Tag: remember/forget

april 27/RUN

4.1 miles
river road, north/seabury, south/river road, south/edmund, south
53 degrees
Deaths from COVID-19: 286 (MN)/ 55,118 (US)

What a morning! Rained early, then Sun! Birds! A slight breeze! Trees barely budding, glowing a yellowy green!

In the name of the Trees—
And the Woodpecker—
And the Breeze—Amen!
(variation on Emily Dickinson)

It’s easier to bury deep the panic and thoughts about getting very sick or someone I love getting very sick when the weather is like this and the trails aren’t too crowded and it’s not too hot or too cold and there aren’t swarming gnats yet.

My run felt good this morning. I remember looking down at the river, but I don’t remember what I saw—wait, how could I forget? It was gorgeous! Not sparkling or shining, but a mirror reflecting the fluffy clouds. I imagined that the water was another world, doubled and reversed, like in May Swenson’s great poem, “Water Picture“: “In the pond in the park/ all things are doubled:/ Long buildings hang and/ wriggle gently. Chimneys/ are bent legs bouncing/ on clouds below.” Love how “In the pond in the park” bounces on my tongue. I kept glancing over at the water and admiring its smooth beauty and how it looked like a mirror. I started thinking about the Greek myth (which I couldn’t really remember) about the hunter who looked at his reflection. I looked it up just now–of course it was Narcissus. Here’s an interesting article I found that discusses him and the idea of mirrors in water–it even has a picture of Salvadore Dali looking into the water.

At some point during my run, a biker biked by, their radio blasting “Everybody Talks.” (Had to look it up, it’s by Neon Trees.) I haven’t heard this song in a few years; it was on one of my running playlists for a while. Mostly I listened to it while I ran around the track at the YWCA. Just looked and couldn’t find any mention of it in this log.

Reciting While Running: Dear One, Absent This Long While

Started reciting my poem for the week, Lisa Olstein’s Dear One Absent This Long While. Not too difficult to memorize, fun to say. I don’t remember much about the rhythms with my feet, but I do remember thinking more about the words. As I recited the line, “so even if spring continues to disappoint” I wondered, is it “spring” or “the spring”? I couldn’t remember and I tried to think about which fit better and whether or not a “the” was necessary. Also paused at the line, “She had the quiet ribs/ of a salamander crossing the old pony post road.” At first, I kept saying “has” but then I realized it made more sense to say “had.” Also, why is there a “the” in front of pony post road here, but not a “the” in front of spring? I find it helpful to think more about the choices poets make with their words. It’s fascinating and I think it can help me make a better poet who uses better words and words better–which is always my goal in writing.

I decided it would be fun to record myself reciting the poem right after finishing my run and then listening to it while looking at the poem–which words did I screw up, leave out, add? This experiment was fun, although I am still way too self-conscious speaking into my phone. I want to stop caring if people see me doing it and what they think about it. Here’s the recording:

Dear One Absent This Long While, recorded 4/27

I’d like to try recording myself saying it again tomorrow after my run. Maybe by the end of the week I won’t feel weird doing it.

In addition to reciting this new poem, I also revisited Emily Dickinson’s “It’s all I have to bring today” and the second line. I tried running with the different rhythms that I figured out in yesterday’s log. “This, and my heart beside” I was struck by how the different rhythms also changed the emphasis. In the original, Dickinson is emphasizing, “This.” Some of my rhythms, like the triplet for “this and my”, put the emphasis on heart. It’s cool how much of a difference changing the rhythm can make on the meaning–not a deep insight, but it’s fun to find ways to actually understand poetry, especially those parts of it that seem so hard for me to get.

What else happened on my run?

  • Saw someone walking down the old stone steps
  • Later, saw a dog and its human crossing the path to also walk down the old stone steps
  • Greeted Dave, the Daily Walker with a “Hi Dave” and a wave and, “Beautiful morning!”
  • Greeted another biker on Seabury
  • Noticed the trestle as I ran by it
  • Inspected the progress of the leaves below the tunnel of trees in the floodplain forest. The green veil is coming–too soon!
  • A few rocks were stacked on the ancient boulder at the top of the path, near the sprawling oak and at the entrance to the tunnel of trees

Greeting the Welcoming Oaks

note: I’m adding this in later, but I had forgotten about it.

