Ran in the afternoon. Sometimes sunny, sometimes cloudy, streaks of a brilliant blue mixed with fluffy clouds. The river was mostly open with a few stretches of ice. The shore glowed white. The gorge slopes were different versions of brown. The creek was flowing fast and the falls were rushing over the edge. When I looked at them from my favorite spot all I could see was movement — the fast falling water looked like wavy vertical lines on an old tv. For the first mile, I was the only one out on the trail, then I passed a walker. Far ahead I could see lights flickering — headlights passing by trees on the other side of the ravine. Just past the double bridge, I heard a hammer hitting some wood then some other construction noises — men talking, some song coming out of the radio, a saw buzzing.
Yesterday, one version of my Girl Ghost Gorge poem was published in Last Syllable Literary Journal!
Ah, this poem, featuring windows and shadows and birds!
These windows, these panes, at the beginning of light looking where they look, eyeing the east and the rust and here they are, protected by shade and shadows: branches and birds strike them, fly into them and out. You can see nothing through them, you can only see what bounces off: back at the world and then you return, to the lemon, that is the self, squeezing drop after drop— there’s nothing left of you now, no juice! Can you go on lubricating the mind, musing on you as disaster, and the rest of you as the elements? Here, they go one by one into a flame set down, beneath all the steps, at the very bottom of it all … and God! The eyes wish you didn’t! They look away from the blank space remaining—oh these birds in the mornings are funny and the little tricks they repeat and repeat, like these sounds they make, in order: they fly off together or one by one, puffing up their small bodies, extending a peak that opens up a view, that finds space in whatever looks shut and closed—a wall has some hole, a tree trunk can manage a crack, and under the ledge, a window knows something of the hidden world.
Warmer today! And clear, ice-free paths! Not looking like December at all. I decided to run to the flats so I could see if the water seeping out of the rock wall was still frozen now that it had warmed up. It looked like it was, at least to me, but I could hear some trickling water too. What will it look like this afternoon? I heard a few geese, admired the form of a few other runners after they passed me, noticed my shadow and a few streaks of blue sky when the sun came out from behind the clouds briefly. It wasn’t the easiest run, but it wasn’t the hardest either.
Heading north, I listened to a train — or was it a light rail? — horn honking repeatedly. Not sure what was happening; too many honks, and too insistent, for business as usual. Was there an accident? Returning south, I put in my “It’s Windy” playlist, but then switched to “Slappin’ Shadows.”
Here’s a wonderful poem I discovered this morning. That last line!
What aren’t you willing to believe. A heart graffitied fuchsia on the street, a missive from another life. Remember the stem of lavender you found in a used copy of Bishop’s poems, a verse underlined: The world is a mist. And then the world is minute and vast and clear. Suddenly, across the aisle a woman with your mother’s bracelets, her left wrist all shimmer and gold, you almost winced. Coincidence is the great mystery of the human mind but so is the trans-oceanic reach of Shah Rukh Khan’s slow blink. Each of us wants a hint, a song that dares us to look inside. True, it takes whimsy and ego to believe the universe will tap your shoulder in the middle of a random afternoon. That t-shirt on a stranger’s chest, a bumper sticker on the highway upstate. Truth isn’t going anywhere. It’s your eyes passing by.
Today I’m working on a section of Haunts about forms and shadows and seeing things slant, off to the side, in order to grasp (some of) their truth. I’m thinking I will mention how the mississippi is one of the more trained/shaped/managed rivers — with locks, dams, dredging.
a lone black glove
Almost always, when I see a discarded glove on the ground on my run it is black. Okay, today, I saw a gray one draped on a branch. As I walked home after my run, I encountered a lone black glove on the ground and decided to take a picture of it.
a lone black glove
added, 17 dec 2024: As I was working on a section of Haunts about form, I remembered something else I witnessed yesterday during my run. Somewhere between the trestle and lake street bridge, I noticed a form on the ground, just through the trees. I think it was a sleeping bag with someone (possibly) in it. I’ve seen it here before, but only as a quick flash while I run by. Am I seeing it correctly, or is it like the stacked limestone under the franklin bridge that I always think is a person sitting up against one of the pilings?
