Tag: vision

nov 22/RUN

5.5 miles
franklin loop
27 degrees

Warmer this morning. Hardly any ice or snow on the path. My foot is only slightly sore at the end, but otherwise okay. Sunny and bright. A blue sky. As I reached the river at the beginning of my run I heard then saw a lone goose. Thought about color, especially yellow and gray. Listened to my breathing. Focused on taking deep breaths in through my nose, out through my mouth. Was good morninged by Mr. Morning! He called out from across the trail, Good morning! and I called back.

10 Colors I Noticed

  1. the yellow dotted lines on the bike trail
  2. the orange spray paint around the cracks that need to be replaced
  3. a pale blue sky
  4. a dark blue trash can
  5. the dark gray pavement that seemed to have a hint of blue
  6. the silver river — or was it white gold? through the trees, the river burned a bright white
  7. beige or sepia-toned ice on the river
  8. the grayish-dark brown of the bare trees
  9. the slab of white snow decorating one side of the ancient boulder
  10. the dark greenish-gray of a fir tree

In other color news: an essay I wrote 5 years ago popped into my head while I was running — “My Purple Toe” — and I thought about how the toe in it is not purple but lavender gray

Update on my foot: Scott and I had to go pick FWA up from Gustavus, so I’m writing the rest of this later in the day. A few hours in the car, not moving much, my foot felt stiff and sore again. I walked around a bit and it felt okay. I asked Scott if that’s what happens with his foot and he said yes. Does this mean I have plantar fasciitis? I hope not!

Today’s gray theme: more on the color gray

[Here on this edge I have had many diminutive visions.]/ Diane Seuss

Here on this edge I have had many diminutive visions. That all at its essence is dove-gray.
Wipe the lipstick off the mouth of anything and there you will find dove-gray. With my
thumb I have smudged away the sky’s blue and the water’s blue and found, when I kicked it
with my shoe, even the sand at its essence is pelican-gray. I am remembering Eden.
How everything swaggered with color. How the hollyhocks finished each other’s sentences.
How I missed predatory animals and worrying about being eaten. How I missed being eaten.
How the ocean and the continent are essentially love on a terrible mission to meet up with itself.
How even with the surface roiling, the depths are calmly nursing away at love. That look the late
nurser gets in its eyes as it sucks: a habitual, complacent peace. How to mother that peace, to wean
it, is a terrible career. And to smudge beauty is to discover ugliness. And to smudge ugliness is to be
knocked back by splendor. How every apple is the poison apple. How rosy the skin. How sweet
the flesh. How to suck the apple’s poison is the one true meal, the invocation and the Last
Supper. How stillness nests at the base of wind’s spine. How even gravestones buckle and swell
with the tides. And coffins are little wayward ships making their way toward love’s other shore.

nov 21/SWIM

1.5 miles (2700 yards / 108 laps)
ywca pool

Very glad to be able to swim this morning. My foot, which has been sore the past few days, feels much better today. Swimming instead of running will help even more. I swam my usual continuous 200s. Decided not to count the laps and just keep swimming until Scott came to the pool and stopped at the end of my lane. A few workouts ago, I asked him to stop at the end of my lane instead of going straight over to the hot tub to wait for me to be finished. I explained that it’s hard for me to recognize him — I might not be able to do it. Now I don’t have to worry. It’s not hard for me to see a person with bright orange shorts at the end of my lane. Just another strategy for dealing with not being able to see that well.

10 Things I Noticed While Swimming

  1. a few more things on the ground, at least one stringy thing floating in the water — I was in a different lane, so that might it explain why there were more things. It could also be that it’s time for them to clean the pool again
  2. no chlorine stings
  3. crowded — most lanes had 2 people
  4. the woman sharing the lane with me was a great swimmer. I liked watching her freestyle as I approached her, and the way she shot off the wall
  5. 2 Regulars — Mr. Speedo, the older white man who is lanky and probably has been swimming for 1/2 a century, and who wears a dark speedo and the oldish white woman in the pale blue and green suit who sometimes wears fins or booties on her feet, mitts on her hands. Today, after about 30 minutes in the water, she started swimming butterfly. It might be a stretch, but I think I’ll call her Miss Luna after the luna moth which is pale green — this luna moth is not a butterfly, but people often mistake it for one
  6. predominant color I noticed again: orange. I think a lot of the orange I see are the small sandwich board signs that are orange and read, caution wet floor, or someting like that
  7. looking straight ahead through the cloudy water, I could just barely see my lane partner approaching. She was in a solid dark suit and was streamlined, making me think of a small shark — surprisingly, this didn’t make me nervous
  8. at one point, Miss Luna and the shark were swimming at the same speed, on either side of me. It was fun speeding through the two of them — like what, a rocket?
  9. one distinctive noise — the squeak of my nose because my nose plug was not on properly
  10. 2 older women in the locker room discussing the big snow storm in upstate New York. 2 things in particular I remember: first, that the football game had to be moved somewhere else and two, about how after a big storm there are always tons of pictures on social media of people who are stuck and can’t open their front doors