About 5 minutes into my run, as I passed near the overlook and through the Welcoming Oaks, I greeted every one of them. I didn’t count, but I’m guessing it was about 10 trees? “Good morning!” “Hello friend!” “Hello!” “Hi!”

april 4/WALKBIKERUN

walk 1: 2 miles
Edmund Bvld
30 degrees
Deaths from COVID-19: 24 (MN)/ 8,407 (US)

Walked with Scott, Delia the Dog, and my daughter this morning. Nice, crisp air. Sunny. Hardly any wind. A perfect morning for a run, but I decided to only walk. Trying not to push it too much with the running. They’ve turned the river parkway into a one-way and created a lane for walkers. Will this help enable people to get more distance from each other? Not sure. I’ll check it out tomorrow when I run. Felt great to be outside and moving. Heard at least one cardinal, several crows, a woodpecker. Anything else? There were traces of the snow from yesterday still settled around the trees in the grass by Edmund. Walked by the Cyclops Baby on the garage door again. Enjoyed walking with my daughter–only her second time outside in almost a month.

bike: 27 minutes
bike stand, basement
run: 1.1 miles
treadmill, basement

Gave myself another easy day in the basement today. Watched some of a Joan Didion documentary–The Center Will Not Hold–and listened to Harry Styles as I ran. Don’t remember thinking about much. Happy to be able to move and breathe and not always be worrying.

Poem/ Charles Bernstein – 1950-

here. Forget.
There are simply tones
cloudy, breezy
birds & so on.
Sit down with it.
It’s time now.
There is no more natural sight.
Anyway transform everything
silence, trees
commitment, hope
this thing inside you
flow, this movement of eyes
set of words
all turns, all grains.
At night, shift
comets, “twirling planets,
suns, bits of illuminated pumice”
pointing out, in harsh tones
cancers & careers.
“Newer Limoges please.”
Pick some value
mood, idea, type or smell of paper
iridescent, lackluster
&, “borne in peach vessels,”
just think
“flutter & cling”
with even heavier sweep
unassuaged
which are the things
of a form, etc
that inhere.
Fair adjustment
becomes space between
crusts of people
strange, rending:
as sound of some importance
diffuses
“as dark red circles”
digress, reverberate
connect, unhook.
Your clothes, for example
face, style
radiate mediocrity
coyly, slipping
& in how many minutes
body & consciousness
deflect, “flame on flare”
missed purpose.
Your eyes
glaze
thought stumbles, blinded
speck upon speck
ruffling edges.
“But do not be delighted yet.”
The distance positively entrances.
Take out pad & pen
crystal cups, velvet ashtray
with the gentility of easy movement
evasive, unaccountable
& puffing signs
detach, unhinge
beyond weeds, chill
with enthusiastic smile
& new shoes
“by a crude rotation”
hang
a bulk of person
“ascending,” “embodied.”

I want to spend some time with this poem, thinking about it. Check out the erasure I did of it on April 6th.

march 28/WALKBIKERUN

walk: 1.5 miles
longfellow neighborhood
bike: 25 minutes
bike stand, basement
run: 1.3 miles
treadmill, basement
441 confirmed cases of COVID-19

Started the day with a walk around the neighborhood with Scott and Delia the dog. Lots of birds, hardly any people. We meandered, often turning when we saw people approaching. Ended up walking by one of my favorite garages–so awesomely weird.

https://www.instagram.com/p/B-SEUQTnlIB

We also walked by the creepy, completely shrouded in towering trees, house across from Sanford Middle School. Scott noticed a few windows on one side but they were concealed with thick awnings. Even the side entrance is fenced over, with the railing poking through fence boards. What happened here? I can’t believe my kids haven’t passed on any ghost stories from other Sanford kids about this place.

Later, after it began raining, I decided to workout in the basement. Started watching a documentary on Netflix about a failed Stephen Sondheim/Hal Prince musical, Merrily We Roll Along: The Best Worst Thing That Could Have Happened. So far, I’m enjoying it. I love musicals. Another version of me, in a different universe, would have loved to be in musicals. In this universe, I’ll just have to appreciate my niece Isabel and her amazing talent as an actor.

Finished off my workout with a short run. I’m growing to like these quick, fast-feeling treadmill runs. No 6 feet of distance needed! As much as I enjoy them occasionally, I hope we don’t get to a point where we can’t go outside and this is the only way I can run.