5.2 miles bottom of franklin hill 21 degrees / feels like 12 75% snow-covered
What a wonderful winter morning for a run! With the sun and my effort, it felt much warmer than it was. The snow wasn’t slippery or deep and made a delightful crunching noise as I stepped down. The river was open again and dark brown. And the birds were so loud — not seen only heard. Mostly I ran on the bike path. Encountered some runners, walkers, dogs, at least 2 bikers, and at least one person smoking on a bench.
a new ritual
Like most of my rituals, this one began with little intention. I decided last week to stop at an inviting bench to check out the view for a moment and now I’m doing it every time I’m returning south from the trestle or beyond. The bench is facing the river and above the white sands beach. At one time I’m sure it was farther from the slope, but not it’s right on the edge. How long before it falls in? Today, while I was looking down at the river, I felt a blur of movement. What was it? Did I imagine it? I waited for a moment and then I saw a dog and their human through the bare trees, walking at the beach. They looked so far away and alone.
10 Things
elementary school kids yelling and laughing out on the school field — such energy unleashed — wow
small prints in the snow
a truck speeding by, revving its engine on a bend in the road
2 or 3 stones stacked on the boulder, covered in snow
a thin ribbon of bare pavement on the edge of the trail
the feel of my feet sliding slightly as I ran down the snow-covered hill
my faint shadow, just ahead of me, only visible occasionally
the slabs of stone still stacked up under the franklin bridge, looking like a person
all the steps down into the gorge are blocked off with chains
a clump of dead leaves at the top of a tree looking like a monster nest
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.”
Sun! Sharp shadows. Blue sky. The river burning white — wow! Rushing falls. A leaf-littered slope down to the river. A clear view across. Crowded trails, mostly walkers. At least one roller skier. People emerging from the oak savanna near the big rock shaped like an armchair. A little kid on a bike in the parking lot. The usual smell of smoke coming from some house on edmund or from the gorge; every fall/winter I can’t quite tell. My ponytail forcefully swinging in the wind. I don’t remember hearing any birds or dodging any squirrels. Where are the geese?
I also don’t remember what I thought about. I wanted to work through a part of my poem about progress and conservation of matter and the entanglement of decay/rusting/softening of the gorge and my shifting eyesight. But, if I did, I can’t remember.
This Kay Ryan poem was the poem of the day on Poetry Foundation:
Surfaces serve their own purposes, strive to remain constant (all lives want that). There is a skin, not just on peaches but on oceans (note the telltale slough of foam on beaches). Sometimes it’s loose, as in the case of cats: you feel how a second life slides under it. Sometimes it fits. Take glass. Sometimes it outlasts its underside. Take reefs.
The private lives of surfaces are innocent, not devious. Take the one-dimensional belief of enamel in itself, the furious autonomy of luster (crush a pearl— it’s powder), the whole curious seamlessness of how we’re each surrounded and what it doesn’t teach.
10.2 miles downtown loop* 61 degrees / humidity: 70%
*river road trail, north — past the trestle, down franklin hill, in the flats, up the I-94 hill, past the Guthrie and Stone Arch, under Hennepin, over Plymouth, through Boom Island, up to the 3rd avenue Bridge, winding down to river road, heading south.
Warm this morning. Sun, sweat. Wore shorts and short-sleeved shirt. Ran with Scott; we’re running the Halloween Half next Saturday. My legs and lungs were fine, my gut not so much. Unfinished business at mile 6, then again at mile 9. Hopefully I can figure out a way to fix it soon. I remember that Scott talked a lot more than I did, but about what? Music — he subbed for a community jazz band and he’s hoping they ask him to join. I talked about shadows and afternoon moons and my admiration for fit runners and good form — so graceful and pleasing to watch!
We greeted Mr. Holiday — good morning! — and encountered a few roller skiers. We also encountered Vikings Fans between Stone Arch and Hennepin. Enjoying the nice weather before the game, I guess. I heard train bells and some biker calling out to the other bikers he was with: we’re going to whip down this hill. I sang to Scott, whip it good! The steps up from St. Anthony Main to the 3rd Avenue bridge were tough, but the view of downtown was amazing. I mentioned Spirit Island to Scott, which is the sacred Dakota Island that was quarried by white settler colonists, then removed by the Army Corps of Engineers, and we wondered where it had been exactly (south of the Locks and Dam).
Looking up where Spirit Island was in relation to Stone Arch and the 3rd avenue bridge, I found a brief article that mentioned how the island had bald eagles and spruce trees, In my poem, I say the trees are oaks — did I remember it wrong, or were there spruce and oaks? To be safe, I’ll change it in the poem:
Among eagled spruce, rock by sacred rock hauled off in horse-drawn carts, few records of where. Not gone, scattered, displaced, their origin as island erased.
