4.85 miles top of franklin to stone arch and back 27 degrees
Another Saturday run with Scott. We drove to the top of the franklin hill and started our run: down the hill, through the flats, up the 35W hill, past the Guthrie, to the Stone Arch bridge, then back. We ran up the whole hill and it felt great to me. So great that I, annoyingly I’m sure, sang “Eye of the Tiger” as we neared the top.
11 Things
ice on the seeps, 1: big columns of ice streaking the limestone
ice on the seeps, 2: so many streaks of ice; some of them stretched to the street and had melted and refroze on the road. A strange sight. It looked like someone had used “fake snow” spray paint to make it look like winter
a few scattered chunks of ice on the river
more bright green leaves still on some trees
a new apartment building that looked like it was made out of limestone, but was probably mostly concrete with a thin veneer of limestone
ducks! in the river, bobbing up, showing their butts
geese! in the river, too far away for me to see, loud honks
roller skiers, pt 1 — a whole crew of a dozen of more, heading south on the trail
roller skiers, pt 2 — bright pink jackets on 2, yellow on another, one in black and white
roller skiers, pt 3 — click clack scrape echoing off of the bridge
a runner sprinting up the hill — when I saw her I sang the Kate Bush song to Scott, Running up that hill
Here is a vision poem that I’d like to remember and return to:
A punctum is the little, unexpected extra in a photo. It is the face or the hand or the expression or the animal that you did not notice as you took the picture. It is simultaneously never the subject and entirely the subject. – Diana Weir
my earliest memory is of learning disappearance / on my father’s lap smudging an eraser across the page / even then i knew what i could lose if not careful / how whiteness operated to disappear you / have you ever been the first to leave a room / have you ever made your place behind the camera / my children might know me only out the corners of their eyes / when birds slam against rainbacked windows they leave their outlines / the water continues as if there was not dying all around it / are you seeing this / i ask someone here are you seeing this / how many buildings have i passed through without a sound / how many years only remember me by my imprint / when we speak
a word we are naming each of its previous utterances / i fear i am only the language i have kept alive / i fear i am only my name being poured down a hallway / are you seeing this / the light we look through took years to get here / to see the disaster you must first see its veil / our pupils not made to hold all this bright / our eyes call their blood to the photograph / to take an image you must first take all the light out of the room / please hold as i steady / please keep your eyes soft / as i click /
Another windy day. I had to hold onto my cap several times so it wouldn’t fly off. Running east on the lake street bridge, I put my hood so my cap wouldn’t fall off. Running west over the ford bridge, I took the cap off and held it in my hands. The wind made it difficult, more draining. Is that why my legs feel so sore?
10 Things
ridges and white caps in the blue water, from the wind
kids at the church daycare, at the far end of the fenced-in playground. Running by I could hear their tiny, sweet voices plotting something
more filled benches than usual along the route, including one with a person sitting and a stroller behind it
in the neighborhood: knocks on the roof — not a woodpecker, but roofers … or was it a woodpecker?
running straight into the wind, wondering if would push me up against the railing (not quite)
my shadow down in the ravine near shadow falls — lucky shadow, sheltered from the wind
everywhere hazy — it might have been my vision, but I think it was dust stirred up by the wind. Yuck!
running north, at the end, feeling the wind pushing me, but not in a helpful way
the wind didn’t rush or roar, it just pushed and pulled
a walker, walking in the middle of the path, blasting talk radio
I stopped on the double bridge to take a picture of the ravine and to put in my headphones:
a warm, windy November day / 16 nov 2023
today’s view out my window
It’s snowing leaves. Mostly they are drifting down slowly, one after the other. Sometimes at a distance, occasionally almost on my window screen. My neighbor’s yard is covered with them, a dead leaf carpet. Yesterday, as Scott and I cleared out our leaves we could see that the neighbor’s tree was still full of leaves. I wondered what would happen when the wind came back. Today I found out.