Today’s gray theme: gray variations

The Nomenclature of Color/ Richard Jones

Absinthe green: Laura’s eyes.
Bishop’s purple: Evening skies.
Cornflower blue: Dreams of the wise.
Dragon’s-blood red: My mother’s dark sighs.
Elephant’s breath: Imagination.
Forget-me-not blue: The dust of cremation.
Guinea green: Ruination.
Hessian brown: The dust of creation.
Iron gray: The paradox of clouds.
Jade green: The bride’s necklace.
Kingfisher blue: Justice and grace.
Lavender gray: A widow’s shroud.
Medici blue: The heart that is jealous.
Nile blue: The color of water.
Onionskin pink: A poem for my daughter.
Pearl gray: The wedding gift.
Quaker drab: The virtue of thrift.
Raw sienna: Dirt we sift.
Seafoam green: The rowboat adrift.
Tyrian rose: Love’s ardor.
Ultramarine blue: Heaven’s color.
Venetian pink: Hell below.
Wedgewood blue: The little we know.
Xanthine orange: The taste of life.
Yvette violet: The lips of my wife.
Zinc orange, zinc blue, zinc white: The colors of houses in paradise.

Iron gray
Lavender gray
Pearl gray

Doing a google search about gray, I found this article with 6 Popular Gray Paint Colors: Agreeable Gray, West Coast Ghost, Seize the Gray, Balboa Mist, Comfort White, and White Metal.

from “ode to gray”

Gray in the wild opens and spills. Put two grays together and you’ll see the color each one hides within, the “endless variations” noted by Van Gogh. I think of the handful of river pebbles I once snuck into my pockets on a day trip to a waterfall: they were dusty gray when I got home, but underwater, each concealed a secret separate life as green or red or blue. So many things that seem gray on the surface have a treasure to unlock—myself, I hope, included.

from To Theo van Gogh (a letter from Vincent Van Gogh to his son)

As regards black in nature, we are of course in complete agreement, as I understand it. Absolute black doesn’t in fact occur.2 Like white, however, it’s present in almost every colour and forms the endless variety of greys — distinct in tone and strength.3 So that in nature one in fact sees nothing but these tones or strengths. 

The 3 fundamental colours are red, yellow, blue. Composite: orange, green, purple.

From these are obtained the endless variations of grey by adding black and some white — red-grey, yellow-grey, blue-grey, green-grey, orange-grey, violet-grey. 

It’s impossible to say how many different green-greys there are for example — the variation is infinite.

But the whole chemistry of colours is no more complicated than those simple few fundamentals. And a good understanding of them is worth more than 70 different shades of paint — given that more than 70 tones and strengths can be made with the 3 primary colours and white and black.4 The colourist is he who on seeing a colour in nature is able to analyze it coolly and say, for example, that green-grey is yellow with black and almost no blue, &c. In short, knowing how to make up the greys of nature on the palette.  

nov 20/RUN

5.6 miles
franklin loop
19 degrees / feels like 9
5% ice and snow covered

Because it was sunny and because there wasn’t much wind and because I had the right number of layers on, today’s run was great. Not too cold. Maybe it helped that I did a 5 minute warm up on the bike in the basement? Very happy to be out there, beside the gorge, breathing in the cold air, and greeting Mr. Morning! and Dave, the Daily Walker.

The arch of left foot hurts a bit. I think I overdid it with the old shoes, the yak trax and the ice clumps on Thursday. I should not run tomorrow. Bummer.

Layers: 2 pairs of black running tights; pale green long sleeved shirt; pink jacket with hood; gray buff; black fleece lined baseball cap; 2 pairs of gloves — pink with white stripes on top, black underneath

Took the pink and white gloves off about 1 1/2 miles in. Pulled down the buff 5 minutes in, pulled off the pink hood at 1 mile. Unzipped and re-zipped my jackets throughout. At the end of the run I wasn’t cold, just soaked with sweat, my pony-tail dripping.

