Tag: track

jan 16/RUNGETOUTICE

3.1 miles
ywca track

Ran at the y today. In the locker room, after the run, as I was pulling out my flip-flops which my sister gave me almost 10 years ago, someone else in my row of lockers called out: I love your flip-flops. They’re fucking awesome or their metal or something like that. I responded, thank you! I feel like a badass when I’m wearing them! I needed this exchange today, to connect with a stranger in this way.

my flipflops

an image remembered: running at a corner, I saw my shadow to the side, then felt another one behind me but no one there: a double shadow! Me and my shadows. It was funny because I was listening to my shadow playlist as I saw this, including the song, “Me and My Shadow.”

Get Out ICE

A march organized by a right-wing influencer is planned for Saturday, Jan. 17 in Minneapolis, according to the Minnesota Star Tribune. The event “is organized by conservative influencer Jake Lang, who has been advertising the march on X. In a post, he called for ‘crusaders’ to ‘take back’ Minnesota from Democrats. … Minneapolis Police Inspector Bill Peterson reassured residents at Tuesday’s meeting in Minneapolis that they have prepared for the event. He also noted the city is ‘hyper aware’ that the Cedar Riverside neighborhood could be a target.”

All around, confusion and mis-information. Many people are imploring others to not take the bait, and to avoid this march, which seems to designed to incite violence and lead to justification for further intervention by the Trump Administration. Others encouraging direct action in order to protect the Cedar Riverside neighborhood. It seems like a no-win situation.

jan 11/RUNICEGETOUT

3 miles
ywca track

Still too slippery out on the sidewalk, so back to the y for another track workout. I don’t like running at the track as much as outside, but it’s better than the treadmill in the basement or nothing. Today it was crowded with lots of maneuvering around clueless walkers. I wasn’t angered by it, but it still took energy to speed up and shift and make sure I wasn’t running into anyone. I listened to my moment playlist and tried to stay relaxed. This year, running on the track feels strange — I struggle in the beginning to find my rhythm and my legs are sore when I’m done. But even though it was awkward and not nearly as fun as being by the gorge, it felt so good to be moving and getting my heart rate up.

Before offering so more context for future Sara, here’s a post from a former student that offers a beautiful description of the love here in Minneapolis:

LONG LIVE MINNEAPOLIS…

“…And the restaurateurs refusing ICE service;
The elected officials demanding access to detention facilities;
Long live the mutual aid runners organizing food caravans;
The hospital staff working to keep ICE away from patients and attorneys working to keep ICE out of our courts;
Long live our students pelting ICE with snowballs when they invade school grounds;
The teachers & school admins offering our youth hybrid & e-learning;
The noise makers keeping ICE awake in their hotels all night;
The generous folks handing out samosas, whistles, legal aid, hand warmers, & coffee at rallies;
Long live the immigrant rights orgs, working overtime for weeks to conduct ICE watches, coordinate legal service & comms among separated families, & prevent evictions under occupation;
The Signal coordinators fielding thousands of requests for rapid response alerts;
The artists opening their studios for poster-painting & sharing free downloads & screenprints of their images;
The city council leaders joining the frontlines despite utter exhaustion and risks to their own safety and wellbeing;
The veterans showing up at Whipple to denounce ICE’s abhorrent conduct;
The small business owners speaking out, at risk to their livelihoods;
The journalists upholding truth in the face of massive, state-sanctioned media repression & rubber bullets;
Ordinary folks braving single digit wind chills to lift their voices & march for hours;
Long live every immigrant to Minneapolis, & every child of immigrants.

Despite the truly unfathomable terror and violence unleashed by Trump and his supporters:

There are too many resistors to count. Too many resistors to thank.

We have The Many.”

More context for ICE in Minnesota

In my effort to educate myself about what’s happening in Minneapolis right now, I decided to look for more information about the latest ICE push by the US government here.

(6 January) The Trump administration has launched what officials describe as the largest federal immigration enforcement operation ever carried out, preparing to deploy as many as 2,000 federal agents and officers to the Minneapolis area for a sweeping crackdown tied in part to allegations of fraud involving Somali residents.

