Tag: shadows

nov 8/RUN

5.5 miles
ford loop
43 degrees

Ah, November! Ran through the neighborhood, past the kids playing outside at the church daycare, past the house that has a giant Packer’s flag hanging from their fence, past the window of the business where I watch myself run and wonder if the people inside are watching me watch myself, over the lake street bridge to the east side of the river. On the bridge, I passed a couple holding hands. A mile later, I passed another hand-holding couple. An unusual sighting, and twice. Ran up the long hill to the Monument, then beside the river until I reached the ford bridge. Stopped to take a picture on the bridge, then ran the rest of the way back with Taylor Swift and Olivia Rodrigo.

A view from the ford bridge, poorly framed. Not sure what color other people might see here, but to me it's all gray: light gray sky and river, broken up by chunks of dark gray trees. I like how the sky and the river look almost the same color to me.
taken from the ford bridge / 8 november 2023
My view of the river from the ford bridge. I stuck my phone above the railing, pointed and clicked quickly, afraid I might drop my phone into the river. For me, this image is fuzzy, almost furry, with soft greens and golds and grays. Most of the shot is of the past-their-prime trees on the shore of the Mississippi. All along the left edge curved around the trees is the light gray river which, at some point, turns into the sky. This image looks more like a painting than a photograph.
taken, with some trepidation, over the railing of the ford bridge / 8 november 2023

10 Things

  1. kids playing at the church daycare, several of them huddled at the fence, one of them (accidentally?) threw a ball over the side
  2. blue water, some waves, a few streaks or trails from something
  3. running above shadow falls, not sure if I was hearing it dripping or the wind through the trees
  4. running up the summit hill, a stretch of lit street lamps lining the path, the amber lights glowing softly
  5. noticing the gloom and the absence of my shadow as I ran around the ravine
  6. wondering if I would get to hear the St. Thomas bells as I ran close to campus (nope)
  7. chickadee dee dee
  8. turkeys! I’m not quite sure, but I think they were hanging out in the grass, just past the ford bridge, before you head down the hill to the locks and dam
  9. an unnaturally vibrant green on some of the leaves on the east side of the river — is this spring or late fall?
  10. an intense smell of cinnamon shortly before reaching the ford bridge — where was it coming from? someone’s gum? a bush?

before the run

Last night during Scott’s South High Community Jazz Band rehearsal, when I sit and listen and work on poetry, I returned to Susan Tichy’s North | Rock | Edge. Wow! This morning, before my run, I’m thinking about the lines I read and an interview Tichy did for Terrain.

There’s also a sensory excitement in a sea-rock-light-wind-bird-flower-seal-seep-peat-rain-salt—oh look, there’s a whale!—environment that subsumes attention to any one thing into the press of the whole.

I love how she describes the environment and her idea of attention to the whole, not just to any one thing.

Rock blurs the categories of time and space by making time visible and place temporal. A poem uses both rest and motion to create a form, which can be seen and must be heard—as the Susan Howe epigraph says, fleeting and fixed. These poems, like many in Avalanche Path, have a surface texture of fragmentation, abrupt change, and brokenness metamorphized into a new whole, voiced in present time, human time. Nothing is still; nothing is uniform.

And here’s a wonderful bit from the first part of Tichy’s poem, 60 North|Arriving, Stand Still:

& here wind

elevates to a theory

of time : to not miss a single

wave’s decay, a verse

of coast becoming dearth

of certainty, to undefine

the edge as noun, dissolving

in the not unyielding mouth

of cliff : verse/reverse

from the root of turn :

wind-wave & swell

compounded to a single

force, broken

by the thing it breaks—

In the next section she offers this line, what place is not. The gorge as what place is not, or where place one was?

during the run

I think Tichy’s poem influenced my thoughts indirectly as I ran. I was thinking about a part of my Haunts poem I’m working on, particularly about how I am sometimes a girl, sometimes a ghost, and sometimes a gorge. Am I the gorge, I wondered as I started running. And as I ran over the lake street bridge I came up with an answer: yes. Later, when I reached to ford bridge, I stopped running to record some thoughts:

I am the gorge because the gorge is the remains, what is left behind, what continues to exist even as ground erodes, self erodes, vision erodes. The gorge, constantly shifting, but always there. The gorge is the eroded. Is the ghost the verb, the eroding? … I am also the gorge because I’m constantly leaving part of myself here and becoming this place and not just moving through the place, becoming the place.

oct 30/RUN

5.4 miles
franklin loop
25 degrees / feels like 20

Yes! A great temperature for running. I love the cold air and not getting overheated. Wore black running tights, black running shorts, my 10 year-old base layer green shirt, an orange sweatshirt, black gloves, a hat and a buff. Such a great run. I feel satisfied and happy and energized. A great start to the winter running season!