10 Things I Noticed

  1. the river, 1: running on franklin bridge the river was a clear blueish gray, no ice yet
  2. snow was covering the north face of an ancient boulder on the east side of the river
  3. random goose honks throughout the run, usually a lone goose flying low
  4. the sky was a pale blue, the gorge was giving off a blue-gray hue
  5. the only other colors: brown, white, a runner’s orange jacket, another runner’s pink one
  6. the river, 2: standing above the lake street bridge at my favorite spot on the east side I admired the open river, stretching wide, looking calm
  7. the river, 3: off in the distance the water glowed, burning a silver fire — not white, or any color, just shimmering light
  8. the river, 4: from the lake street bridge the river was studded with ice
  9. a voice on a hill on Edmund: a kid going sledding
  10. ending the run and crossing over to the boulevard the snow crunched in an unusual way. It sounded almost like the crinkle in a dog toy, or like I had some brittle paper stuck on my shoe

I made a recording of the crinkling snow:

crinkling snow / 20 november 2022

Scrolling through twitter, this piece — a prose poem? an essay fragment? — by Mary Ruefle from My Private Property. I might have to buy this book; I’ve posted at least one other essay/poem from it on here already:

from My Private Property/ Mary Ruefle

Gray sadness is the sadness of paper clips and rubber bands, of rain and squirrels and chewing gum, ointments and unguents and movie theaters. Gray sadness is the most common of all sadnesses, it is the sadness of sand in the desert and sand on the beach, the sadness of keys in a pocket, cans on a shelf, hair in a comb, dry-cleaning, and raisins. Gray sadness is beautiful, but not to be confused with the beauty of blue sadness, which is irreplaceable. Sad to say, gray sadness is replaceable, it can be replaced daily, it is the sadness of a melting snowman in a snowstorm.

The everydayness of gray sadness, its mundane, real, nothing special-ness, reminds me of a bit from the lyric essay I posted last week, Ode to Gray. Especially this bit:

Look at enough black-and-white photography and color comes to feel like an intrusion. Eggleston’s photos seem too vital to be real, as though depicting an alternate reality. Each image is delirious with hue, spectacular, delicious, but a little bit too much. The eye craves rest—and mystery, the kind of truth that can be searched only in subtlety. Dorothy may tumble, tornadic, into Technicolor, but still she always wishes to go home.

In addition to exploring gray this month, I’m also thinking about color in general, and colors that have been significant for me in this running log, like green. Here is a great green poem I found a few days ago. I haven’t thought of the coming of green as fire and flame before, but it works.

The Enkindled Spring/ D.H. Lawrence

This spring as it comes bursts up in bonfires green,
Wild puffing of emerald trees, and flame-filled bushes,
Thorn-blossom lifting in wreaths of smoke between
Where the wood fumes up and the watery, flickering rushes.

I am amazed at this spring, this conflagration
Of green fires lit on the soil of the earth, this blaze
Of growing, and sparks that puff in wild gyration,
Faces of people streaming across my gaze.

And I, what fountain of fire am I among
This leaping combustion of spring? My spirit is tossed
About like a shadow buffeted in the throng
Of flames, a shadow that’s gone astray, and is lost.

nov 18/BIKERUN

bike: 25 minutes
bike stand, basement
run: 2 miles
treadmill, basement
outside: 19 degrees / feels like 6

Stayed inside this morning because of the cold, the wind, the too bright white, and the icy paths. It’s very early in the winter season, and I doubt they’ve treated the trails. Watched a few races while I biked, listened to Taylor Swift’s Reputation while I ran. The thing I remember most about the run: trying to stop myself from looking at the time to see how long I’ve been running, how much I’ve got left. Also: stared at the reflection of the light in the back window, noticed again how it looks like an upside moon casting light on water above it.

Before deciding on watching some track races, I started “Servant” on Appletv. The opening credits had way too little contrast; I could barely tell there was text on the screen. Then the title appeared in red. I couldn’t read it all. Looking at it paused, when it wasn’t moving and I had more time to stare, I could mostly see it. Red letters on a black background are hard for me to see. I might try watching this show some other time, but it might be too dark. So many of the thriller or mystery or dramatic shows available now are dark or darker or dim, which makes it almost impossible for me to see what’s happening.

color project

I’m continuing to work on my color/colorblind project. I was telling Scott about my writing process the other day and how some poems insist on being written. I’ve tried to drop this color thing, especially with the colorblind plates several times, but it keeps coming back up again and again. I’ll be working on something else, and whatever that something is will end up at color and how I do or don’t see it. It’s wild.

I heard some birdsong just now from behind my shaded window. Sounding like spring. I looked — a bird is doing something near the foundation, just below me. Gathering twigs?

Back to my color project. Yesterday Scott helped me to figure out the template for the second plate that serves as the form for a longer poem that’s related to the color word hidden in Ishihara loops from the first plate. I put some text in it, using part of a free-write I did the other day. The text is rough, with some typos, but it still helps me to get a sense of how this will work. Very cool!

Each of these poems has 772 characters, including spacing and punctuation. Today I want to start gathering bits — descriptions, lines from other poets’ poems, stories, associations with colors, mishaps, etc. — to include in these poems. One early idea: separate poems about colors that are significant to me: orange, yellow, green, brown, and gray.

note: I returned to this entry to fix some typos I missed and I was struck by how off and excessive my commas are. What is that all about? I seem to hear commas and pauses all the time. Am I trying to slow down the words? Force some hesitation?

nov 17/RUN

5.5 miles
franklin hill turn around
26 degrees / feels like 20
light snow / wind: 15 mph gusts
100% snow-covered

Winter! Woke up to another dusting — maybe an inch? — on the ground. Wore my old yak trax, the ones I got 3 or 4 years ago that are worn down, but still work. Mostly I’m glad I did, but several times snow clumped up in the grooves. Was it because of the yak trax, the high water content of the snow, or something else?