2,000 federal agents sent to Minneapolis area to carry out ‘largest immigration operation ever,’ ICE says

The fraud allegations have been simmering here for at least the last month, becoming very nasty, and getting so bad that it has led to violence against Somali residents:

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) and its Minnesota chapter (CAIR-MN) today called on law enforcement authorities and public officials to take concrete actions to protect Somali-American day care centers and businesses that have been targeted with threats and harassment as children return to these centers in the wake of the holiday season ending.

A controversial and largely-debunked social media video of a conservative influencer showing up outside of day care centers in Minnesota has sparked a wave of copycat incidents in which white supremacists and social media influencers show up at similar institutions and demand access to children.

CAIR, CAIR-MN Call for Protection of Somali-American Day Care Centers Facing Copycat Harassment

It has also put so much pressure on Governor Walz that even though he is not directly connected to the fraud claims, he is not running for office again next year. The general sense among many Minnesotans is that the state, and Minneapolis and St. Paul, are being punished because Walz was the vice presidential candidate.

Along with the increased presence of ICE here,

The Trump administration has escalated its campaign against alleged benefits fraud, freezing social services funding for five Democratic-led states and announcing a new fraud-focused position in the Justice Department that will report directly to the White House. Officials also point, without evidence, to immigrants as the primary drivers of the fraud.

Influencer, White House welfare fraud claims are distorted, but the system has risks

added an hour or two later: Just read Heather Cox Richardson’s update on Facebook and this part was particularly pertinent:

Trump and his allies have singled out Minnesota in large part because of its large Somali-American population, represented in Congress by Omar, a lawmaker Trump has repeatedly attacked, from a population Trump has called “garbage.” As Chabeli Carrazana explained in 19th News, shortly after Christmas, right-wing YouTuber Nick Shirley posted a video that he claimed showed day care centers run by Somali Americans were taking money from the government without providing services.

The video has been widely debunked. In 2019, a state investigation found fraud taking place in the child care system and charged a number of people for defrauding the state. After that, the state tightened oversight, and state investigators have conducted unannounced visits to the day cares Shirley hit in his videos, where they found normal operations. Shirley claimed fraud when the centers would not let him in, but child care centers lock their doors and obscure the windows for the safety of the children, and would not let a strange man inside the facility to videotape.

But Trump used the frenzy to justify cutting $10 billion in antipoverty funding to five states led by Democrats—California, Colorado, Illinois, Minnesota, and New York—only to have a federal judge block his order yesterday. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins promptly announced she was withholding $129 billion in federal funding from Minnesota, alleging fraud.

Jane Hirshfield

Revisiting Jane Hirshfield’s wonderful poem, “Interruption: An Assay” that I posted on this day in 2024 and thinking about her definitions of interruption in relation to non-interruption, then disruption, then a break — break as a pause, a momentary stopping / break as a rupture, a split, a gap — a break in the trees, a break in the limestone.

What is the difference between interruption and disruption? Looking to Hirshfield for an answer, or as Mary Oliver puts it, a suggestion, I found a discussion of the periphery vs. the center. Wow!

INTERVIEWER

Your line “less to solve than to speak of what needs solving” reminds me of Chekhov’s statement, “Art does not provide answers, it can only formulate questions correctly.” What does this mean for an artist in our specific moment? One of your earlier poems, “In Praise of Coldness,” begins with another quote from Chekhov, “If you wish to move your reader, you must write more coldly.” It is a beautiful poem. “In sorrow, pretend to be fearless,” you say. “In happiness, tremble.” How do you relate to this statement from Chekhov now, after having written equally beautiful—but not at all cold—poems in Ledger that do, I think, provide answers, despite what you’ve said. I’m thinking of poems such as “Let them Not Say,” for instance, or “On the Fifth Day.”

HIRSHFIELD

Perhaps an answer in the realm of the arts is different from the right or wrong solution we bring to a problem in chemistry or mathematics. Arts “answers,” but in that word’s other sense of response, of reply. Both the poems you’ve named are bells rung hard. They summon attention. When you see a fire, you can’t stay silent.