Right now, I’m working on creating an unabridged list of writing experiments (tried or to be tried), inspired by my runs beside the gorge. I’ve thought of turning some of them into an autobiographical poem. This poem is very different from what I imagine writing, but it’s helpful as an example–and so powerful.

Prompts (for High School Teachers Who Write Poetry)/ Dante Di Stefano

Write about walking into the building
as a new teacher. Write yourself hopeful.
Write a row of empty desks. Write the face
of a student you’ve almost forgotten;
he’s worn a Derek Jeter jersey all year.
Do not conjecture about the adults
he goes home to, or the place he calls home. 
Write about how he came to you for help
each October morning his sophomore year.
Write about teaching Othello to him;
write Wherein of antres vast and deserts idle, 
rough quarries, rocks and hills whose heads touch heaven. 
Write about reading his obituary
five years after he graduated. Write
a poem containing the words “common”
“core,” “differentiate,” and “overdose.”
Write the names of the ones you will never
forget: “Jenna,” “Tiberious,” “Heaven,”
“Megan,” “Tanya,” “Kingsley” “Ashley,” “David.”
Write Mari with “Nobody’s Baby” tattooed
in cursive on her neck, spitting sixteen bars
in the backrow, as little white Mike beatboxed
“Candy Shop” and the whole class exploded.
Write about Zuly and Nely, sisters
from Guatemala, upon whom a thousand
strange new English words rained down on like hail
each period, and who wrote the story
of their long journey on la bestia
through Mexico, for you, in handwriting
made heavy by the aquís and ayers
ached in their knuckles, hidden by their smiles.
Write an ode to loose-leaf. Write elegies
on the nub nose of a pink eraser.
Carve your devotion from a no. 2
pencil. Write the uncounted hours you spent
fretting about the ones who cursed you out
for keeping order, who slammed classroom doors,
who screamed “you are not my father,” whose pain
unraveled and broke you, whose pain you knew.
Write how all this added up to a life.  

march 18/RUN

4.25 miles
top of franklin hill and back
38 degrees
77 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in MN

Another day, another great run by the gorge. Overcast. Earlier on my walk, it was drizzling but I think it stopped by the time I ran. Encountered lots of walkers, a few runners, some bikers. Many people are trying to keep their 6 feet of distance, others are not. If they can’t be bothered to move over when it’s recommended to help lessen the spread of a pandemic, I guess there’s no hope that they ever will. Felt pretty good running, even if I was a little warm and my nose was a bit runny–tried to avoid touching my face but it’s hard when you’re dripping sweat and snot (is that too gross?). I looked down at my favorite spot above the floodplain forest–so open and soft and light brown. Only a few patches of snow. Also looked at the river. Blue and beautiful. Running north towards downtown, I listened to the gorge and recited “Auto Lullaby” and “Tell all the truth but tell it slant” a few times. Heard at least one goose honking, some people talking, a few feet shuffling. Stopped just above the Franklin hill and put in my headphones, then headed south. Running under the trestle I heard a beeping, buzzing noise. Was it the alert for an approaching train? I looked around, but couldn’t see any train. Decided not to stop and wait. Anything else I remember? Greeted Dave, the Daily Walker. Felt dreamy and dazed. Glad to forget everything else for 40 minutes.

the woodpecker

Earlier today, walking with Delia the dog, I heard a woodpecker. It might be the same one I heard a few days ago, around the same time and same place. So loud! Almost like a little jackhammer. Usually, any woodpecker pecking is loud, but not this loud. How irritating it must be for the people with houses nearby. When I was 8 or 9 and living in North Carolina in a house with cedar shakes, we had a woodpecker who liked to peck on the cedar. I don’t remember hearing it, I just remember how irritated it made my dad. Did he do anything about it? I don’t remember that either.