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.
taken from the ford bridge / 8 november 2023taken, with some trepidation, over the railing of the ford bridge / 8 november 2023
10 Things
kids playing at the church daycare, several of them huddled at the fence, one of them (accidentally?) threw a ball over the side
blue water, some waves, a few streaks or trails from something
running above shadow falls, not sure if I was hearing it dripping or the wind through the trees
running up the summit hill, a stretch of lit street lamps lining the path, the amber lights glowing softly
noticing the gloom and the absence of my shadow as I ran around the ravine
wondering if I would get to hear the St. Thomas bells as I ran close to campus (nope)
chickadee dee dee
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
an unnaturally vibrant green on some of the leaves on the east side of the river — is this spring or late fall?
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.
A little warmer today. Another beautiful run. What a view! Clear and through the trees to the river and the other side. I love November and its blues, grays, browns, and golds from a few trees still holding onto their leaves. I felt relaxed and strong — lungs and legs.
Listened to rustling leaves, striking feet, dripping ravines for the first 2 miles of the run. Put in Taylor Swift’s new version of 1989 for the last mile.
10 Things
a single leaf floating through the air, then down to the ground — was it brown or gold or green?
the steady dripping of water out of the sewer pipe
the smell of something burnt — toast? coffee? — but from a house or the gorge and not longfellow grill
a runner in a bright yellow shirt, running across the road, then through the grass below edmund, then onto the dirt trail in front of me
the steps down to the winchell trail are closed, with a chain across the railings, but I went around on the dirt path
the winchell trails was covered in yellow leaves
the roar of a chainsaw from across the gorge
kids’ voices from the playground at Minnehaha Academy
a biker on the walking trail where it dips below the road and hangs above the floodplain forest
a bright headlight from a bike, glowing in the grayish gloom
Through my little window, I see one day the entire bird, the next just a leeward wing, the next only a painful call, which, without the body, makes beautiful attachments by even attaching at all.
This poem reminds me of my own experiments in trying to determine how little information (especially visual data) I need in order to recognize or identify or be aware of the presence of some thing.
Poetry is not a Project
Two days ago, at the end of my entry, I posted about a pamphlet I was reading, Poetry is not a Project. I offered some notes from the first section, Habitus, and promised to do the rest in later entries. Here’s the rest. Instead of a lot of notes, I decided to condense it into a key passage from each section.
Poetry is Not a Project / Dorothy Lasky
Habitus
Poems are living things that grow from the earth into the brain, rather than things that are planted within the earth by the brain.
The road through a poem is a series of lines, like a constellation, all interconnected. Poems take place in the realm of chance, where the self and the universal combine, where life exists.
On the same site, Ugly Duckling Press, where I found Lasky’s pamphlet, I also found this chapbook, Almost Perfect Forms, in which the author creates the constellations out of ands and ors found in Dreams and Stones by Magdalena Tulli.
How We Write and What We Write For
Because poets make language and make language beautiful. Because beautiful language makes a new and beautiful world. Because poets live and make a new world, which beautiful language itself creates.
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!
the Welcoming Oaks are almost bare. Where was I when the leaves fell? hello friends!
a bright white circle of sunlit river burning through the growing gap between the trees
everywhere more of a view to the other side
empty blueish gray water — so calm and pleasing to my eyes
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
Hi Dave! — greeting Dave, the Daily Walker in the final mile
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!
the smell of smoke down below on the east side of the river
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!
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.
2.7 miles 2 trails 37 / feels like 29 wind: 15 mph
Okay winter. Wore tights under my shorts, a long-sleeved shirt under my sweatshirt, gloves and a buff. The only part of me that was cold: my ears. Now, sitting at my desk, they burn. Blustery out there. Swirling wind. A few times I mistook a falling leaf for a flying bird, which was very cool to see. A brown bird, floating by.
My legs were sore. I’m eager to get my blood checked at my physical in a few weeks. My iron might still be low. Until then, more burgers and a new multi vitamin that’s not quite a choking hazard.