10 Things

  1. chatty, chirping birds — sparrows? wrens? finches? chickadees?
  2. the Welcoming Oaks are almost bare. Where was I when the leaves fell? hello friends!
  3. a bright white circle of sunlit river burning through the growing gap between the trees
  4. everywhere more of a view to the other side
  5. empty blueish gray water — so calm and pleasing to my eyes
  6. passed Daddy Long Legs, dressed in black. His hi was so quiet it didn’t register until it was too late to call back a greeting
  7. Hi Dave! — greeting Dave, the Daily Walker in the final mile
  8. crossing the bridge, approaching 2 talkative runners from behind: excuse me. / Oh! [a runner jumps to the side looking freaked out] / Sorry I scared you!
  9. the smell of smoke down below on the east side of the river
  10. a roller skier! I couldn’t hear the clicking and clacking of his ski poles until I was right next to me

bats, bells, noisy road work, and late fall leaves

Found this poem from DH Lawrence the other day while looking for poems about bats. Wow, he didn’t like bats!

 Bat/ D.H. Lawrence

At evening, sitting on this terrace,
When the sun from the west, beyond Pisa, beyond the mountains of Carrara
Departs, and the world is taken by surprise …

When the tired flower of Florence is in gloom beneath the glowing
Brown hills surrounding …

When under the arches of the Ponte Vecchio
A green light enters against stream, flush from the west,
Against the current of obscure Arno …

Look up, and you see things flying
Between the day and the night;
Swallows with spools of dark thread sewing the shadows together.

A circle swoop, and a quick parabola under the bridge arches
Where light pushes through;
A sudden turning upon itself of a thing in the air.
A dip to the water.

And you think:
“The swallows are flying so late!”

Swallows?

Dark air-life looping
Yet missing the pure loop …
A twitch, a twitter, an elastic shudder in flight
And serrated wings against the sky,
Like a glove, a black glove thrown up at the light,
And falling back.

Never swallows!
Bats!
The swallows are gone.

At a wavering instant the swallows gave way to bats
By the Ponte Vecchio …
Changing guard.

Bats, and an uneasy creeping in one’s scalp
As the bats swoop overhead!
Flying madly.

Pipistrello!
Black piper on an infinitesimal pipe.
Little lumps that fly in air and have voices indefinite, wildly vindictive;

Wings like bits of umbrella.

Bats!

Creatures that hang themselves up like an old rag, to sleep;
And disgustingly upside down.

Hanging upside down like rows of disgusting old rags
And grinning in their sleep.
Bats!

In China the bat is symbol for happiness.

Not for me!

Today, writing this bit before my run, I’m thinking about bats and echos and echolocation. Vibrations, reverberations, sounds that haunt by continuing to ring out. Bells. But, back to the echoes. In addition to bats, I’m thinking about a stanza from a favorite Halloween poem that I posted on this day in 2020:

A ghost, though invisible, still is like a place
your sight can knock on, echoing; but here
within this thick black pelt, your strongest gaze
will be absorbed and utterly disappear:
from Black Cat/ Rainer Maria Rilke

Speaking of haunting, relentless sounds: I am sitting at my desk in the front room and city workers are paving the hole they made in the street in July or August. So loud! Beep beep beep. Rrrruuummmbbbllleee. Scrape scrape, tamp tamp. Even the visual noise echoes — a flash flash flash of the lights on the truck as it dumps the gravel or tar or whatever they’re putting in the hole. Everything is vibrating — the street, my jaw, my chair, the windows. Difficult to think or to write while this is happening!

At the end of my run, having crossed the river road to walk in the grassy, leaf covered boulevard, I was distracted by the delightful noise of fallen leaves. Then I noticed a bare tree, its still green leaves scattered around it.

An image of the ground covered in leaves, most of them green. A strange sight in late fall when most of the fallen leaves are usually brown or orange or gold. When I took this picture, the ground seemed to glow from the green, but now, looking at the image, everything is muted and dull and boring. Is it my lack of functioning cone cells, my inability to take a decent picture, or something else?
green leaves on the ground / 30 oct 2023

oct 9/RUN

3.1 miles
2 trails
44 degrees

44 degrees is a wonderful temperature for running. Today I wore my black shorts, a dark blue short-sleeved shirt, an orange sweatshirt, and it was great. Not too cold, not too hot.

I heard the clicks and clacks of a roller skier poles.
I smelled chemicals from a treated lawn.
I felt the hard, bumpy dirt and the sharp shallow asphalt cracks under my feet.
Did I taste anything?
I saw the shimmering surface of the river.