My Favorite Things

  1. the feel of snow under my feet — more interesting than boring asphalt
  2. the creaks and crunches of that snow
  3. greeting Mr. Morning! and Dave, the Daily Walker
  4. 3 geese flying west — I heard their harsh honks first, echoing across the gorge, then they appeared, flying low near the trestle
  5. open water, brownish-gray
  6. in the second half of the run, the snow stopped and the sun was trying to pierce through the thick clouds. Everything looked slightly blue — the snow, the sky, the trees
  7. the graceful runner who passed me, their feet bouncing up and down, up and down
  8. in the first half, when it was much darker, the headlights cutting through the dim
  9. running up the Franklin hill — I felt strong and free, untethered
  10. ending at the ancient boulderS after (almost) sprinting up the hill — my winter running tradition

Ishihara colorblind plates as form

Still thinking about my next series of vision poems. A plan seems to be forming. Here’s what I wrote:

A series of colorblind (Ishihara) plates describing how I see and don’t see color and what that means for how I move through the world. 

The actual series of plates for the test are 38. I think that might be too many. Each poem will consist of 2 plates: the “actual” plate (designed by Scott) with the circles and the hidden message. In the original, it’s numbers. In mine, it’s a word that can stand alone as a poem, but also (might) connect with the other plate words and is the unifying theme for a prose poem that is on the second plate. This second-plate poem will (most likely, but maybe not?) take the form of the circle of the plate. Tentatively, I’m imagining it as a prose poem, but it might be its own thing, a series of words, descriptions related to seeing and not seeing color. 

The plates will be divided into different topics related to color: 

a story about why this test matters to me
what everything looks like, how it feels
struggles/quirks/strange
a focus on gray — contrast — light and dark, not in color

Scott found something on github that enables you to easily (or easily for Scott) design your own plates. Here’s a sample of what he did. He put the word red in it. I’ll take his word for it because I can’t see the letters at all.

Scott’s Ishihara plate, “Red”

today’s gray theme: duck duck gray duck

Still thinking about gray this month. Today, inspired by the wonderful geese I heard while running, I’m thinking of the passionate way Minnesotans defend their name for the childhood game, Duck Duck Gray Duck over what the rest of the country calls it, Duck Duck Goose. I am not one of those passionate Minnesotans because I grew up on the east coast in North Carolina and Virginia. We played Duck Duck Goose. I’m fine with calling it Duck Duck Gray Duck, but I don’t really care. Scott does. No matter how often we’ve discussed it, he gets fired up every time the topic is mentioned. It is fascinating to me that Minnesota is the only state that uses gray duck and not goose, especially thinking about how many kids who grew up in Minnesota probably have a moment when they realize that not everyone else calls it that.

Because I’m that person, I had to wonder, are gray ducks rare? Yes, especially in Sweden. According to my quick googling, the most common color for ducks in Sweden is blue.

I already have 2 wonderful poems about wild geese — Wild Geese/Mary Oliver and Something Told the Wild Geese/Rachel Field — but I can always use another!

The Geese/ Jane Mead

slicing this frozen sky know
where they are going—
and want to get there.

Their call, both strange
and familiar, calls
to the strange and familiar

heart, and the landscape
becomes the landscape
of being, which becomes

the bright silos and snowy
fields over which the nuanced
and muscular geese

are calling—while time
and the heart take measure.

nov 16/SWIM

1.5 miles
ywca pool

Another swim this week! Hooray for strong, sore shoulders and buoyancy. Googles and nose plugs and flip flops with a cartoon image of bloody, frankenstein-y toes (an awesome gift from my sister Marji from a few years ago). I’m not sure how far I swam. I stopped counting laps at a mile, wanting to be surprised by my watch when Scott would appear at the end of my lane and I’d end my workout. Looked at my watch. Oops. No workout on. I forgot to push the extra green button for lap distance. Oh well. Judging by my calories and time, I must have swum a little farther than Monday, but I’ll keep it at 1.5 miles.