11 Things
the shadows of the railing on the Plymouth bridge — straight, sharp
the bright, sparkling water at the edge of Boom Island
the railing shadows at another spot on the bridge — the shadows they cast on the sidewalk made me think the sidewalk was broken
the pattern of the shadows of a chain-link fence — sharp but soft, geometric
2 shirtless runners passing us, running past and fluidly, their feet bouncing up down up down, spending more time in the air than on the ground
rowers, 1: the voice of a coxswain giving instructions
rowers, 2: an 8-person shell on the river
slashes of deep red leaves from the bushes beside the path
the quick suggestion of an afternoon moon: a flash of white in the bright blue sky. Was it the moon or a cloud? I checked with Scott: the moon!
a sour smell rising from below: sewer gas
falling leaves! reds and yellows, fluttering in the wind — sharp, brittle, hitting my cap hard
Earlier this week, RJP and I took an overnight trip to Red Wing and stayed at the old/haunted hotel, the St. James. It was wonderful — the hotel more than the town. As part of it, we hiked up the bluff — He Mni Can-Barn Bluff. A great view of Red Wing and the river, and a good workout! 90 minutes of ascending and descending. We saw a Vikings cruise, 5 stories tall, docked at the river. RJP looked it up: an 18-day cruise from St. Paul to New Orleans, $12,000 per person. Wow. The next day, at a bakery getting doughnuts and coffee, we overheard a woman ask for a Trump cookie. Yes, they were selling cookies that spelled out Trump with icing. They also had Harris cookies. RJP said that there were more Harris cookies left. We were both disturbed by the idea that someone would want to buy a Trump cookie and that a bakery would be selling them.
Warmer than I thought this morning. Lots of sweat. Sun. Shadows. Sparkling water. Ran past the road closed on Oct 6 (that’s for the marathon!) and smiled. Not long now. I felt fine. My big toe on my right foot stung a little. My right foot is a bit of a mess: an in-grown big toenail, a blackish-purplish second toe, another possible in-grown toenail on the fourth toe. I think it will all be fine — nothing’s infected and it doesn’t hurt that much.
10 Things
a coxswain’s voice, calling out instructions
a motorboat’s wake, leaving soft ripples on the surface of the river, moving upstream and contrasting with the motion of the water heading downstream
ahead of me, under the 1-94 bridge, the river sparking silver
water seeping out of the limestone below the U of M’s west bank, wanting to be a waterfall
my shadow, running ahead of me: sharp and solid
several of the benches were occupied — one person at each
a few more red leaves — a bright, fiery red
the rhythmic snap of a fast runner’s striking feet
cracks in the asphalt just north of the trestle — they just patched these in late spring and the entire stretch was redone 2 or 3 years ago — in 10 years will you even able to run on this section, or will it have slid into the gorge?
someone left the lid of the trashcan below the lake street bridge open — wow, it stinks!
Here’s a poem I read yesterday that I liked to add to my collection of shadow poems — I might also add it to my growing group of moment poems too:
My child is upset that they cannot jump over their shadow. They want me to help them. They want me to teach them how it’s done. The best I can do is an invitation
to jump over each other’s shadows instead. This satisfies them for a moment and then the moment is gone. In sunlight my shadow loves to give me a little dose of sorrow,
the beams having traveled so far only for the lump of me to get between them and the ground. They came so close. If I were the earth I would resent me too. My child
has gone into the next moment. I have to catch up. They say they are riding a horse. They point and it drags them away.
I read this wonderful quote from Hanif Abdurraqib the other day in one of my favorite former grad student’s newsletter. It’s about the ekphrasis form and is helpful for thinking about my “How to See” project:
Many of us live in an ekphrasis mindset. We are often executing ekphrasis storytelling…creating a story based off of that witnessing. I don’t ever want to move beyond that desire to say, I saw something and I know that you were not there to see it. But I can build the world wherein you felt like you have witnessed it alongside me.
I want to build a world about how I see with my dead-coned eyes in my poems, partly to feel less alone and isolated and partly to invite people to think more what it means to see (and to not see).