I greeted Dave, the Daily Walker and several other walkers. A few mornings but mostly with a smile or a wave of my hand. So many kind, friendly people out there today!

I thought about the the ancient Greeks and how they use glitter as another way to understand, describe, organize color.

Glitter effect and material — scattering and textural effects resulting from the type of surface being observed.

How to make sense of ancient Greek colours

Today (and yesterday in my backyard), I saw a lot of the glitter effect. Glittery leaves, fluttering in the wind — both on the trees and falling to the ground. Glittering water from sun and wind. Glittering shadows on the pavement: light through leaves moved by wind.

My favorite glitter moment was when I stopped to take my sweatshirt off at the bottom of the 38th street steps. Fairly high above the water, looking down through the leaves, I could see glittering, sparkling movement. Flash Flash Flash Flash — almost silver, but not quite. Bright. Maybe to someone with normal vision the river was blue, but to me it was glitter or shimmer or sparkle. I took a short video, and I think I can see the sparkling water, but it is much less bling-y than when I experienced it in person.

A view from the 38th street steps

oct 2/RUN

3.5 miles
2 trails and a hill
69 degrees / dew point: 60

Another hot, sticky morning. Yesterday it was so warm that they cancelled the Twin Cities Marathon. Wow. It wasn’t just the temp — it got up to 91 — but the dew point and the humidity.

I’m calling this route, “2 trails and a hill,” because I did my 2 trails route (running above heading south, running below on the Winchell Trail heading north), but also kept running south to the locks and dam no. 1, then down the hill and back up it before heading north and entering the Winchell Trail.

I’m on day 10 of being sick. I’m almost over it, but still have congestion — stuffy nose, crud on my chest. Our (me, Scott, RJP who is sick now) latest theory is that this sickness is the flu. Scott’s not getting it because he got his flu shot. Makes sense to me. This sickness shares some similarities with my usual cold, but is also different. It has knocked me out more, making it harder to run. My heart rate was unusually elevated for a day. I have a swollen lymph node in my armpit. I’m ready for it to be over.

bird tryptych

one: Sitting on the deck early this morning with my coffee, I heard one goose honking, then the sound of something sharply cutting through the air. Almost like scissors — swish swish swish swish. I looked up and saw a vee of geese! Maybe a dozen, speeding by in formation, not a single honk, only the swish of their wings.

two: Running south, just past the double bridge near the 44th st parking lot, I saw movement in the trees. 2 birds — were they geese or turkeys? I couldn’t tell — they were hiding in the bushes and I was moving too fast — but I decided they must be turkeys.

three: Running back north, close to the double bridge again, I saw the birds again. Definitely turkeys. They flapped their wings a little as they moved to the side for me. Thanks friends! A few seconds later, a bike passed me. I heard the biker ringing his bell over and over to alert the turkeys. ding ding ding ding ding ding

added the next morning, a bonus bird!: Last night Scott and I walked over to Sea Salt. On our way home, on the winchell trail, we saw a turkey on the fence — or, Scott saw a turkey and kept pointing it out to me until I finally saw it too. As we neared it, it flew away and into a tree. Crash! That might be the first time I’ve ever seen a turkey fly!

10 Things

  1. nearing the entrance to the Winchell trail: the water was almost white and very bright from the sun
  2. at the bottom of the hill, looking ahead at the ford bridge: the curve of the bridge was reflected in the water, almost, but not quite, looking like a smile
  3. more glimpses of the river, white and glittery, through the trees
  4. a biker on the hill, climbing it, then looping around to descend and climb again
  5. the sound of water steadily dropping from the sewer pipe at 42nd
  6. the buzz of crickets
  7. the croak of a few frogs
  8. car after car after car heading north on the river road — difficult to cross
  9. all around, rustling sounds — dry, brittle leaves being disturbed by critters moving through the brush
  10. beep beep beep beep beep — a truck backing up on edmund, trying not to hit the dumpster parked on the street

When I approached the “edge of the world,” I decided to stop and take a picture of it:

At the bottom of a paved section of the Winchell Trail, covered in red and yellow and brown leaves. On the edge of the path, an old chain link fence attempts to hold back leaves, the trunks of a few trees, and the open air of the gorge.
at the edge of the world / 2 oct 2023

When I finished my run, a mile and half later, I stopped at the 35th overlook to admire the view. When I saw my shadow, I decided to take her picture:

The shadow of a runner and the railing from an overlook above the Mississippi River. One hand of the shadow is holding a phone to her face, the other is perched on her hip.
Sara and her shadow / 2 oct 2023

sept 14/SWIM!