10 Things I Noticed While Swimming in the Pool

  1. the slight burn of chlorine in my nose
  2. a few more bits of something on the bottom of the pool — was it more, or was it just because I was swimming in a different lane? were these bits moving, or was that a trick of the light or my eyes?
  3. the older woman to my right, swimming breaststroke — slow, steady, graceful frog kicks
  4. the older woman to my left, swimming sidestroke — more grace and the calm, slow sweep of arms through the water
  5. this sidestroking woman was wearing a wonderful bathing suit — all black in the back, in the front: black at the bottom with red or pink or orange horizontal panels up above
  6. “racing” a guy 2 lanes over, swimming freestyle at about the same speed as me, until he stopped and I kept going
  7. a regular — the older, trim woman in the pale blue and green suit whose stroke is strong and fast, and who sometimes wears fins or booties
  8. the feeling of orange everywhere up above, blue below
  9. my foot (the right one?) feeling a little strange near the end, not quite numb but like it might cramp up (it didn’t)
  10. arriving, a crowded pool, everyone sharing lanes. A few minutes later, it began to empty. By the time I was done, only 2 people left

Thought about Ishihara’s colorblind plates as form. I feel drawn to this form because taking this test, and failing it, was my first evidence that something was wrong with my vision. But, this form is difficult to recreate or embody. I decided, as I looped, that I should do a little more research on how the form was created and how it works. Maybe that will help me to figure out what I want to do with it, or whether I want to use it all.

Here’s a place to start: Eye Magazine / Feature / Ishihara

And this video: The Science Behind the Ishihara Test

I can’t remember which poetry craft book I read this poem in, but I like how Soto uses color here — as flashes, sparks, flares against the “gray of December”:

Oranges/ Gary Soto

The first time I walked
With a girl, I was twelve,
Cold, and weighted down
With two oranges in my jacket.
December. Frost cracking
Beneath my steps, my breath
Before me, then gone,
As I walked toward
Her house, the one whose
Porch light burned yellow
Night and day, in any weather.
A dog barked at me, until
She came out pulling
At her gloves, face bright
With rouge. I smiled,
Touched her shoulder, and led
Her down the street, across
A used car lot and a line
Of newly planted trees,
Until we were breathing
Before a drugstore. We
Entered, the tiny bell
Bringing a saleslady
Down a narrow aisle of goods.
I turned to the candies
Tiered like bleachers,
And asked what she wanted –
Light in her eyes, a smile
Starting at the corners
Of her mouth. I fingered
A nickel in my pocket,
And when she lifted a chocolate
That cost a dime,
I didn’t say anything.
I took the nickel from
My pocket, then an orange,
And set them quietly on
The counter. When I looked up,
The lady’s eyes met mine,
And held them, knowing
Very well what it was all
About.
Outside,
A few cars hissing past,
Fog hanging like old
Coats between the trees.
I took my girl’s hand
In mine for two blocks,
Then released it to let
Her unwrap the chocolate.
I peeled my orange
That was so bright against
The gray of December
That, from some distance,
Someone might have thought
I was making a fire in my hands.

nov 15/RUN

4.5 miles
minnehaha falls and back
30 degrees / steady light snow
walking path: 60% snow-covered / bike path: 10% snow-covered

The first winter run in the snow of the season! Wonderful. Slushy, a few slick spots, little snow flakes occasionally pelting my face. Loved it! Not too many people on the trails. Exchanged greetings with Mr. Morning! Morning! Good morning!

I forgot to look at the river or, if I looked, I don’t remember what I saw. It was probably blue gray. There’s no way it was white yet.

We already have a few inches on the ground, so it looks like a winter wonderland. Some of the snow has painted the trees white.

The falls were falling, but not gushing.

The sky is a very light gray. Almost everything some shade of gray. Somewhere on the trail — maybe near the falls — I saw some light green leaves decorating a tree. How is that possible?

Thought about Emily Dickinson and the idea I had earlier this morning, based on my current reflections on gray and my devotion to her poem, “We grow accustomed to the Dark –“: I grow accustomed to the Gray. For me, not everything is dark, really. It’s gray. Literally — as colors drain away in light that isn’t just right, many things often look gray. I don’t usually notice it until I think about how that dark car over there isn’t dark blue or dark red, it’s just dark gray. Or that fir tree outside of my writing studio window isn’t dark green but a very dark gray. It’s also metaphorical — I’m in this in-between state, where I can sometimes see, sometimes can’t. Or I can see well enough to get by, but not very well. I’m in transition, in the process of losing, not in the state of having lost.

today’s gray: gray area

definition from google: an ill-defined situation or field not readily conforming to a category or to an existing set of rules.

Not sure if this really fits, but the in-betweeness and ambiguity of a gray area, makes me think of optical illusions like the duck and the rabbit, or the old lady and the young woman, or the white and gold or blue and black dress, which makes me think of this passage from Georgina Kleege:

I surmise that my general visual experience is something like your experience of optical illusions. Open any college psychology textbook to the chapter on perception and look at the optical illusions there. You stare at the image and see it change before your eyes. In one image, you many see first a vase and then two faces in profile. In another, you see first a rabbit then a duck. These images deceive you because they give your brain inadequate or contradictory information. In the first case, your brain tries to determine which part of the image represents the background. In the second case, your brain tries to to group the lines of hte sketch together into a meaningful picture. In both cases there are two equally possible solutions to the visual riddle, so your brain switches from one to the other, and you have the uncanny sensation of “seeing” the image change. When there’s not much to go — no design on the vase, no features on the faces, no feathers, no fur — the brain makes an educated guess.