I, though, do feel in them Chekhov’s coldness. A poem’s meaning requires an engineered, structural soundness, not so different from that of a building or bridge. Language, syntax, verb tense, soundscape, the placing of ink and ink’s absence on a page, are material things, just as steel is. Words experienced as comprehensible, consequential, do follow rules, though they are rules that a writer, like an architect, can test, press toward their outer limits. New materials bring new shapes of meaning and feeling. Those two poems feel strongly, but they are not an uncontrolled weeping. They argue, in the old-fashioned, rhetorical sense of that word, for something that matters, and make their argument in the ways art mostly does—from the side. I think it’s a good thing that poets work far from the center of our celebrity- and economics-driven culture. From the periphery, you can see more of the whole. From the center, any view will be partial. A poem is not a frontal assault, it is the root tendrils of ivy making their way into the heart’s walls’ mortar.

A Poem is Not a Frontal Assault: An Interview with Jane Hirshfield / The Paris Review

From the periphery, you can see more of the whole. From the center, any view will be partial.

A poem is not a frontal assault, it is the root tendrils of ivy making their way into the heart ‘s walls’ mortar. Yes! Hirshfield has another poem, In Praise of Being Peripheral, that I am reminded of here. Now I want to give more attention the peripheral, but later.

jan 9/RUN

3.1 miles
track
ywca

I would have liked to run outside. It was sunny, not too windy, and almost above freezing, but the sidewalks were way too icy. I tried to go out for a recon walk earlier today and only made it to the end of our sidewalk before realizing the surface conditions were terrible. I had to turn around and come home. Bummer. Fresh air might have relieved some of the anxiety I’m carrying in my body from what’s happening. At least I was able to go to the y and run on the track. Moving and working up a sweat helped some, I think.

Since I was looping around a track, I decided to listen to my “Wheeling Life” playlist.

10 Track Things

  1. an orange bucket was out on the track in its yearly spot, catching drips from a pipe
  2. a short man with white hair was walking backwards in the inner lane
  3. the gym below was empty
  4. not too many people on the track, all of them quiet
  5. in the quiet, I could hear my feet striking the track surface — I think my striking feet were the loudest thing on the track — thwack thwack thwack
  6. a woman walking fast, wearing a shirt that reminded me of scrubs — had she just gotten off a shift at a hospital?
  7. some people follow the written rules and walk in the innermost lane, some ignore them and walk in the middle (which is for runners) or in the far left lane (which is for passing)
  8. just remembered: just before entering the track, passed the woman in a scrubs shirt putting air pods in her ears
  9. very few runners — while I was running, only me and Scott — after, while walking, one other runner
  10. inside it was warm (good) and very dry (bad)

Working on a tiny (24 word) poem tentatively titled bio-regionalism, and I was thinking about something I recalled hearing from Stanley Tucci in his series on regions in Italy and their food: he said that a region/neighborhood was/is defined by anyone who was in earshot of that neighborhood’s church bells. I looked it up and found this helpful definition and video from Rick Steves. The term is campanilismo:

During Tuscany’s medieval and Renaissance prime, this region was a collection of feuding city-states dominated by rich families. To this day, Tuscans remain fiercely loyal to their home community, and are keenly aware of subtle differences between people from different cities, towns, and villages. (Italians have a wonderful word for this: campanilismo, meaning that a community consists of the people within earshot of its bell tower — campanile.)

source

I love this idea of defining a community, your home-place, by its bells. My bells are the bells of St. Thomas, just across the river.

dec 20/RUN

3 miles
ywca track

Ran instead of swam today at the y. Not too crowded. The woman who walks with her head tilted to the side was there. Mostly walkers, 1 or 2 other runners, someone biking by the window, someone else doing battle ropes, and someone in a red sweatsuit doing squats and twists on the edge of the track. Below, kids were playing ball — was it soccer or basketball? I think it was soccer. Lots of squeaking shoes, one coach whose voice could cut through everything. Rounding the far corner — every time — I smelled something salty and meaty and over-spiced or over-seasoned. It did not smell appetizing. Taco meat?

found poetry

Thinking more about cut-outs and erasures, I remembered that Mary Ruefle likes to do them. Almost every day according to this article: Erasure Notebook by Mary Ruefle. And here’s another article with examples from the exhibit.