After memorizing one Emily Dickinson poem, I want to memorize some more. I’ll start with some shorter ones, like this, which seems appropriate right now:

“Faith” is fine invention (202)/ Emily Dickinson

Faith” is a fine invention
For Gentlemen who see!
But Microscopes are prudent
In an Emergency!

corona virus update

Yesterday all the schools were closed. So were the restaurants and bars. Thankfully, we can still leave our house. I went to bed yesterday accepting that this would probably end by June, woke up to Pence’s announcement that it would last until July. When I mentioned this to Scott, he said he’d read, early fall. It’s definitely going to get a lot worse for the next month at least. Trying to keep Scott’s penchant for worst case scenarios in check, the theme for our house is: “Let’s dial back the Apocalypse.”

march 8/RUN

3.25 miles
trestle turn around
50 degrees
15 mph wind/ 31 mph gusts

Sunny and warm today. Been running in the cold for so long now that I forgot what to wear when it gets a little warmer. So windy! Greeted Dave the Daily Walker near the beginning. Ran up the hill from under the lake street bridge, enjoying the sound and feel of the scratching grit. Was able to run on more of the walking path. Saw my shadow. Heard a woodpecker. Marveled at the sparkling water–couldn’t tell if it was blue or gray or brown, it only looked sparkly white. At the halfway point I took off my orange sweatshirt and ran south in a short sleeved shirt. The feeling of spring! Anything else I remember? Lots of runners in shorts.

Favorite part of the run: running south along the rim, above the rowing club. So beautiful hovering above the open water. Seeing a small motorboat speeding below, making the water ripple.

School

A few days ago, waking up in the middle of the night, I thought about Mary Oliver and some poem she had written about the sea as her classroom. What a great idea, I thought, I’ll remember it tomorrow when I get up. Forgot it, of course. But then, while walking with Scott, remembered it again. Was able to find the poem:

Breakage/ Mary Oliver

I go down to the edge of the sea. 
How everything shines in the morning light! 
The cusp of the whelk, 
the broken cupboard of the clam, 
the opened, blue mussels, 
moon snails, pale pink and barnacle scarred— 
and nothing at all whole or shut, but tattered, split, 
dropped by the gulls onto the gray rocks and all the moisture gone. 
It’s like a schoolhouse 
of little words, 
thousands of words. 
First you figure out what each one means by itself, 
the jingle, the periwinkle, the scallop 
       full of moonlight. 

Then you begin, slowly, to read the whole story.

Love the line, “nothing at all whole or shut, but tattered, split” and “the opened” and “a schoolhouse of little words”. Looked up whelk and it’s a large marine snail.

Thinking about the idea of the gorge as a classroom–if so, who is the teacher?

Here’s another school related poem from Mary Oliver, who hated school as a child. I read in her memoir, Upstream, that the only thing she was good at doing in school was being truant.

Just As The Calendar Began to Say Summer/ Mary Oliver (Long Life)

I went out of the schoolhouse fast
and through the gardens and to the woods,
and spent all summer forgetting what I’d been taught–

two times two, and diligence, and so forth,
how to be modest and useful, and how to succeed and so forth,
machines and oil and plastic and money and so forth.

By fall I had healed somewhat, but was summoned back
to the chalky rooms and the desks, to sit and remember

the way the river kept rolling its pebbles,
the way the wild wrens sang though they hadn’t a penny in the bank,
the way the flowers were dressed in nothing but light.

I love this idea of spending all summer trying to forget the lessons taught in school and the rest of the year trying to remember the river! It reminds me of my process of undisciplining/unmaking and remaking myself.

And, one more:

Mindful/mary oliver

Every day
I see or hear
something
that more or less

kills me
with delight,
that leaves me
like a needle

in the haystack
of light. 
It is what I was born for–
to look, to listen, 

to lose myself
inside this soft world–
to instruct myself
over and over

in joy, 
and acclamation.
nor am I talking
about the exceptional, 

the fearful, 
the very extravagant–
but of the ordinary, 
the common, the very drab,

the daily presentations.
Oh, good scholar, 
I say to myself,
how can you help

but grow wise
with such teachings
as these–
the untrimmable light,

the ocean’s shine,
the prayers that are made
out of grass?

Oh good scholar! Love this line and love the idea of being a student out by the gorge and a teacher who instructs myself.

jan 21/RUN

2.5 miles
river road, south/north
15 degrees/ feels like 0
50% snow-covered

14 mph wind straight in my face, running south. Wasn’t expecting it to feel so cold today, so I underdressed. No hat, only a bright pink headband that covered my ears. Felt sore and a little tired, but better after having spent some time outside by the gorge. The river was open and flowing. The path was mostly clear. Noticed at least 2 dogs and their humans walking the lower path–the one that I like to run in the summer. Encountered a few other runners, no skiers or bikers. No geese. One frantic squirrel.