1.5 loops
lake nokomis main beach
79 degrees
windy choppy

So glad I wore my wetsuit! Also glad that I’m an excellent swimmer who doesn’t panic easily. That was a tough swim. And that was some rough water. Normally in an open swim, even one where I’ve picked up the pace or am swimming for more than an hour, my heart rate stays between 120 and 130. In today’s swim, my heart rate was 158. Wow.

10 Things

  1. seagulls, part 1: more than a dozen, floating in the water
  2. seagulls, part 2: flying furiously, stirred up by a little kid chasing them from shore
  3. before my swim: an almost empty beach, the sand had been tamped down by a park vehicle’s wheels
  4. after my swim: 3 sunbathers and one guy in jammers (men’s swim shorts that look like bike shorts) about to swim
  5. whitecaps
  6. swam over a few ghost vines reaching up from the bottom
  7. the giant swans are still in the water, tethered together by a dock
  8. only one sailboat with a white sail out in the water
  9. cloudy, murky water, impossible to even see my hand in front of me below the surface
  10. before the swim: a motorcycle pulling into the parking lot, blasting “Love Shack” — you’re what? tin roof … rusted

an unexpected ramble about libraries and unfamiliar places and my vision struggles

Picked up my first physical (non ebook) at the library yesterday. Last time I’ve been inside the library was sometime in early 2020, before the pandemic, and before the library suffered heavy fire damage during the George Floyd uprising, when white supremacists tried to burn it down.

There are lots of reasons I haven’t made it back to the library since then — I mostly read ebooks which you check out online because the light from the screen is always bright enough for me, while I often have to read physical books outside in direct sun to see the words. During and after the pandemic, I’ve been less willing to go into public spaces. I can’t drive anymore and the library is too close for a bus, but too far for an easy/quick walk.

Maybe the biggest reason: I’ve been scared. Walking into a building, I can’t read the signs that tell me where to go or notify me of something, like a new policy. What if I can’t find where to go? What if they’ve changed how to pick up holds, where to check them out? Of course, I could ask and I have been willing to do so, but it’s hard. Even if I ask, first I have to endure that moment of unknowing and confusion, when I enter a building and can’t see people’s faces, read signs, orient myself quickly.* This is Emily Dickinson’s moment in “We Grow Accustomed to the Dark” — A Moment — We uncertain step/For newness of the night –. Also, even though I’ve been working on it, it’s still hard to ask for help — to take the time, to bother someone, to not know how to do something. I’m hoping asking will get easier and I’ll care less and less about having to do it. For now, I have a different solution: Scott (or my kids or a friend) can come with me to a new place the first time, to help with any confusion I might have. Once I know how it works, I can come back on my own.

* To add to this: it’s not just that I’m uncertain, confused. Sometimes, my brain makes very bad guesses — often the exact opposite of what is actually there — and I overconfidently act on them. The more wrong I am, the more likely I am to boldly act. This is embarrassing — I look stupid or sound crazy/ridiculous, but it is also dangerous. Scott has witnessed this enough times to verify my assessment. I believe this is related to my failing vision, but I don’t know how. So strange and frustrating because I don’t seem to have any control over it, and I like to have control.

Gary Snyder’s Riprap

The book I had requested and picked up is one I’ve wanted to read for several years now: Gary Snyder’s Riprap and Cold Mountain Poems. I read/skimmed through it yesterday afternoon, and there are several poems that I’d like to read closely and study. I think they might help me with my series of Haunts poems. I like his sparse, matter-of-fact approach. I also like his love for walking/hiking. I think that I’ll devote the second half of September to his work! I just requested a few more books from the library.

Here’s a poem I’d like to start with:

Above Pate Valley/ Gary Snyder

We finished clearing the last
Section of trail by noon,
High on the ridge-side
Two thousand feet above the creek
Reached the pass, went on
Beyond the white pine groves,
Granite shoulders, to a small
Green meadow watered by the snow,
Edged with Aspen—sun
Straight high and blazing
But the air was cool.
Ate a cold fried trout in the
Trembling shadows. I spied
A glitter, and found a flake
black volcanic glass—obsidian—
By a flower. Hands and knees
Pushing the Bear grass, thousands
Of arrowhead leavings over a
Hundred yards. Not one good
Head, just razor flakes
On a hill snowed all but summer deer,
They came to camp. On their
Own trails. I followed my own
Trail here. Picked up the cold-drill,
Pick, singlejack, and sack
Of dynamite
Ten thousand years.