A sudden thought: what about applying my blind spot to a reading? I’ve tried this before, but didn’t stick with it; instead, creating my mood rings.

my blind spot over text from Georgina Kleege’s Sight Unseen

Yes! I’d like to try this again, but with text about the gorge! I need to go back to the wall and see if/how much my ring has grown. I could try it with old books I can no longer read anymore, or with typed-up text.

dec 1/RUN

3 miles
ywca track

The first run at the track in over 2 years. I looked it up and the last run at this track was 4 dec 2023. Not much has changed, which was good. It felt like time traveling. Lots of memories at the y with kids on swim team and inside winter running. I wore my bright yellow shoes, and between them and the bouncy track surface, I felt like I was flying. Fun! and also strange and awkward at first. Running at this track — 6 laps is a mile — is easier than the treadmill, but it’s still hard to run for a long time. I ran without stopping for 20 minutes, then walked a lap, then ran a lap, walked a lap, ran 2.

Aside from the dry and warm and not slippery conditions, one of the best things about running on the track is the chance to encounter the same people over and over, loop after loop.

10 People

  1. the fast runner in blue shorts — a great runner, graceful, making it look effortless — he passed me at least 3 or 4 times
  2. a short-ish woman in black pants and a white jacket walking slowly (and obliviously) in the middle lane, often veering slightly to the outside running lane
  3. 2 tall guys, one in a red shirt, walking and chatting
  4. later, one of the guys, starting to run
  5. an older woman, tall, in black pants, with short hair, her head cocked slightly to the right as she walked
  6. a woman in bright yellow shorts, running, her gait was strange: bouncy, but striking on the wrong part of her foot — too much vertical movement?
  7. 2 people chatting near the window — one of them complaining about how, because of insurance and property tax increases, her mortgage was jumping from $800 a month to $1300
  8. a guy in the far right corner, punching a bag in a steady and strong rhythm
  9. a woman walking with purpose, her locker key jangling in her pocket with each step
  10. someone entering the track and stopping in the middle of the lane to adjust their shoe — they saw me in plenty of time and moved out of the way — thanks!

Earlier today, or yesterday?, I came up with a ywca goal for December: swim a 5k. Now I’m thinking that I should have a running/track goal too. Run a 10k? Run an all out mile? I’ll think about it some more.

locker room encounter

Sandwiched between 2 other people changing, it was awkward. I overheard one say to the other, do you smell hot chocolate? I didn’t, and then suddenly I did. It smelled good. Without thinking, which is something I do more often because of my vision, I blurted out, excuse me, did one of you just say it smells like hot chocolate? One of them said, it’s my cocoa butter. I responded, it smells so good!

dec 4/RUN

2 miles
ywca track

Back at the end of October, we rejoined the y so that I could swim in the winter and Scott could run and hot tub. With Scott’s busy schedule and my desire to run outside, today was the first day we finally went. The hot tub is closed indefinitely. We decided to cancel our membership and run outside — fine by me. I’ll miss swimming a little, but I’m feeling like 2024 is a serious running year.

I didn’t mind the track, it was fine — not crowded, warm — but it’s not the same as being outside above the gorge. I forgot my headphones so I listened to the sounds around me as I looped the elevated track: a guy lifting weights and muttering to himself, high schoolers playing basketball and dropping a few f-bombs, my own breathing. The people I passed: an older man walking with a cane, a young-ish woman walking then briefly running, an older woman walking, a guy in a red shirt reading a book on his phone as he walked.

added a few minutes later: I just remembered that I was running on the track, feeling my feet bounce on the springy track, I thought about how my feet connect to the ground. Then I thought about how I connect/am connected to a place also through breath — lungs inhaling, moving through air. Wind/air/breath are unseen and less noticed than feet striking the ground, but air is there and we possess/are possessed by it through our breaths.

This morning I woke to the wonderful news that 2 of my mood ring poems have been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. This is a big deal and makes me very proud and pleased that my strange poems are meaningful to others. I’ve worked hard for 7 years, writing almost daily, trying to develop ways to express what it feels like to be losing my vision.