When I stare at an object I can almost feel my brain making such guesses.

Sight Unseen / Georgina Kleege

Sometimes, but not always, I can feel my brain making guesses. I usually notice this when it guesses wrong and then I realize what the thing I’m looking at actually is. Or, maybe it is more like this: I see something that seems strange to me, like a dead or sleeping squirrel on a big rock. That’s what it looks like, what the visual data is telling me (Sara’s brain) it is, but I can’t quite believe it. It seems off. I look closer. Finally, after staring for too long, I realize it is a stocking cap with a furry brim.

Ambiguous. It could mean this or that or this and that.

nov 14/SWIM

about 1.5 miles (2550 yards)
ywca pool

Woke up to flurries, then a steady snow. 2-4 inches possible. I would have run in it, but I had already run 5.6 mile yesterday and planned to go to the y to swim this morning. How wonderful it was to be in the water! Made me feel good, so much better than before! After my swim, Scott and I soaked in the hot tub. We both agreed, it’s nice returning to routines that we used to do 4 or 5 years ago. I also like being around happy, older woman in the locker room. I’m not usually talking to them, but I like hearing their chatter post-workout. Joyful, relaxed, pleased to have moved their bodies. I want to be one of those old women one day. I want it even more knowing that it’s not guaranteed. My mom didn’t make it. Scott’s mom didn’t make it, either.

Did my usual swim, broken up by 200s — breathe ever 3/4/5/6. Didn’t have my nose plug on quite right and with the first few flip turns, my nose and then my head burned. Ouch. The water was cloudier today than it had been last week. Saw at least one thing floating in the water, a few marks or spots or bits of something on the bottom. Shared a lane with an older woman for the first few minutes. She did sidestroke and breaststroke and backstroke. A guy in the next lane (was it the same guy as last week?) was running to the edge of the deeper end, then swimming freestyle or breaststroke. At one point, he sped along underwater, parallel to the bottom, kicking furiously.

Colors I Noticed:

  1. the red swim trunks of the guy swimming in the next lane
  2. lots of orange — an orange sign on the pool deck, my orange bay, some other orange things
  3. a swimmer in a pale blue and green suit
  4. deep blue tiles on the bottom of the pool
  5. someone in a black suit, walking along the pool deck

I tried to think about a form for my vision poems that I’d like to use, but I’m not sure how: the Ishihara colorblind plates. The ones that are a circle with colored dots and a number embedded in the center in a different color. Maybe a year before I was diagnosed, I looked at one of these and couldn’t see the number. It was my first clearcut indication that something was strange about my vision. I remember crying — not from sadness, but relief. I wasn’t making it up. There was something wrong with me! Of course, at that moment, I had no idea that what was wrong with me was that all my cone cells were dying. Anyway, I tried to think about the plate as form as I swam, but I keep getting distracted. I want to use this form, but I don’t know how or even if I could do it with my limited design skills. I’ll keep thinking about it and maybe I’ll figure it out.

Before I swam, early this morning, I thought about color and not being able to see it, or being able to see it sometimes, and usually strangely. I found a documentary by Oliver Sacks: Island of the Colorblind

Do I mind that my colors are strange or wrong or not always there? Not too much. Often, I don’t realize I’m not seeing color.

Here’s part of a gray poem I found last week. The entire thing is amazing, and better read on Poetry Foundation site with all the proper spacing. I’m posting a excerpt from it because I like the way color appears in it. Is it almost like slashes and flashes?

from Grayed In/ Martha Collins

2

Cloud on cloud, gray
on gray, snow fallen

on snow, tree on tree
on unleafed tree—

only a river silvered
with thin ice and a slash
of gold in the late gray sky.

3

Grayed snow slush trudge but

snow falling coating filling

in for absence Present!

child with stringed mittens

here to take her place

to take over on

snow showing up air

4

White sky, whiter sun brushing
trees with tints of red, then

in the distance streaking
mauve gold, filling in
between the now filagreed

trees, silhouettes against
the now red burning sky.

nov 13/RUN

5.6 miles
fairview loop
26 degrees

Yes! Love this weather: cold, but not too cold, hardly any wind, no snow or ice on the paths yet. Cold enough to keep the crowds away and for me to keep my gloves on for the whole run. Calm enough for the river to be a mirror reflecting an upside world — the arches of lake st bridge smiling instead of frowning.