I love this poem. I love how listing what you love makes you want to love harder and more expansively, and so does reading someone else’s love list.

Love/ Alex Dimitrov

I love you early in the morning and it’s difficult to love you.

I love the January sky and knowing it will change although unlike us.

I love watching people read.

I love photo booths.

I love midnight.

I love writing letters and this is my letter. To the world that never wrote to me.

I love snow and briefly.

I love the first minutes in a warm room after stepping out of the cold.

I love my twenties and want them back every day.

I love time.

I love people.

I love people and my time away from them the most.

I love the part of my desk that’s darkened by my elbows.

I love feeling nothing but relief during the chorus of a song.

I love space.

I love every planet.

I love the big unknowns but need to know who called or wrote, who’s coming—if they want the same things I do, if they want much less.

I love not loving Valentine’s Day.

I love how February is the shortest month.

I love that Barack Obama was president.

I love the quick, charged time between two people smoking a cigarette outside a bar.

I love everyone on Friday night.

I love New York City.

I love New York City a lot.

I love that day in childhood when I thought I was someone else.

I love wondering how animals perceive our daily failures.

I love the lines in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof when Brick’s father says “Life is important. There’s nothing else to hold onto.”

I love Brick.

I love that we can fail at love and continue to live.

I love writing this and not knowing what I’ll love next.

I love looking at paintings and being reminded I am alive.

I love Turner’s paintings and the sublime.

I love the coming of spring even in the most withholding March.

I love skipping anything casual—“hi, how are you, it’s been forever”—and getting straight to the center of pain. Or happiness.

I love opening a window in a room.

I love the feeling of possibility by the end of the first cup of coffee.

I love hearing anyone listen to Nina Simone.

I love Nina Simone.

I love how we can choose our own families.

I love when no one knows where I am but feel terrified to be forgotten.

I love Saturdays.

I love that despite our mistakes this will end.

I love how people get on planes to New York and California.

I love the hour after rain and the beginning of the cruelest month.

I love imagining Weldon Kees on a secret island.

I love the beach on a cloudy day.

I love never being disappointed by chocolate.

I love that morning when I was twenty and had just met someone very important (though I didn’t know it) and I walked down an almost empty State Street because it was still early and not at all late—and of course I could change everything (though I also didn’t know it)—I could find anyone, go anywhere, I wasn’t sorry for who I was.

I love the impulse to change.

I love seeing what we do with what we can’t change.

I love the moon’s independent indifference.

I love walking the same streets as Warhol.

I love what losing something does but I don’t love losing it.

I love how the past shifts when there’s more.

I love kissing.

I love hailing a cab and going home alone.

I love being surprised by May although it happens every year.

I love closing down anything—a bar, restaurant, party—and that time between late night and dawn when one lamp goes on wherever you are and you know. You know what you know even if it’s hard to know it.

I love being a poet.

I love all poets.

I love Jim Morrison for saying, “I’d like to do a song or a piece of music that’s just a pure expression of joy, like a celebration of existence, like the coming of spring or the sun rising, just pure unbounded joy. I don’t think we’ve really done that yet.”

I love everything I haven’t done.

I love looking at someone without need or panic.

I love the quiet of the trees in a new city.

I love how the sky is connected to a part of us that understands something big and knows nothing about it too.

I love the minutes before you’re about to see someone you love.

I love any film that delays resolution.

I love being in a cemetery because judgment can’t live there.

I love being on a highway in June or anytime at all.

I love magic.

I love the zodiac.

I love all of my past lives.

I love that hour of the party when everyone’s settled into their discomfort and someone tells you something really important—in passing—because it’s too painful any other way.

I love the last moments before sleep.

I love the promise of summer.

I love going to the theater and seeing who we are.

I love glamour—shamelessly—and all glamour. Which is not needed to live but shows people love life. What else is it there for? Why not ask for more?

I love red shoes.

I love black leather.

I love the grotesque ways in which people eat ice cream—on sidewalks, alone—however they need it, whenever they feel free enough.

I love being in the middle of a novel.

I love how mostly everyone in Jane Austen is looking for love.

I love July and its slowness.

I love the idea of liberation and think about it all the time.