Today A.R. Ammon’s Tape for the Turn of the Year came and I’m excited to read it and be inspired by it. In anticipation, I checked out Ammons’ collected works. Here’s a poem I ‘d like to remember and put beside Mary Oliver’s ideas about writing and language in The Leaf and the Cloud:

Motion/ A. R. Ammons:

The word is
not the thing:
is
a construction of,
a tag for,
the thing: the
word in
no way
resembles
the thing, except
as sound
resembles,
as in whirr,
sound:
the relation
between what this
as words
is and what is
is tenuous: we
agree upon
this as the net to
cast on what
is: the finger
to
point with: the
method of
distinguishing,
defining, limiting:
poems
are fingers, methods,
nets,
not what is or was:
but the music
in poems
is different,
points to nothing,
traps no
realities, takes
no game, but
by the motion of
its motion
resembles
what, moving, is—-
the wind
underleaf white against
the tree.

feb 25/RUN

5k
ywca track

Ran on the track with Scott this morning, not together but at the same time. I thought about swimming, but knew it would be crowded, so I ran. Listened to a playlist titled, Sara 2020. Started with Tower of Power’s “What is Hip” and ended with Prince’s “Let’s Go Crazy.” Focused on my cadence, arm swing, and not running into people as I passed them, including 2 runners who were running in the far lane. There were soccer games going on below me in the big gym, but I didn’t notice them at all. Too lost in my run.

The thing I noticed the most were the people:

  1. a man with white hair, wearing shorts and a tank top, running
  2. a woman in turquoise shorts and a tank top, running in the far lane, making it difficult to pass
  3. another runner in dark sweatpants and a light shirt running in the far lane
  4. 2 people walking, one of them carrying dumbells
  5. another pair of women, the one in the middle lane wearing a bright blue shirt
  6. a woman in mid-calf light blue patterned running tights and a white tank top running in the middle lane
  7. someone in tan shorts walking faster than the other walkers
  8. a woman stretching her calf muscles on the steps in the far corner
  9. a guy in gray, walking
  10. someone in red (I think?) sitting on the bench near the punching bag and the exit

I was listening to music, so I couldn’t hear what anyone was saying, but Scott told me that he overheard 3 interesting things from the pair of women walkers (#5 above). He called them chatty Cathys, he guessed they were in college, and he heard them say this: First, just as he passed them, he overheard one of them call out in disgust, Yuck! Next time, They’ll see it on your transcripts. Finally, You should really stop binging. Binging a show, food, alcohol? What will they see on your transcripts, and is this a good thing, or a bad thing? I love overheard conversations and imagining what they’re about.

Here are two poems I discovered today that move in opposite directions:

Rain/Jack Gilbert

Suddenly this defeat.
This rain.
The blues gone gray
And the browns gone gray
And yellow
A terrible amber.
In the cold streets
Your warm body.
In whatever room
Your warm body.
Among all the people
Your absence
The people who are always
Not you.

I have been easy with trees
Too long.
Too familiar with mountains.
Joy has been a habit.
Now
Suddenly
This rain.

Love: I have been easy with trees/too long.

Opera Singer/Ross Gay

Today my heart is so goddamned fat with grief
that I’ve begun hauling it in a wheelbarrow. No. It’s an anvil
dragging from my neck as I swim
through choppy waters swollen with the putrid corpses of hippos,
which means lurking, somewhere below, is the hungry
snout of a croc waiting to spin me into an oblivion
worse than this run-on simile, which means only to say:
I’m sad. And everyone knows what that means.