Layers: black running tights (the thicker ones), green base shirt, pink jacket with hood, pink head/ear band, black and white polka dot twins cap (used to my daughter’s because, yes, my head is small enough to fit into a girl’s cap), black gloves

Heard a strange bird call in the gorge, which made me think “whip-poor-will,” but it’s most likely not that bird because they’re nocturnal and they’re listed as rare in my birds of the mississippi river guide.

Just as I neared the river road on the east side I heard a honking goose and the bells of St. Thomas.

Saw a few, and by a few I mean less than 10 total, snow flurries in the air.

This route is only 5.6 miles and takes only a little over 50 minutes, but it felt like I ran through a lot of places: cooper neighborhood, on lake street, over the lake street bridge, up marshall in st. paul, beside St. Thomas, on Summit, above the river on the east and west sides, past grand old houses, big brick apartment buildings, corner stores, salons, ice cream parlors, gas stations, cafes, a university, a WWI monument, falls hidden in ravines.

Today’s gray theme is: gray as (the absence of?) color

Thinking about color: Yesterday afternoon, in the chapel at Gustavus, which was not dim but not bright either, I started to notice that looking one direction, toward the far window on the other side, the only color I could see was an occasional red square embedded in the walls (I double-checked with Scott; there were also a bunch of blue squares too). The hymnals 15-20 feet away, which I know are red, looked dark but colorless. Staring out at the crowd of people, everyone looked like they were dressed in dark or light — not quite black or white, just dark clothes or light clothes. No variation, no purples or blues or oranges or anything but dark and light. It was strange, partly because it didn’t feel strange. It wasn’t like I thought, where is all the color? It felt more like when I wake up in the dark and, after my eyes adjust, I see the room and it looks like the room, but just darker, dimmer and without color. And, usually I don’t think there’s no color — sometimes I might even think I see color because I know my robe is purple or the pillow is yellow, or I don’t see yellow, but I recognize the pillow on the couch as that yellow pillow because I already know it’s yellow. Hope this description makes sense to anyone reading this, including future Sara.

Anyway, because my theme for today is gray as color (or colorless) and because I was still thinking about my experience in the chapel last night, I gave particular attention to noticing colors today. I wondered if I would struggle to see colors because it was a gray, darker day. I don’t think so. Would I be able to tell? Here’s the colors I noticed:

10 Colors I Noticed

  1. green grass, green stoplight
  2. red stop sign, red stop lights
  3. yellow stop light, yellow leaves
  4. rusty brownish red stain on the lake st bridge
  5. blueish water
  6. pinkish, purplish jacket on a walker
  7. orange traffic cone
  8. brown dirt
  9. white patches of snow in the corners of the sidewalk
  10. my black running tights

A few grays that come up a lot in poetry: gun metal gray, pewter

added a few hours later: Thinking about color more and how I see it or don’t see it. This afternoon I was wondering about how others describe their inability to see color in the dark/low light, like when you wake up in the middle of the night, look around, and nothing has color. It’s all dark or light or gray. Using the search, “seeing color in the dark,” I came across this article: Why We See Swirling Color When Our Eyes Are Closed. Among other interesting things, it mentions intrinsic gray or eigengrau:

The color black is often referred to as the absence of light, but when it comes to the human visual system, eigengrau is the color perceived in the absence of light. Eigengrau is a German term that roughly translates to ‘intrinsic gray’ or ‘own gray.’ When deprived of light — as in when our eyes are closed, or when we are in darkness with our eyes open — we are unable to perceive true blackness, and rather, perceive eigengrau. This is because light provides the contrast necessary to perceive darker-ness. For instance, the black ink of text might appear darker than eigengrau because the whiteness of the page provides the contrast the eyes need to understand black.

Here’s a little more info from another article:

Scientists believe that Eigengrau is the dark grey colour that human eyes see in perfect darkness and this is said to be the result of visual signals from optic nerves.

German philosopher and physicist Gustav Theodor Fechner is believed to have investigated and popularized the term Eigengrau. He is also known for his key role in the genesis of the measurement of human perception.

Eigengrau is the Dark Gray Colour That Most People See in the Absence of Light

The term eigengrau is not used that often now. Instead, it’s referred to as visual noise or the static in your retina. In the article, eigengrau was also called “brain gray.”

october 31/RUN

5.2 miles
franklin loop
44 degrees

Whew! On the last day of the month I reached my goal. To stay on track for 1000 miles by the end of the year, I needed to run 840 miles by the end of October. I’m at 840.1. Now I have 2 months to run the remaining 160 miles. Five out of the six years of this log, my goal has been 1000 miles. I have achieved it once: year 4, 2020. Some sort of calf/hip/knee injury has forced me to cut back on my mileage the other years. I’ve never been off by that much.