I love imagining a world without money.

I love imagining a life with enough money to write when I want.

I love standing in front of the ocean.

I love that sooner or later we forget even “the important things.”

I love how people write in the sand, on buildings, on paper. Their own bodies. Fogged mirrors. Texts they’ll draft but never send.

I love silence.

I love owning a velvet cape and not knowing how to cook.

I love that instant when an arc of light passes through a room and I’m reminded that everything really is moving.

I love August and its sadness.

I love Sunday for that too.

I love jumping in a pool and how somewhere on the way up your body relaxes and accepts the shock of the water.

I love Paris for being Paris.

I love Godard’s films.

I love anyplace that makes room for loneliness.

I love how the Universe is 95% dark matter and energy and somewhere in the rest of it there is us.

I love bookstores and the autonomy when I’m in one.

I love that despite my distrust in politics I am able to vote.

I love wherever my friends are.

I love voting though know art and not power is what changes human character.

I love what seems to me the discerning indifference of cats.

I love the often uncomplicated joy of dogs.

I love Robert Lax for living alone.

I love the extra glass of wine happening somewhere, right now.

I love schools and teachers.

I love September and how we see it as a way to begin.

I love knowledge. Even the fatal kind. Even the one without “use value.”

I love getting dressed more than getting undressed.

I love mystery.

I love lighting candles.

I love religious spaces though I’m sometimes lost there.

I love the sun for worshipping no one.

I love the sun for showing up every day.

I love the felt order after a morning of errands.

I love walking toward nowhere in particular and the short-lived chance of finding something new.

I love people who smile only when moved to.

I love that a day on Venus lasts longer than a year.

I love Whitman for writing, “the fever of doubtful news, the fitful events; / These come to me days and nights and go from me again, / But they are not the Me myself.”

I love October when the veil between worlds is thinnest.

I love how at any moment I could forgive someone from the past.

I love the wind and how we never see it.

I love the performed sincerity in pornography and wonder if its embarrassing transparency is worth adopting in other parts of life.

I love how magnified emotions are at airports.

I love dreams. Conscious and unconscious. Lived and not yet.

I love anyone who risks their life for their ideal one.

I love Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera.

I love how people make art even in times of impossible pain.

I love all animals.

I love ghosts.

I love that we continue to invent meaning.

I love the blue hours between three and five when Plath wrote Ariel.

I love that despite having one body there are many ways to live.

I love November because I was born there.

I love people who teach children that most holidays are a product of capitalism and have little to do with love—which would never celebrate massacre—which would never care about money or greed.

I love people who’ve quit their jobs to be artists.

I love you for reading this as opposed to anything else.

I love the nostalgia of the future.

I love that the tallest mountain in our solar system is safe and on Mars.

I love dancing.

I love being in love with the wrong people.

I love that on November 23, 1920, Virginia Woolf wrote, “We have bitten off a large piece of life—but why not? Did I not make out a philosophy some time ago which comes to this—that one must always be on the move?”

I love how athletes believe in the body and know it will fail them.

I love dessert for breakfast.

I love all of the dead.

I love gardens.

I love holding my breath under water.

I love whoever it is untying our shoes.

I love that December is summer in Australia.

I love statues in a downpour.

I love how no matter where on the island, at any hour, there’s at least one lit square at the top or bottom of a building in Manhattan.

I love diners.

I love that the stars can’t be touched.

I love getting in a car and turning the keys just to hear music.

I love ritual.

I love chance too.

I love people who have quietly survived being misunderstood yet remain kids.

And yes, I love that Marilyn Monroe requested Judy Garland’s “Over the Rainbow” to be played at her funeral. And her casket was lined in champagne satin. And Lee Strasberg ended his eulogy by saying, “I cannot say goodbye. Marilyn never liked goodbyes, but in the peculiar way she had of turning things around so that they faced reality, I will say au revoir.”

I love the different ways we have of saying the same thing.

I love anyone who cannot say goodbye.

dec 16/ RUN

4 miles
top of Franklin hill turn around
22 degrees/ feels like 15
99% snow covered

Warmer air. Great temperature for a run. The path was almost completely covered with soft, loose snow. So difficult! A great workout for my legs. Hopefully the path will be more packed or clear soon. Can that be my Christmas present? Greeted Dave the Daily Walker. Was passed–actually briefly swallowed up–by a trot of male runners–a cross country team? Looked at the river a lot. Completely snow covered. If you didn’t know, you might not think it was a river, just a big white field. When I started I wondered how I could keep going–so slick, not slippery but difficult to move in–but by the end, I felt much better. Still happy to stop at 4 miles.