And in my sadness I’ll walk to a café,
and not see light in the trees, nor finger the bills in my pocket
as I pass the boarded houses on the block. No,
I will be slogging through the obscure country of my sadness
in all its monotone flourish, and so imagine my surprise
when my self-absorption gets usurped
by the sound of opera streaming from an open window,
and the sun peeks ever-so-slightly from behind his shawl,
and this singing is getting closer, so that I can hear the
delicately rolled r’s like a hummingbird fluttering the tongue
which means a language more beautiful than my own,
and I don’t recognize the song
though I’m jogging toward it and can hear the woman’s
breathing through the record’s imperfections and above me
two bluebirds dive and dart and a rogue mulberry branch
leaning over an abandoned lot drags itself across my face,
staining it purple and looking, now, like a mad warrior of glee
and relief I run down the street, and I forgot to mention
the fifty or so kids running behind me, some in diapers,
some barefoot, all of them winged and waving their pacifiers
and training wheels and nearly trampling me
when in a doorway I see a woman in slippers and a floral housedress
blowing in the warm breeze who is maybe seventy painting the doorway
and friends, it is not too much to say
it was heaven sailing from her mouth and all the fish in the sea
and giraffe saunter and sugar in my tea and the forgotten angles
of love and every name of the unborn and dead
from this abuelita only glancing at me
before turning back to her earnest work of brushstroke and lullaby
and because we all know the tongue’s clumsy thudding
makes of miracles anecdotes let me stop here
and tell you I said thank you.

This poem! The beauty that interrupts us and forces us out of ourselves and into the world! Ross Gay is wonderful.

My Emily Dickinson, part two

a new grammar grounded in humility and hesitation

Emily Dickinson took the scraps from the separate “higher” female education many bright women of her time were increasingly resenting, combined them with voracious and “unladylike” outside reading, and used the combination. She built a new poetic form from her fractured sense of being eternally on inteIlectual borders, where confident masculine voices buzzed an alluring and inaccessible discourse, backward through history into aboriginal anagogy. Pulling pieces of geometry, geology, alchemy, philosophy, politics, biography, biology, mythology, and philology from alien territory, a “sheltered” woman audaciously invented a new grammar grounded in humility and hesitation. HESITATE from the Latin, meaning to stick. Stammer. To hold back in doubt, have difficulty speaking. “He may pause but he must not hesitate”-Ruskin. Hesitation circled back and surrounded everyone in that confident age of aggressive industrial expansion and brutal Empire building. Hesitation and Separation. The Civil War had split American in two. He might pause, She hesitated. Sexual, racial, and geographical separation are at the heart of Definition.

Here’s something I wrote about this passage on March 17, 2021:

I really like this idea of hesitation and humility and aboriginal anagogy as a sharp contrast to progress, aggression, confidence/hubris, and time as always moving forwards (teleology). I tried to find a source that could explain exactly what Howe means by aboriginal anagogy but I couldn’t. I discovered that anagogy means mystical or a deeper religious sense and so, when I connect it to aboriginal, I’m thinking that she means that ED imbues pre-Industrial times (pre Progress!, where progress means trains and machines and cities and Empires and factories and plantations and the enslavement of groups of people and the increased mechanization of time and bodies and meaning and, importantly, grammar) with the sacred. Is that right? Is it clear what I’m saying?

A few paragraphs later, Howe writes this about ED’s grammar of “hesitation and humility”:

Naked sensibilities at the extremest periphery. Narrative expanding contracting dissolving. Nearer to know less before afterward schism in sum. No hierarchy, no notion of polarity. Perception of an object means loosing and losing it. …Trust absence, allegory, mystery–the setting not the rising sun is Beauty. No outside editor/”robber.” Conventional punctuation was abolished not to add “soigne stitchery” but to subtract arbitrary authority. Dashes drew liberty of interruption inside the structure of each poem. Hush of hesitation for breath and for breathing….only Mutability certain.

Some of this is starting to make sense. The periphery, the dashes as hesitation, mystery. I was curious about her take on sunsets over sunrises so I googled it and found this ED poem and helpful account from the Prowling Bee (love her!). She includes a list of ED’s sunset poems.

Howe ends Part One with one more description of ED’s hesitation and humility:

Forcing, abbreviating, pushing, padding, subtraction, riddling, interrogating, re-writing, she pulled text from text (29).

jan 24/WALKRUN

walk: 20 minutes
neighborhood with Delia the dog

Went out for a brief walk through the neighborhood and listened to the birds. I love the sounds of birds, especially in the winter. Lots of chattering, making it feel warmer than it was. Then I heard the rapid knocking of the woodpecker. It echoed down the block. Passing under a tree, I heard a strange sound. Was it a bird, or a squirrel? I’m not sure. Did I see any of the birds that I heard? I don’t think so.