Year 1 = 950 miles, couldn’t run almost all of August and September
Year 2 = 928.85 miles, IT band in November
Year 3 = 900.65 miles, can’t remember why it didn’t happen this year
Year 4 = 1003 miles
Year 5 = 850 miles, focused on a big swimming goal instead (100 miles during 10 week open swim season)

I think 1000 miles is about all that my body can take in a year. I know that bodies are built differently, and that some people have an easier time running lots of miles each week, but I am still amazed at other regular (non-pro) runners who can run 30 or 40 or more miles every week. 20 miles is an average of almost 3 miles every day of the year!

A perfect morning for a run! I thought it might feel colder so I wore one too many layers. I ran north on the river road, through the tunnel of trees, under the lake street bridge, above white sands beach. Then over the franklin bridge and south on the east river road until reaching lake street again. No rowers or roller skiers or fat tires. No geese, but at least one black capped chickadee doing the fee bee call. Never a response. Thought about the endless echo of this unanswered call.

My kneecap: mostly very good. At least one or two shifts, and a few grumbles, but that’s it.

10+ Things I Remember

  1. there was a slight haze in the air, everything dreamy and soft. I think the sun was burning off some early morning fog?
  2. a runner approaching me during the start of my run was listening to music without headphones. At first I thought it was some strange chant, but later, as I continued to hear it across the ravine, it sounded vaguely like some pop song I’ve heard before
  3. running over the franklin bridge, I marveled at the river. A shimmering arrow of light was pointing downstream on its surface. Other than the light, the river was empty. No rowers
  4. running back over the lake street bridge I could see the sun shining off some parked cars on the west river road, no longer hidden from view by leaves
  5. the Welcoming Oaks are bare
  6. all the construction is done over on the east side of the river near franklin
  7. the steady beat of approaching feet from behind, then passing me. I called out good morning and he replied, morning.
  8. encountering 2 walkers. The woman called out good morning! It always seems to be the women who add the good to their morning greetings
  9. on the edge of the gorge, near the meeker island dog park, I could hear a rushing sound. Was it wind in the trees or water dropping out of the sewer or from an underground creek? I decided it was water
  10. the green city sign near the franklin bridge that directs drivers up the hill to franklin avenue was spray painted with white words. I think it might have said Boo?
  11. My shadow joined me today, running just ahead as we headed north. No faint trace, but a dark and defined form

Throughout the run, I chanted triple berries. Lots of strawberry/blackberry/blueberry or strawberry/raspberry/blueberry. Also some, chocolate or chocolate sauce/ice cream cone/whipping cream. Once, cream that’s whipped, which made me think of Devo’s “Whip it.” Wondered about working on a poem/series of poems using this triple rhythm. Also wondered about the difference between chanting these 3, versus chanting 3 then 2. How often do I actually chant 3/2 when I’m running or do I chant more in triples?

Here’s something I’ve been intending to mention for a few days, but keep forgetting: Last week, Scott and I were watching a Halloween episode of Murder, She Wrote. In it, a jerky/mysterious guy living in an old mansion at the edge of town, usually only going outside at night, and wearing sunglasses when he does have to be out in the sun, is accused of being a vampire, then killed with a stake through his heart. I asked Scott how many people with photophobia (light sensitivity) were accused of being vampires. A lot, he thought. At the end of the episode, Jessica revealed that this guy was not a vampire, but had photophobia! I had been thinking of photophobia after encountering the site of a young woman with cone dystrophy. One of the main symptoms for her: photophobia and being completely blinded in the daylight. I do not have this problem. I can look directly at the light without any problems. A few years ago, it bothered me a little, but not anymore. Anyway, I mention this story because I would never have considered the connection between photophobia and being accused of being a vampire if I hadn’t started researching vision after my vision diagnosis. I didn’t even know what photophobia was before my diagnosis. I remembered during my run that I wanted to mention photophobia in my log — while I was running across a bridge — which made me think about how losing my central vision has opened doors into new worlds and helped me to wonder in new ways. This is not to say that my vision loss is a good thing, or some bullshit like it’s part of a larger plan, but it’s also not all a totally bad thing either.

One more thing I just remembered: Most of my triple chants were berries or desserts, but every so often I chanted other things too: history, mystery, intellect then I am girl/I am ghost/I am gorge.

Here’s a poem I discovered today that makes me want to write more about the relationship between the eye and the brain:

A Woman’s Glass Eye/ Richard Weaver (page 66 in journal)

troubled her one day, suddenly filtering light
into colors, depth, and shape. She was
unprepared for such visions from an eye
absent since birth, and interchangeable.
Still, it was, exciting. Enticing even.
She wondered if peripherality was next.
And then is was, with a literal flash.
So astonished was Brain that it considered
hibernation. Or a sleep-induced protective coma.
But Brain too was intrigued. Enchanted.
Beguiled. Hungry for a more powerful
field in which to shape and reshape the world. A
nd so the co-conspiracy began between Eye
and Brain. Never to end. Even in dark dream.
Or total eclipse. Dark become light. Ever after.