lively tune, thankful to even be a satchel
of ligaments and bone still able to transact enough chemicals,
one neuron to another,
                                        that I can appreciate the day lilies,
star jasmine, and have some idea about what’s missing
when a streak of grey engraves hosannas of moonlight,
the spindrift off the rocks, anything that sounds
remotely like a prayer
                                       sent into the air to a god who,
in his infinite memory, must know he abandoned us
here—so many self-conscious molecular assemblies—
specs in a starry whirlwind of desire.

Wow — a satchel/ligament and bone still able to transact enough chemicals,/one neuron to another — what a description of a human!

spin-drift: sea spray; fine wind-borne snow or sand

may 26/RUN

4.6 miles
veterans home
63 degrees

Ran to the falls. Every day, my legs are feeling stronger. Will I be ready to run almost 8 miles next week? Yes! I listened to all the walkers and bikers and roller skiers and runners out by the gorge as I ran south, my “color” playlist as I ran north. I stopped a few times to record some ideas about my blue poem. Yesterday was indigo, today it’s blue.

10 Things

  1. roots
  2. sky
  3. roar
  4. flags
  5. voices
  6. bikers
  7. Sawyer
  8. horns
  9. picnic
  10. honks

Near the end of my run, I ran on the grassy boulevard between the river road and edmund. There were a lot of them, but I managed to not trip over any of the roots popping out of the dry dirt.

The sky was a cloudless blue, sometimes bright, sometimes pale.

At the park, I didn’t run near the falls, but I could still hear its roar as it rushed over the edge.

Memorial Day. At the Veterans home, the road was lined with flags.

Crossing over the creek on the high bridge, I could hear kids’ voices below, laughing and calling out to each other. I couldn’t hear any splashing, but I could tell by their tone that they were in the water.

The path was thick with fast moving bikers.

No — Sawyer — no! Two adults called out to their toddler when he tried to follow me as I ran by.

Running down the steep hill near locks and dam no. 1, I heard horns on the ford bridge. Was it in support of memorial day? Against a war or a dictator? (update, minutes later: Scott ran too. He saw someone walking through the park with a sign that read, Democracy dies in silence.)

At Wabun, a dozen or more people were having a picnic under one of the pavilions.

About a mile into my run, a cacophony above the trees. Geese! I followed their honks up into the sky and witnessed a wedge heading north.

blue

Today, I’m thinking about blue and trying to write a sonnet about it. As I ran, some ideas flashed in my head, so I stopped to record them:

after mile 1: inspired by the cacophony of honking geese, I thought about blue as an action, a verb, a phenomenon, not a noun or a pigment. Also: unfenced water, scattered sky.

after mile 2: Thinking about me as blue — as sparkling and shimmering and scattering and flinging waves of light all around. Blue as a happening that is not solid or tangible but imagined, a trick of the light, a “real” that we create for ourselves out of desire. Blue cannot capture the color, the feeling, the happening that blue is.

after finishing the run: The blue sky is not smooth or seamless. I see the scattering, the static, the pixels — the veil that hides the illusion of sight and seeing color, has been lifted.

Searching through my archive for thoughts about blue, I came across this fact, which inspired my thinking about scattering:

Like all other blue birds, Indigo Buntings lack blue pigment. Their jewel-like color comes instead from microscopic structures in the feathers that refract and reflect blue light, much like the airborne particles that cause the sky to look blue.

All About Birds

may 25/RUN

3.5 miles
trestle turn around
63 degrees

Felt good today. Ran a little faster, felt a little freer. Even though the weather is great, it’s Sunday, and it’s almost noon, the paths weren’t that crowded. Was it because it’s memorial day weekend? Whatever the reason, I appreciate not having to dodge bikers or groups of walkers.

10 Things

  1. sea
  2. stacked
  3. stink
  4. staring
  5. shadows
  6. craters
  7. purple
  8. soft
  9. sitting
  10. saw

Running through the tunnel of trees above the floodplain forest, a sea of green. No sky or river or solid ground.

4 stones stacked on the ancient boulder.

Above the rowing club, a slight stink from the sewers — sweet and sour.

Running up the hill, past the old stone steps, 2 walkers and a dog about to descend the old stone steps. I couldn’t see their faces, but I felt like they were staring at me.

At the start of my run, bird shadows: a big one swooping, several smaller ones shooting across the street like bullets.

The craters in the patched crack near the trestle seem to be growing deeper.

Running past a tree, a flash of purple in the otherwise green leaves. Was that a trick of the light?

The soft sound of water falling or wind gently rustling the leaves near the ravine.

I was planning to stop at the sliding bench, but 2 people were already sitting there.