I want to spend more time with this. After the 3rd or 4th reading: love the line breaks and how they keep it moving. Also how some of the lines have new meaning when read alone:

Edged with Aspen–sun
Hundred yards. Not one good

sept 11/RUN

4.35 miles
to longfellow garden and back
61 degrees

Beautiful! Sunny, not too warm, calm. Ran past the falls to Longfellow Gardens. Stopped to check out the beautiful flowers — wow! — then started running back, past the barely trickling falls and to the Winchell Trail. I listened to cars driving by, acorns falling, kids yelling at the playground, an accordion player at the falls.

My left leg felt fine on the way to the gardens, a little stiff and sore on the way back. I’ve decided that part of the problem might be that my left glute isn’t firing. Listening to so many podcasts with professional runners and their injuries I’ve learned that this can happen and that it’s important to make sure your glute is actually working. Time to google some “glute firing exercises.” Found something! How to Get the Glues to Fire in Running

before the run

This weekend I was looking through Julia B. Levine’s collection, Ordinary Psalms. Here’s another poem about losing your vision that resonates for me and that I read before heading out for my run:

Psalm with No Cure/ Julia B. Levine

Beneath our grapevines at dusk, I will tell him
that the world is falling in on me,

a blurred unseaming of each from each
into a great sameness.

My husband reaches into the trellis,
cuts a cluster with his knife

and lays the red grapes on a plate before us.
I already know science is a religion too,

with its pantheon of evidence steadying terror.
Believe me, I’m grateful for any anchor.

Though here at the edge of autumn,
doesn’t it seem that the mythic breaks down

into that battered couch we once saw in Rome
floating down the Tiber

like a boat broken free of its mooring,
except this time, one of the five white gulls

shining at rest on its pillows
will not rise into the air again.

Please don’t try to make it better.
For now, there is a hunger in my lips, my hands,

as if I’d been called late to wander,
to feel by way of edges and texture

around lintels and doors, hallways
of shadow broken open by stairs.

There are too many choices
and ultimately none.

Don’t tell me a station of light will remain
like a lit house at midnight

in the fields rumbled through and groaning
under the evening train.

There’s a lot I could think/write about with this poem. This morning, the phrase “edge of autumn” stuck with me and I decided to try and think about what the edge of autumn looks/feels like outside, above the gorge.

during the run

This theme of the edge of autumn kept returning and leaving. I started thinking about the edge as on the brink of/nearing/almost here and then looking, listening, feeling for evidence of its impending arrival. Then my thoughts shifted and I thought about what it means to be on the edge and where the edges were on my route.

10 Edges

  1. (edge = almost, nearing) a soft golden light from the changing trees
  2. (edge = almost, nearing) over-rehearsed flowers — an excessive of past-their-prime blooms
  3. (edge = almost, nearing) school starting again, running past Dowling Elementary, watching cars line-up in the drop-off zone
  4. (edge = location) a garden worker kneeling at the edge of the flowerbeds, removing dead bulbs, weeds
  5. (edge = location) walking around the outside of the garden path, staying out of the way of a photographer taking pictures of the vibrant yellows, reds, oranges, purples
  6. (edge = location) running the stretch of the Winchell Trail that I’ve named “the edge of the world” because you’re running up a hill on the edge of the bluff that has a curve that if you miss taking would lead to falling off and into the river below. In late fall through early spring, when the leaves are all off and there’s nothing blocking your view of the empty air, it really looks the edge of the world
  7. (edge = location) encountering a walker, I moved to the very edge of the trail. No problem for me to navigate, but one wrong step and you could fall down the very steep hill — no railings here!
  8. off the edge: water trickling over minnehaha falls, through the sewer pipe at 42nd and down the limestone rocks to the river
  9. edges dissolving: listening to someone playing the accordion near the steps down to the bottom of the falls mixed with my footsteps mixed with the fast, steady rhythm of sprinklers. Difficult to tell which sound was the accordion, which my feet, which the sprinklers
  10. at the bottom of the steps, a choice: go up the stairs and run on the upper trail or go past the stairs and take the dirt trail through the oak savanna (I took the steps)

A few days I wrote about the kindness of 2 bikers on the bridge. Today it was a woman on the Winchell Trail:

As I approached a woman walking ahead of me on the narrow Winchell Trail, she moved over.
me: Thank you!
her: Have a great run!
me: Thanks! Have a great walk!

Another woman walking with a dog, stopped and moved over to the side, keeping her dog close and calm as I ran by. Thank you!

sept 7/RUN

3.4 miles
2 trails
59 degrees

59 degrees! A great temperature for a run. Overcast, misting, low wind. Tried to relax and release the tension in my shoulders (cause: failing to get a girl to go to school) and keep a slow, steady pace for my left IT band. Mostly it worked. I had my headphones set up to put in but never did.