3 miles
ywca track

Ran at the track in the afternoon with Scott. We didn’t run together, but at the same time. I intended to listen to music, but I forgot the extra dongle I need for my headphones. Oh well, running without music was fine. In fact, I liked it. Hearing my feet striking the track, the basketball shoes down below squeaking on the gym floor, the battle ropes forcefully striking the ground. Did I think about anything? I can’t remember much. I do recall thinking about my form — keeping my shoulders relaxed — and noticing the time every few laps. Can i think of 10 other things?

10 Things I Noticed

  1. a man boxing in the corner — I could hear him hit the punching back, see it swinging back and forth
  2. when I first got there a tall man in a blue shirt was running. Later, he stopped running and was walking
  3. a man in dark sweatpants and a tan shirt, or was it a dark shirt and tan sweatpants?, was running and working hard. As I passed him, I could hear his jagged breathing
  4. a blur below — a guy sprinting on the track
  5. a woman in black, walking and veering into the middle
  6. 2 different sets of walkers, talking and slowly traveling around the track
  7. someone on a spin bike in corner
  8. a man sitting on a bench by the door –were they watching me as I ran by?
  9. a runner in a white t-shirt and black running tights, looking relaxed
  10. near the end of the run, someone was pushing the heavy sled in the corner

While drinking my coffee this morning, I found this video abut Ice Swimming. I’m not interested in trying it out, although I wouldn’t mind swimming in an outdoor pool in the winter.

note: I’m adding this poem in a few days later because it fits with the video.

Cold Shock Response/Anna Swanson


Note: All words (with the exception of title) transcribed from garbage found in the Cape Broyle swimming hole, NL.


Gasp. Cautionless
mouthfuls. No skill or aim,

only appetite in gloves of slush.
Gasp, we grab at the air

before asking, Is there air?
Alight with cold, classroom 

potassium dropped in water. 
Blood, punching. Our old code

calling. We gasp, cold bells
that cannot stop ringing.

Love that line about being cold bells that can’t stop ringing! A few months ago, I put together a page on my “How to Be” project over at Undisciplined. It was “How to be…a bell.” I included several poems and songs and passages about bells. Unfortunately that page was erased and I haven’t tried to recreate it. If I do, I’ll add this poem to it.

jan 17/RUN

2.2 miles
ywca track

Went to the y in the early evening, before community band rehearsal. Too crowded to swim, so I ran. Not as nice as running outside, but better than the treadmill. Listened to a playlist and forgot to count laps or notice the time. The track was crowded but not too crowded and not filled with oblivious people spread across the three lanes.

People I Encountered

  1. a woman who walked in the closest lane to the railing but often drifted over
  2. a guy, dressed in black shorts, a black shirt, and black running shoes, sprinting around the track then stopping to do battle ropes
  3. a tall guy with a blue shirt with the words “event staff” printed on it, watching over 2 young boys, shirtless, shoeless, and in sweat pants. Sometimes he held one of their hands as they carefully ran around the track. Sometimes he lifted them up at the far end so they could do pull-ups. As I left the track, I heard him say to one of the kids: you just ran a mile!
  4. 2 runners — a woman and a 10? year-old boy. Moving effortlessly around the track, their feet rhythmically rising and falling
  5. a guy in brown — not tan, but not dark either — shorts, running in a way that resembled speed walking
  6. an older woman in a white sweatshirt and dark pants, walking
  7. basketball practice below, in the gym — loud, exuberant players running up and down the court
  8. a man off in the corner doing burpees — his long torso and tall arms stretched high as he jumped up at the end of each one
  9. 2 men walking — the younger one looking out for the older one, making sure he didn’t veer out in front of any runner passing by
  10. a guy in a white shirt stretching before his run, doing leg swings

Other things I remember:

There was a white bucket for collecting drips set up in the middle lane on one side of the track. Scott peered into it and noticed that the bucket was dry. Why, he wondered, was it there?

Running the short end at the top, near the double doors, I saw a double shadow — 2 of me. At first I thought someone was about to pass me, but I was alone. Must have passed in front of the light just right. Strange and cool.