Last night, Scott and I were watching “Escape to the Country” and one of the escapees (Carol from Hertfordshire) was registered blind. She sometimes used a white cane and had some help from her husband in navigating, but she could make eye contact and see some of what was going on. When the host (Jules) asked her to explain her vision, she said she could see about 20% of what he could, enough to get a sense of the space, but not clearly. I appreciated that Jules had asked her to explain her vision (and impressed with the positive, non-tragic way they depicted her throughout the episode), but I wanted more. I wished she (and/or the show) had had an ekphrasis mindset and offered additional details about what seeing/not seeing is for her. The host, Jules, suggests, “Fundamentally, understanding how she sees the world is going to be crucial to finding properties that will absolutely deliver.” Even a sentence or two more might have helped in that understanding.
I wondered what someone who had never thought about the process of seeing or the spectrum of no-sight to full-sight made of her description and how she (fairly) easily/”naturally” moved through the world. After my run, I decided to google the episode and see if I could find more information about the woman, like what her condition was, etc. I was disappointed to discover headlines describing her blindness as “heartbreaking” or that she told of it, “with tears in her eyes.” That’s not how I perceived it. Admittedly, I can’t see faces clearly enough to grasp slight facial expressions, but this woman did not seem heartbroken and if she had any tears in her eyes, it was because she was looking into the sun. This was not a tragic episode; she and her husband were excited to move. These headlines seem to be typical examples of writers projecting their own fears and negative understandings of blindness onto blind people (or people with low vision, or people who see differently). Blind = tragic = heartbreaking = pity.
Scott and I watched the brief, 10 second clip that this “heartbreaking” description is based on, and he agreed that she wasn’t upset or crying. Her description was neutral and matter-of-fact. Sigh.
At the beginning of my run, I thought more about the ekphrastic mindset and asked myself, what is art? I didn’t come up with an answer — a task for another run!
one more thing to add: Talking with RJP about my various projects, she introduced me to a new phrase for describing the dirt trails that walkers/runners make in the grass: desire paths. That should be a title for one of my gorge poems, for sure!
4.5 miles bottom franklin hill and back 65 degrees
Windy but sunny. Ran faster than I should have and it wiped me out. Made it to the bottom of the hill — I had to bargain with my shadow to keep going — then paused to notice the river. It was moving a little, some white foam, the water a mix of brown and purple and blue. No rowers or birds or paddle boats.
Listened to the wind shaking the leaves and some cheering somewhere running north. Put in “Billie Eilish Essentials” on the way back south. Picked up the pace for the third mile, especially when “Bad Guy” came on.
Greeted Dave the Daily Walker —
Good morning Dave! Hi Sara, how are you? I’m great! How are you? I’m good, thanks for asking!
I don’t know how many times we have had this almost exact exchange over the years, but it’s a lot. As I’ve written before, these words aren’t empty but part of the ritual of being outside, moving, noticing, and connecting.
I was distracted today — worrying about why I feel so strange — not dizzy but light-headed?, with a tight left leg. I talk to the doctor tomorrow. I think it’s the latest intense version of anxiety triggered by hormones and unusual (for me) aches and pains. Thanks, perimenopause! In this distracted, uncomfortable state, can I remember 10 things I noticed?
10 Things
a tall stack of stones on the ancient boulder
greenish white fuzz on the edge of the trail
clicking and clacking of a roller skier’s poles
an e-bike zooming up the franklin hill
a group of school kids speaking spanish in the tunnel of trees
a minneapolis road crew tarring more craters on the path — the tar smelled sharp
the solid, wide forms of the bridge columns at the bottom of the franklin hill
graffiti: the outline of a shape I can’t recall in black
a runner in orange shorts doing hill repeats on the franklin hill
another runner powering up the hill. I watched their steady rhythm and beautiful broad shoulders run out of sight
I did it!
silhouette and concrete poetry
Nearing the end of my shadow month, I’m still thinking about silhouettes. Today, the silhouette of a poem and how poets make their words into a recognizable shape. The most obvious version of this shaping words into form is the concrete poem.
one
I suppose you could call my mood rings concrete poetry. Some of the words are the shape of my blind spot, some the shape of my total central vision, and some the shape of what’s missing:
two
Reading more of Ted Kooser’s The Poetry Home Repair Manual, I came across a mention of concrete poetry. He doesn’t like it:
Each of us must make a thousand choices in every poem. Nobody is going to take away your poetic license for playing with typography or punctuation or spelling. It can be lots of fun to write a poem about a flying seagull in the shape of a flying seagull, but you need to understand that that bird shape will interfere to some degree with the ability of the reader to pass through the surface of the poem behind that clever silhouette.