6 Things Heard, 1 Smelled, 3 Unseen

  1. SCREECH! SCREECH! — bluejays
  2. tat tat tat tat tat — a roofer’s nailgun
  3. drip drip drip — the sewer at 42nd
  4. there’ve been so many drownings there — a woman walking and talking on the phone
  5. thump kerplunk — falling acorns
  6. good boy! — a woman talking to her dog as she stopped to let me pass on the narrow trail
  7. sickly sweet, slightly off, a hint of rotten egg — sewer smells near the ravine
  8. the voices of kids playing above and across the road (unseen: only voices drifting down, heard but not seen)
  9. a black shirt left on a bench (unseen: the shirt being left behind/the person who left it)
  10. a bare rock (unseen: no stones stacked, yesterday’s wind that must have knocked the stacked stones off)

before the run

I just started a new thing in the morning with my wordle habit. I’m calling it birdle and the only rule is this: the first five letter guess must be a bird. So far I’ve used: finch, robin, goose, eagle, egret, and quail. Confession: I don’t know or couldn’t think of many bird names so I had to look it up after goose. I suppose that could be part of the point of this goofy game: to learn more bird names.

Some others 5 letter bird names I’ll try:

  • crane
  • heron
  • junco
  • owlet
  • raven
  • swift
  • stork
  • vireo
  • veery

Veery reminds me of a delightful little poem I posted on july 13, 2021 from Lorine Niedecker (I love her!):

We are what the seas
have made us
longing immense
the very veery 
on the fence

Two things via Heather Christle on twitter this morning while drinking my coffee out on the deck: a poem and a concept

MORE SWANS AND MORE WOMEN/ Heather Christle

A swan makes a bad pet It is a murderer
but very beautiful just like a woman
If you see a woman moving in the water
you must run away very fast to a mountain
It happened to me once and there
are no swans on a mountain
This made it lonely and natural so
I was very safe but I forgot
how to talk and when I came home
people could not see I was a woman
although I made a lot of statues to explain
and I live by myself in a cottage and
the water is no longer working It won’t
make me beautiful just wet and the same

As of 2 or 3 readings, I don’t yet understand what this poem means. I’m not sure I need to. I like it for the swans and the swimming woman and the idea of the water no longer working, although I hope I never get to a place where the water is no longer working for me. Also: water making you wet and the same (like everyone else — all bodies floating freely and free from ailments/injuries, all together, a congregation) is magical, isn’t it?

concept — via negativa

Taught child about concept of via negativa this morning and had SO much fun watching her looking all around the bus stop, making silent notes to herself of what was not there.

Heather Christle on twitter

I’m sure I encountered the idea of via negativa in one of my theology classes, but I’ve forgotten it. And now, after some very brief searches, I’m not sure I totally understand it, or that what I think it means is complex enough to capture what it really means. Regardless, for right now, I like thinking about via negativa in terms of the gorge and what’s present in its absence (does that make sense?).

Looking up “via negativity and poetry,” I found a great site, Via Negativa, which led me to many wonderful poems by Luisa A. Igloria, including this one:

Talisman/ Luisa A. Igloria

Even now, at what we believe is near the end, my mother is what kids today might describe as #fighting, A month in the hospital and she’s rallied and flailed, flailed and rallied. Through intravenous feeding, oxygen delivery, antibiotics, everything short of TPN. Who is Patty? my cousin and the nurses ask. My mother has been calling the names of the dead, names of the living, names of all the remembered ghosts in her life. Perhaps more than death or dying, the ghost of our own approaching absence is the most difficult piece of the puzzle. She still knows the difference between the clothed and naked body, how the taste and texture of water on the tongue disappears like a stolen jewel. Once, she fashioned for me an ugly name in a second baptism meant to confuse and repel the gods. She embroidered it on towels and the inside of my collars as she mouthed it like a spell. Sometimes, I still start at my shadow on the wall, blue and sick from being shorn from light.

I’ve thought a lot about fighting death this last month as Scott’s dad was dying. I remembered how my mom fought it for almost a year and how difficult that was for everyone. I hoped that Scott’s dad wouldn’t fight it too, wouldn’t linger in an almost dead state for months. He didn’t.

during the run

Inspired by my brief exploration of via negativa, ideas of the gorge as an absence that is present and embracing — or centering? — the unknown kept flaring in my mind. Then I wandered with these ideas, moving beyond (or beside?) via negativa, thinking about the unknown as what we can never access (never see) but also what we might be able to see if we slowed down and opened ourselves to the world. I thought about Robin Wall Kimmerer and her chapter in Becoming Moss, “Learning to See,” how being patient and present in the world can enable us to see things that were previously invisible to us. And I thought about the periphery and what dwells there (both the unknown and the known-made-strange).

august 31/RUN

4.15 miles
franklin loop
60 degrees

Since we’re driving FWA back to school on Saturday, Scott and I decided to do our weekly run today instead. We ran (most of) the Franklin loop. A beautiful morning: cool, sunny but with plenty of shade, calm. At one point the wind picked up and I had to recite one of my favorite wind poems, “Who Has Seen the Wind?” by Christina Rossetti.