It was very dry on the track. My throat burned after a few laps.

As I turned the corners, I unintentionally tilted my head to the side. Corners are irritating.

At the far end, near where the man was doing the burpees and the kids were doing pull-ups, a banner was spread above the railing, blocking my view of the corner as I neared it. I imagined running straight into a group of walkers who might be hiding there

Did I think about anything? Did I look outside at the lights? I don’t think so.

After the run, Scott and I changed and met at the hot tub. The Otters swim team was having a practice. RJP’s and FWA’s old coach was still there, joking with the kids and calling out sets.

later: That night, I had a dream that I was swimming in a pool — the Y pool? Not sure — and a swim team coach — was it Whitney, FWA/RJP’s old coach? — said, Congratulations! You’ve made the team in the 100 free!


dec 26/RUNSWIM

run: 2.5 miles
ywca track

Went to the Y with Scott and RJP this morning, so I ran there. First time running on the track in 4 or 5 years. Wasn’t too bad — not that crowded. Very quiet. I forgot to count laps so my distance is approximate — my watch never seems to be accurate indoors. Listened to “swim meet motivation” playlist and observed people as I passed them.

10 People I Noticed on the track

  1. a man, sometimes running (slowly), sometimes walking, wearing black gloves — not boxing gloves but also not winter gloves
  2. another guy, pulling a sled at the far corner
  3. a woman running, the key to her locker jangling in her pocket with every step
  4. an older white woman with white hair — was she wearing a pink sweatshirt, or was it blue? I can’t remember now. She walked pretty fast on the track, but was slow on the stairs when I was behind her earlier
  5. RJP, walking — I waved at her every time I passed by. Was it annoying?
  6. someone using rattle ropes, off to the side, furiously lifting them up and down
  7. a woman on an eliptical machine in front of one of the windows
  8. an older white guy with white hair in jeans and a maroon shirt walking around the track
  9. Scott, running
  10. another older white man wearing gray shorts, walking

I don’t remember thinking about much, or noticing anything that interesting, or overhearing some strange conversation.

swim: .25 miles
ywca pool

Only needed a quarter of mile to reach my year goal of 120 miles. Not a very ambitious goal for an entire year of swimming; this goal was mostly for the open swim season. I’m thinking this year, since I’m swimming in the pool, I need to make it a lot bigger. 200 or 300? Not sure. Split a lane with RJP. Crowded today because of the break. All I remember was swimming next to a bunch of swim team kids, feeling sluggish in my first lap underwater, and noticing how the water was clearer than it had been last week.

Found this hybrid journal online, Cutbow Quarterly review (2025: clicked on the link and it no longer exists). A call for submissions from jan 1-2. I want to submit something — either a mood ring or a colorblind plate, but which? One note: some of the site is almost unreadable for my bad vision. Not nearly enough contrast! Thankfully the journal pdf is easier to read.

I love lists, so I was excited to see this poem in the first issue:

List of Things to Make a List of/ Beth Mulcahy

Make a list of
things that sound like thunder but are not conversations to have
hard conversations to have
what makes conversations hard what makes conversations easy
things to do to get through a hard day
songs that helps with getting through a hard day
people to tell about it what to tell them
people not to tell
ways to prevent it
how to describe it
how to tell people the truth when to tell people the truth things you have said
things you should not have said things you should have said things you should say
to someone specific to anyone
to no one
how to let go of retroactive anxieties
things you used to care about that you don’t anymore things you wish you cared more about
things that used to be different
examples of passive aggressive statements examples of things that are too direct (harsh)
ways of beating around the bush
ways of cutting to the chase
how to calm yourself down
apologies you owe
things you can’t forgive
things you can’t forget
things you should forget
things that are your fault
things that are not your fault
the hardest things you’ve had to do
how to make things easier
for self
for others things you can explain
things that you cannot explain things you can’t describe things to write through
things that are private
people who love you
people who love you and also like you
things you have to offer
things to say to people you love things to say about the weather people you talk to every single day people you don’t know anymore people you loved who are dead ways to let things go
how to keep from having to let go ways to pay attention
things to pay attention to
things to ignore
places to fly away to
ways to be where you are