A shaped poem with a serious message will never be taken as seriously as the same poem without the trick of shape. A lovely elegy to your dead mother is not likely to be quite as moving as it might have been if you’d not shape the typography to look like a coffin.
The Poetry Repair Manual/ Ted Kooser
A page earlier, referring to other distracting techniques, like of haphazard line breaks and ampersands, Kooser writes:
In business, executives make cost-benefit analyses. I used this term earlier. They never want the cost to exceed the benefit. Every choice you make in a poem, thinking to make it better, can also have a corresponding cost. If you want to make a line look shorter by using an ampersand or an abbreviation of a word, you face the cost of drawing the reader’s attention back to the surface while he or she wonders why you decided to use Sgn for surgeon.
The Poetry Repair Manual/ Ted Kooser
I’d prefer to steer clear of the economic metaphors, but I agree with the idea of giving care and attention to the choices you make and their consequences.
three
On this day in 2017, I wrote about Linda Pastan’s poem Vertical, which I love and have since memorized. Near the end of the entry, I mention how the shape of the poem fits with the title and topic:
Pastan’s poem is vertical in form. [the words are] Long and lean, stretching upwards.
This month, partly inspired by an ongoing discussion of silhouettes, I’ve been revisiting Diana Khoi Nguyen’s brilliant book Ghost of. The visual poetry in it is strange and stunning and not a gimmick. Her poem, “Triptych,” was an inspiration for my mood rings. Here’s a video of her reading it — WOW!
Triptych
Ghost of is not all visual poems, there are other forms too, but the ones in which she writes within and around the space of her brother’s silhouette are amazing. In the following poem, instead of a triptych, she uses gyotaku:
Gyotaku / Diana Khoi Nguyen
And here’s what Nguyen says about these gyotaku poems:
Several poems in Ghost Of are titled “Gyotaku.” You’re referencing this traditional method of printing from fish because you’re “printing” from the absent body of your brother?
Essentially, there’s the absent body which I fill in with text, so the absence is rendered into a visual text. Gyotaku is a practice using dead fish to create an impression of what had been captured, an old practice before photography existed. It still goes on today. I liked the idea that gyotaku creates just the impression. You can’t capture the whole of the fish, just wherever the ink or the paint was able to touch the body, the scales, and you get an idea of the thing. Thinking about the act of writing and printing—bookmaking is also inked fabric—it makes sense to also begin to claim, to manipulate, to capture this image-text in a visual way. source: Diana Kyoi Nguyen, To Cut Out
Open water swimming is having a moment
Okay, open water swimming. First the awesome, Nyad, and now this:
A beautiful morning for a run! Sun! Shadows! A slight breeze! Ran with Scott to the falls — no stopping today. Mostly it was fine, but the last mile was hard. My left leg was tight. I kept going because Scott wasn’t stopping and I knew I could do it. And now, since I did do it, I know I can do it the next time. Because of my effort, I can’t remember what we talked about. But I do remember encountering some little kids on the path — I was too distracted by the old guy muttering, share the path, as they passed to hear them, but Scott did: the kid, pointing to some flower near the path: We used to have those, but now they don’t grow anymore. Scott was delighted by the way the kid said one of the words — now? — and tried to imitate them.
Oh! Just remembered something I talked about: Emily Dickinson’s “To Make a Prairie.” I was trying to recite it, but I could only remember 2 of the 3 things it took to make the prairie, a/one bee and reverie. Had to look it up: a clover! Of course.
seen: the fine spray of water coming off of the falls, making everything look hazy and dreamy felt: that same spray, soft, cool, refreshing, barely perceptible heard: the song, “Eye of the Tiger” from a painter’s radio at a house we passed by at the beginning of our run smelled: our neighbor’s lilac bush, overpowering, sickly sweet, giving off intense floral energy taste: anything? probably the salt from my sweat at some point
A few weeks ago, I requested Victoria Chang’s The Trees Witness Everything. Love the brevity of her form! Back in Jan 2022, I got an early, chapbook version of this collection. In the notes of that chapbook, she describes her project:
notes from Victoria Chang’s chapbook, Another Lost Year
Her project of using the different court poetry of Japan is inspiring me to do more with my breathing and striking rhythms: 3/2, 2/1, 3/3/3, and 3/3/3/4. Also, her use of Merwin titles makes me want to use titles/lines-as-titles from Emily Dickinson and other “vision” poets! Yes!