Love this beautiful poem and the final line! I copied it down in my notebook last March and rediscovered it this morning when I was reviewing my notes.

Rapture/ Linda Hogan

Who knows the mysteries of the poppies
when you look across the red fields,
or hear the sound of long thunder,
then the saving rain.
Everything beautiful,
the solitude of the single body
or sometimes, too, when the body is kissed
on the lips or hands or eyelids tender.
Oh for the pleasure of living in a body.
It may be, it may one day be
this is a world haunted by happiness,
where people finally are loved
in the light of leaves,
the feel of bird wings passing by.
Here it might be that no one wants power.
They don’t want more.
And so they are in the forest,
old trees,
or those small but grand.
And when you sleep, rapture, beauty,
may seek you out.
Listen. There is
secret joy,
sweet dreams you may never forget.
How worthy the being
in the human body. If,
when you are there, you see women
wading on the water
and clouds in the valley,
the smell of rain,
or a lotus blossom rises out of round green leaves,
remember there is always something
besides our own misery.

remember there is always something
besides our own misery

What if this final line was changed to beside our own misery? Reminds me of Ross Gay and his book of delights. He talks about how our experiences of joy are always in tandem with suffering and can be linked with others to create beautiful communities.

dec 10/RUN

3.25 miles
trestle turn around
4 degrees/feels like -12
100% snow-covered

Yes, -12 feels cold but today felt even colder than that. Tried out some hand warmers in my gloves. I guess they worked. It snowed so little yesterday that they didn’t bother to plow–at least an inch of snow covering the path, one narrow-ish strip of it packed down. The wind was in my face heading north, which wasn’t fun, but then at my back heading south, which was. Only the crazy-for-winter fools were out here today. I encountered one fat tire and one other runner besides me. We had the path to ourselves–one of the big advantages of winter running. Noticed that the river is icing over. The path was snow-covered but not icy or slippery. I could hear it crunchy delightfully over the noise of my audio book.

Layers: I was almost too warm at one point. Felt bulky in my 2 pairs of gloves + 2 shirts + vest + jacket + 2 pairs of tights + 2 pairs of socks + buff + hat + sunglasses.

Happy Birthday Emily Dickinson!

It’s all I have to bring today (26)
Emily Dickinson – 1830-1886

It’s all I have to bring today—
This, and my heart beside—
This, and my heart, and all the fields—
And all the meadows wide—
Be sure you count—should I forget
Some one the sum could tell—
This, and my heart, and all the Bees
Which in the Clover dwell.

Today I brought my heart, and my legs, and my lungs, and the crunching snow, and the river, and the bright white solitude of an almost empty path.

nov 25/RUN

4 miles
trestle turn around + extra
42 degrees/ 16 mph wind

Listened to my playlist. Sunny. Saw my shadow a few times but she didn’t lead me–I bet she was avoiding the awful wind. Ran into the wind most of the time as I headed north. Don’t remember admiring the river that much but did notice the railroad trestle. So easy to see now that the leaves are all gone! Briefly mistook a trash can for a person. Felt too warm. Took off my outer layer at the half way point.

A pretty good run, even with the wind. Allowed me to forget about kids playing video games too much, refrigerators needing to be defrosted but hopefully not replaced, snow storms messing up Thanksgiving plans, a wonderful dog demanding too much attention.

November
Lucy Larcom

Who said November’s face was grim?
Who said her voice was harsh and sad?
I heard her sing in wood paths dim,
I met her on the shore, so glad,
So smiling, I could kiss her feet!
There never was a month so sweet.

October’s splendid robes, that hid
The beauty of the white-limbed trees,
Have dropped in tatters; yet amid
Those perfect forms the gazer sees
A proud wood-monarch here and there
Garments of wine-dipped crimson wear.

In precious flakes the autumnal gold
Is clinging to the forest’s fringe:
Yon bare twig to the sun will hold
Each separate leaf, to show the tinge
Of glorious rose-light reddening through
Its jewels, beautiful as few.