Before I began running, I heard a woman’s voice — you did it! Then the sound of a saw buzzing, then good job! Her tone sounded like she was praising a little kid. I wondered if that were true and how old the kid was that she was teaching to use a power saw — not in judgment, in wonder.

indigo

I have returned to my color poems. Before I ran, I was thinking about indigo again. During the run, an idea popped in my head, so just past the trestle I stopped to record it:

Thinking about indigo and idea of wanting this time, at night, that is dark without stars. Which is referencing how, when I lose all of my cone cells, there may never be true dark. And then thinking also about how true dark is not possible (in the city) because of light pollution. The idea that indigo is something both wished for and feared.

another grass line

It will soon be cold here,
and dark here;
the grass will lie flat
to search for its spring head.
(Love in the Weather’s Bells/ Jay Wright)

may 24/RUN

4 miles
minnehaha falls and back
54 degrees

Ah, another wonderful morning. Sunny and just the right amount of warm. Ran with Scott. He talked about the book he’s reading — a murder mystery set in Austin, MN and Minneapolis. I talked about turning my color poems in to a chapbook. Also discussed: a YouTube video about taking a train from D.C. to Seattle (me), UAE cycling team doing altitude training (Scott), favorite and least favorite running shirts (me), possibly ordering a new bass (Scott), and voltas and vueltas and a tour as turn as hero’s quest (both of us). We also discussed an annoying woman last summer who wouldn’t let us use one of the drinking fountains because she was using the other to slowly fill up her big water bottle (both of us).

I don’t recall looking down at the river even once. Would I have been able to see it? A rare sight: a rollerblader, not a roller skier. Shirtless runners. The white foam of the falls. A stick flying up from under Scott’s foot. The cool green just before reaching the ford bridge.

bank

The other day I overheard one runner say to another something about banking time. I thought about the word bank and embankment popped into my head. Then I wondered about bank’s origins. Reading the poem-of-the-day this morning on Poetry Foundation, I encountered another bank line:

from Ode to the Midwest/ Kevin Young:

I want to jog
down to the river

& make it my bed—

I want to walk
its muddy banks

& make me a withdrawal.

a return to color

I’ve decided to turn my color poems into a chapbook for a contest. Time to study color some more. I need to write a sonnet about green, indigo, and blue. Maybe yellow, too? Here’s a wonderful yellow poem to inspire me:

Crown of Yellow/ Sarah Audsley

If I stay, I might notice things—the color of buttercups, their bright faces
en masse floating in green-grass-clouds, the lolling fields.

Butter—browned in a pan for the sauce to dress an expensive dead fish.

Yellow yolks make cake, custards, or the exact shade for stasis.

Or shame. I always think of yellow so.

A primary color, it arrives in packages, crushed natural iron oxide from a quarry in France.

Combine yellow with red, make orange. Shades shift by proportion.

The painter tells me about the color wheel, not the grey fear-sphere spinning in my head, or
anything I know something about.

The beehive above, swaying. Yellow bits move in and out.

How yellow the yellow finches’ bodies, how they lift so easily into the air.

The in-between color—traffic lights say, stop. Then, go.

The striking of a single ray of sunlight can cause cancerous cells to grow, mutate.

Paint the kitchen walls a shade—warms and comforts.

Color of the piss puddle I left on the hardwood floor. Little ballerina shoes tiptoed around the mess.
I did raise my hand, I did ask to go, I did try to do the right thing.

Tutus and twirls. Mrs. Stein said, Wait. Hold it! Her black leotard plastered to the curvature of her
small breasts rose with her commands.

If you prefer gold fillings, and can afford them, the dentist will place them inside decayed teeth.
Gold is a soft metal.

Combine yellow with blue, make green.

Are we back in the field, yet? Why do I ever leave it? The forest needs no grammar. Water splits
rock. Hawk shreds yellow birds’ feathers.
The mind, an unending sieve.

Dandelion wine is made from the tufts of heads, collected and boiled.
Alcohol is for adults. Some bitterroot.

Never dress Asian babies in yellow, my mother tells me. Clashes with their skin.
I learned from you, she says.

And, there is a fox running the median line on the bumpy road. I am not there, but I’m driving fast,
headlights off, because there is a full-bodied moon, and I want to move in the dark like I know
exactly, no precisely, without any hesitation, where I am going.

Barreling ahead.

Each hour the light changes, each minute angles shift.

Skylights are key in the studio. Naked. Put on my skin in layers—how many? What can the painter
see?

I prefer to sleep through sunrise. I trust the heliocentric turning of things that are difficult to
understand.

About yellowface I cannot say—enough. What is enough?

The channeling knife is the tool to make a lemon twist. I use it. Hovering over the glass, making the
cut infuses the air in the space above the liquid with the essence of the fruit.

Once, I plucked an entire bucket of lemons and lavender. Made lemonade.

I don’t believe in that phrase…because my mother took to the tug of the bottle.
More often than not, vomit is yellow.

In another dream, I am the lone sunflower swaying, shaken by the anticipation from the smell of the
oncoming distant rain.