Fall is coming: discarded acorn shells, glowing leaves, the light seems longer and softer, maybe a bit sadder too?

10 Things

  1. empty river — no rowers or kayaks or big paddle boats playing dixieland jazz
  2. 3 or 4 stones stacked on the ancient boulder
  3. waved at the woman who stopped me the other day to tell me about some other runner who had my same gait. I think she wanted us to go on a date — she kept telling me how cute he was. A new regular? I’ll call her, the Fixer Upper — talking with Scott, we agreed that Fixer Upper sounded like she needed to be fixed up, which is not true at all, so I guess I’ll call her the Setter Upper
  4. the porta potty by the overlook has been removed. Why? I bet the people living in tents down in the gorge really needed it
  5. the cracks in the path just past the trestle are growing wider and deeper. Is the bluff becoming too unstable? Will they need to abandon this part of the path?
  6. a steady stream of cars on the road — no soft moments when all I can hear are my footfalls and my breath
  7. the east river road just south of franklin is in terrible condition — so many potholes!
  8. played a game with Scott — was that noise down in the east flats wind or water? I said water, he said wind. I think he was right; it hasn’t rained for a while
  9. another game — what is that loud, strangled cry? Knowing I was being ridiculous I guessed, a giant gobbling turkey. Scott thought it was a man yelling. We were both wrong; it was a dog barking
  10. crossing back over the lake street bridge: shadows of trees on the river near the shore, soft ripples from the wind

the day made

Walking back through the neighborhood, we encountered a pair of dogs that I had run by earlier in the summer (june 10, 2023) and always hoped to see again. 2 tiny dogs, barking with little yips and snorts, especially the larger one. Scott thought the smaller one — a minpin chihuahua mix? — was so small that it could have escaped through the bars of the fence if it wanted too. It didn’t. Of course, I cried out in delight when I saw them. I might have even clapped. Scott started laughing and then imitating the yip snort whenever I asked. Would I love these dogs as much if I had to live next to them? Maybe not, or maybe I’d love them even more.

Earlier this morning, prepping for my class, I was thinking about being open to the world, letting it interrupt you. These dogs were wonderful interrupters. That glorious bark, those cute, impossibly tiny bodies! Before we saw them, we were tense — Scott needed to hurry home to fix a server, but when they suddenly appeared, everything else was forgotten. It was just those dogs and that moment of sound and blurry little bodies.

I’ve written about frantic dogs barks before (and how much I like them). A few years back, I also posted a poem that included some yippy yappy dogs.

from I Heart Your Dog’s Head/ Erin Belieu

Which leads me to recall the three Chihuahuas
who’ve spent the fullness of their agitated lives penned
in the back of my neighbor’s yard.
Today they barked continuously for 12 minutes (I timed it) as
the UPS guy made his daily round.
They bark so piercingly, they tremble with such exquisite outrage,
that I’ve begun to root for them, though it’s fashionable
to hate them and increasingly dark threats
against their tiny persons move between the houses on our block.
But isn’t that what’s wrong with this version of America:
the jittering, small-skulled, inbred-by-no-choice-
of-their-own are despised? And Bill Parcells—
the truth is he’ll win
this game. I know it and you know it and, sadly,
did it ever seem there was another possible outcome?

It’s a small deposit,
but I’m putting my faith in reincarnation. I need to believe
in the sweetness of one righteous image,
in Bill Parcells trapped in the body of a teacup poodle,
as any despised thing,
forced to yap away his next life staked to
a clothesline pole or doing hard time on a rich old matron’s lap,
dyed lilac to match her outfit.
I want to live there someday, across that street,
and listen to him. Yap, yap, yap.

august 2/SWIM

a quick dip
lake superior
78 degrees

On the road between Lake of the Clouds and our hotel in Silver City, Michigan (UP), RJP and I stopped to take a quick dip in the lake. I wasn’t sure about doing it, but RJP really wanted to, and I knew that 8 or 9 year old Sara would have been outraged (at least very disappointed) if I hadn’t jumped into this beautiful water. Swimming at the lake in the summer on our trips to the UP was my favorite thing ever. Wow! Cold, but completely still and clear. After a bumpy, sharp band of rocks the lake floor turned into soft sand. So smooth! So clear! Slowly I walked out farther until only my head was out of the water. Looking down, I could see my shadow at my feet. Have I ever seen Lake Superior this calm and clear? Not that I can remember. RJP dunked her head first, then I followed. Brrr!! If I had had my goggles, I might have tried swimming a few strokes but I didn’t. I wonder if and when there’s an undertow here and how I might have handled it.