Where short-lived wild-flowers bloomed and died
The slanting sunbeams fall across
Vine-broideries, woven from side to side
Above mosaics of tinted moss.
So does the Eternal Artist’s skill
Hide beauty under beauty still.

And, if no note of bee or bird
Through the rapt stillness of the woods
Or the sea’s murmurous trance be heard,
A Presence in these solitudes
Upon the spirit seems to press
The dew of God’s dear silences.

And if, out of some inner heaven,
With soft relenting comes a day
Whereto the heart of June is given, —
All subtle scents and spicery
Through forest crypts and arches steal,
With power unnumbered hurts to heal.

Through yonder rended veil of green,
That used to shut the sky from me,
New glimpses of vast blue are seen;
I never guessed that so much sea
Bordered my little plot of ground,
And held me clasped so close around.

This is the month of sunrise skies
Intense with molten mist and flame;
Out of the purple deeps arrive
Colors no painter yet could name:
Gold-lilies and the cardinal-flower
Were pale against this gorgeous hour.

Still lovelier when athwart the east
The level beam of sunset falls:
The tints of wild-flowers long deceased
Glow then upon the horizon walls;
Shades of the rose and violet
Close to their dear world lingering yet.

What idleness, to moan and fret
For any season fair, gone by!
Life’s secret is not guessed at yet;
Veil under veil its wonders lie.
Through grief and loss made glorious
The soul of past joy lives in us.

More welcome than voluptous gales
This keen, crisp air, as conscience clear:
November breathes no flattering tales;—
The plain truth-teller of the year,
Who wins her heart, and he alone,
Knows she has sweetness all her own.

Yes! Lucy gets how wonderful November is.

nov 9/RUN

4.8 miles
to downtown
44 degrees

A one-way run. Thought I could avoid it, but ran straight into the wind for at least 1/2 of it. A little too warm. Tough on sore legs. Surprisingly, not too crowded for a mild Saturday. Did I see my shadow briefly? I think so. Noticed a seep frozen over in the flats, below the west bank of the U. I have been reading about springs and seeps and how they are much easier to spot in the winter because the water freezes, sometimes creating icy ledges/boulders and ice pillars. Never knew it before but people like to climb this ice. Not me, but I’d love to see other people doing it. Spied 2 roller skiers. Encountered several runners running up the Franklin hill while I was running down it. Ran more of the I-35 hill than I thought I could. Walked the rest. Felt strong and refreshed at the top, running down past the Guthrie and Mill City Museum. Scott passed in front of me, running from the other direction. Even after I yelled his name several times he didn’t hear me, so I had to chase him up a short, steep hill.

Currently I have too many ideas to write about. Thinking about the wild, being bewildered, ways in and ways out, layers, inside/outside/periphery. All of this related to the river gorge and park management and running on the west river parkway.

On Friday, went to the South High Choir concert to hear my daughter’s middle-school choir sing with the high school choirs. Wonderful. I love the choir director at South. She gave the students 4 goals: 1. Breathe, 2. Listen, 3. Move somebody and 4. Have fun. These goals are great. I’d like to mash them up with Mary Oliver’s: 1. Pay Attention, 2. Be Astonished, 3. Tell About it.

  1. Breathe
  2. Listen
  3. Pay Attention
  4. Be Astonished
  5. Tell About it
  6. Move Somebody

Lemony Snicket collected some poems for Poetry Foundation that were not written for children but that children might like: All Good Slides are Slippery. Here’s the intro, which focuses on doors. I’m thinking about this as I ponder “the way in”:

“Knocks on the door”

Knocks on the door.
Who?
I sweep the dust of my loneliness
under the rug.
I arrange a smile
and open.
— Maram al-Massri
tr. by Khaled Mattawa

Doors

An open door says, “Come in.”
A shut door says, “Who are you?”
Shadows and ghosts go through shut doors.
If a door is shut and you want it shut,
why open it?
If a door is open and you want it open,
why shut it?
Doors forget but only doors know what it is
doors forget.
— Carl Sandburg

Starting to read something, such as a portfolio, is like opening a door, so I thought it would be interesting to start with two poems about doors written by two very different poets. Maram al-Massri is a Syrian woman who now lives in the city of Paris, France. Carl Sandburg is an American man who doesn’t live anywhere, due to death.