Here are a few:
Losing Language/ Victoria Chang
We were born with a large door on our backs. When will we know if it opens?
The Flight/ Victoria Chang
I no longer watch the birds during the day. I prefer to save them for my dreams where an owl’s face has more than one expression.
In the Open/ Victoria Chang
Weather is wet, it doesn’t have joints. How snow just becomes rain, what’s that change called? Trees witness everything, but they always look away.
Thinking more about my running rhythms, I’m realizing that I want to tighten up the form some more by limiting the number of lines and total syllables. I like 5, but that might be too few?
Late Wonders/ Victoria Chang
My face is now gone. Instead, I have a hawk’s face. None of the poets notice, they only want fame. Fame is a bucket of eyes.
and for this month’s focus on shadows:
The Time of Shadow/ Victoria Chang
The zookeepers feed all the shadows light and meat. The shadows wish so badly to leave their bodies, but they stay for the children.
Thinking about Chang’s use of Merwin titles and my interest in using ED titles, I am reminded of a discussion in Ted Kooser’s book, The Poetry Home Repair Manual:
You can open just about any book of poetry and find poets using titles to carry information. Just look at a table of contents and you’ll see how useful titles can be in suggesting waht poems will be about. . . .
In short, a title isn’t something you stick on just because you think a poem is supposed to have one. Titles are very important tools for delivering information and setting expectations.
4.2 miles minnehaha falls and back 59 degrees drizzle, off and on
Didn’t realize it was raining the first time I left for my run. Returned home and waited a few minutes until the sun was shining. A mix of sunny and overcast for the whole run. On my walk back: drizzle again. At least I think it was drizzling; it could have just been dripping trees or ponytails. It’s been raining then not raining then raining again for the past few days.
The run was not great, but better than I thought it would be. Yesterday afternoon, without much warning, I started feeling light-headed, like I might faint. Then strange. I put my head down and breathed deeply for 10? 20? 30? minutes. My pulse wasn’t too low or too high, I could talk normally, and my breathing was fine. But I felt wrong. At one point I wondered, do I need to go to the hospital? I drank a glass of juice in case it was low blood sugar. I asked Scott to look up “symptoms low blood sugar” online. Nope, my symptoms didn’t match that. So then I had him look up panic attack. Yep. As he read the symptoms and I recognized them, I instantly felt something lift, at least a little. Ok, just a panic attack — don’t get me wrong, it was awful and I’m not pleased to be experiencing a panic attack, but it seemed better than the alternatives I had been imagining just a few minutes before. Sigh. The next phase of perimenopause for me, increased anxiety and panic attacks? Time to go to the doctor and figure out better solutions, I think.
For the rest of the day, I was tired and a little shaky. I wanted to run today, because I felt better and if it was a panic attack, it seemed important to get out there and keep doing this thing that I love despite any fear I might have over suffering from another panic attack. I read that one of the biggest dangers with panic attacks is that you will stop doing things because you’re afraid of another panic attack. Mostly the run was fine. My legs felt a little heavy — which was already happening last week — and I was a little anxious a few times — do I feel dizzy? am I pushing myself too much?, but I ran about 2 miles before stopping to walk for a minute, then ran another mile before a 10 second break, then ran the rest. And my heart rate was the same as it always is — 161 average. Panic attacks are no joke. Before it happened, I wasn’t upset or experiencing any anxiety. And when it happened, it was purely physical. I think it was a mild one, because I wasn’t terrified, but it did derail the rest of the day: 30 minutes of my head between my knees breathing, then the rest of the day on the couch.
10 Things
everything wet and slick, the sidewalk slippery
dripping trees
gushing sewers
spraying falls
rushing creek
robins hopping on the wet grass
a walker in a BRIGHT red shirt
puddle and mud on the dirt trail that winds through the small wood by the ford bridge — I saw them out of the corner of my eye as I ran by
kids on the playground, laughing, yelling
maybe there were some shadows, but what I remember was dark/wet pavement with the occasional patch of light
Running south to the falls, I listened to the water dripping. Running back north, I put in my “I’m Shadowing You” playlist.
Before I went out for my run, I was thinking about the silhouettes in the opening credits to the James Bond movie Scott and I watched last night: For Your Eyes Only. One of my favorites, partly because it was on HBO all the time when I was a kid. Click here to watch the opening on YouTube.