Later, at the hotel Scott, RJP, and I sat on the beach and watched the sun set. I’m not sure I ever remember seeing the sun fully set — first a fiery ball touching the water, then slowly dipping below until only a glowing yellowish orange line was left. In Minneapolis, because of trees and the gorge and other houses, I never see the sun set. It’s beautiful. I’m very glad RJP took a picture of it:

july 31/RUNSWIM

5 miles
bottom of franklin hill and back
65 degrees

What a wonderful morning to be outside! Cooler, sunny, calm.

My new morning routine is to get up, feed the dog, make my coffee, and then sit outside on my deck. Sitting there, I noticed a few birds swooping down from our new gutters. Uh oh — they’re trying to build a nest.

I felt pretty good on my run. Relaxed for the first few miles. Running down the hill, my left hip felt a little tight. Not too bad. Last night, Scott and I talked about signing up for the Oct 2024 marathon, for our 50 birthdays. Can my knees and hips handle it?

Listened to birds, acorns falling from the trees, kids calling out for Dairy Queen for the first half of the run. Put in headphones and listened to “Camelot” on the way back.

At the bottom of the franklin hill, I turned around. As I walked back up the hill, I recorded a few moments from the run:

moment one

Running through the tunnel of trees
a few minutes ago
a wonderful silence
no cars
I could hear myself breathing
everything still
no wind.
I was mostly in the moment
although
every so often a wonder
about when a car would come
and break the silence
cut into my calm.

moment two

approaching the trestle
I heard some kids
yelling, yeah! dairy queen!
another camp group
a dozen kids in bright yellow vests
as they biked past me
one of them chanted, dairy queen! dairy queen!

moment three

as spoke about moment two into my phone
a runner passed me
looking relaxed graceful
his legs rhythmically bobbing up and down
mesmerizing

10 Things

  1. a still river
  2. a black shirt dropped near the porta potty
  3. one acorn dropping to the ground from a tree, thud
  4. another acorn being crushed by a bike wheel, crunch!
  5. 2 roller skiers, or the same roller skier encountered twice
  6. the Welcoming Oaks wondering where I’ve been
  7. a person asleep under the bridge
  8. a regular — Santa Claus
  9. another regular — Mr. Morning!
  10. a woman ahead of me, a dark shirt strung through the strap of her tank top, flapping as she ran

On this last day of July, a month about water, I want to include this passage from Roger Deakin’s Waterlog:

The following afternoon, under a blue sky fringed white with distant clouds on the horizon, four of us swam in 360 feet of turquoise water in a sheer-sided quarry on Belnahua. The island encricled a huge natural swimming pool, raised above sea level, whose waters were so utterly transparent that when we swam, we saw our shadows far down, swimming ahead of us along the bottom. All around, only yards away, was the deeper blue of the open sea, and the Hebrides: Fladda, Scarba, Jura, Lunga, the Garvellachs (the ‘Islands of the sea’, St. Coumba’s favourite place), Luing, Mull and Colonsay. The light and the skies kept changing all afternoon: from bright blue with distant dazzling clouds to deepening red and gold. Diving from the rocks into the immensely deep, clear, brackish water, intensified the giddy feeling of aquatic flying.

Waterlog / Roger Deakin (237)

I would love to swim here (or near here)– some day in my 50s, I hope. Last week I mentioned possibly seeing my shadow in the water, but barely because the water in the lake is opaque. I remember seeing (and writing about) my shadow in the pool last winter, how it felt like I was flying above the deep end. I love the idea of aquatic flying and the rare times I feel like I’m actually doing it.

swim: 2 loops (4 cedar loops)
cedar lake open swim
83 degrees

Always grateful for another swim. Was able to swim on course, even without the buoys. My calves felt a little strange, my nose was a bit stuffed up, but otherwise, a great swim.

Instead of listing 10 things I noticed, here’s the coolest thing of the night: the vegetation stretching up from the bottom of the lake. How tall is it, I wonder? On the last loop, rounding the far orange buoy at Hidden Beach, I swam parallel to the beach, right above the vegetation — is it milfoile? Whatever it is, it’s wonderfully creepy — a pale green, ghostly, reaching up toward the light or my torso. So much of it! When I have more time, I do a little more research about these plants, and try to describe them more too.