10 Things
more of a view today: cold blue water through the remaining red and yellow leaves
slippery leaves covering the trail — don’t fall!
near the sidewalk at 36th and 46th: a deep hole, dug up by the city workers, not as neat or wide as the holes carved out on our street, more like a gash or a missing chunk ripped out
walkers bundled up in winter coats with hats and gloves
the entrance to the Winchell trail, which was shrouded in yellow the other day, was open and bare today
dripping water at the ravine — drip drip drip
looking down at the gorge from the edge, a pleasing palette: steel blue, dark green, gray, brown
a brown leaf fluttering by my face, looking like a floating bird
at least 3 or 4 lonely, empty benches
a kid’s voice below — would I encounter them later? Yes
Revisiting a poem I posted on this day in 2020, My Doubt/ Jane Hirshfield, these lines reminded me of something:
the lines:
I would like to grow content in you, doubt, as a double-hung window settles obedient into its hidden pulleys and ropes.
the something:
Dance with the pain
That last one is something I describe a lot. What does that even mean? It means to greet the pain or discomfort like an old friend. Know that it’s always there waiting for you. If you accept it, and envision yourself enjoying its company, it’s much more manageable.
Being content with the doubt and greeting pain as an old friend. Accepting doubt and being content with it I think I can do, but befriending pain? I’ve been trying to work on that as part of this larger writing/living/moving project. The pain I’m thinking of is the pain in my knees or my back or my hips, but it’s also other, deeper pains: the pain of aging, loved ones dying, living within a body that doesn’t work as well. Not sure if I’d call it a friend yet, more like acquaintances. I think it’s possible, but what does enjoying the company of pain look like, outside of the model of sadomasochism?
Yesterday it rained all day. Today it was wet and gray and leaf-littered. For the first mile, I heard a squeak squeak each time I stepped on the wet leaves. Saw and good morninged a regular: Mr. Walker Sitter. Heard kids yelling at the school playground. Smelled the sewer gas. Avoided city workers and roofers and bikers almost over the white line. Admired the “edge of the world,” now open and looking even more edge-y. Worried about slipping on the wet leaves and falling down the steep slope. Dripped sweat in the humid air. Counted drops falling from the sewer pipe in the ravine. Wondered if the distance/pace was not working properly on my watch. Forgot about everything else.
The color of the day is YELLOW.
tunnels of yellow leaves above me
piles of yellowed leaves under me
yellow cross walk signs glowing in the gloom
a runner’s bright yellow running shirt
(writing this entry): a neighbor’s yellow tree outside my window,
yellow leaves on the hydrangea bush
a stretch of yellow trees, just past their peak, beside me near Folwell
a yellow entrance to the Winchell Trail
The yellow I see is mostly bright. Not gold, but with hints of orange and green.
Before I ran I memorized A Rhyme for Halloween. Then I recited lines from it as I moved. Never all at once, but every so often.
As I was searching for another poem to post I thought about how many poems I’ve already posted and why I keep posting more when I hardly have time to read the ones I’ve already posted. So today, I decided to revisit a poem that I posted on October 25th, 2020: Beginning/ JAMES WRIGHT. Beautiful. Reading it right now, I love the opening:
The moon drops one or two feathers into the field. The dark wheat listens. Be still. Now.
I love the idea of the moon dropping feathers and the dark wheat listening. And now, as I read the third line, Be still. I’m thinking of it less as a command to not move (to be still), and more as an invitation or a plea to continue to exist (be, still). And then I’m connecting that idea to the last 2 lines of the poem:
The wheat leans back toward its own darkness, And I lean toward mine.
Perhaps my darkness involves an impossible wish, that my mom and Scott’s parents were still alive.
3 miles treadmill, basement outside: rain, all day
My first treadmill run since last February. Wow. I listened to “Nobody Asked Us,” the podcast with Des Linden and Kara Goucher, and it helped make the time go by faster. Running inside is fine, but rarely inspiring. Sometimes a podcast or audiobook helps.
Can I possibly create a list of 10 things I noticed? I’ll try:
10 Things
My treadmill faces a window that is covered over and under our deck, so no view, only dark emptiness — and the reflection of a lit bulb, looking like a full moon in a starless sky
my feet hurt for the first mile; I think it might be my shoes
I didn’t wear a hat or a headband and fine bits of my hair kept slipping out of my ponytail
at one point these fine strands were standing straight up — static from running on the treadmill?
later, these same strands were wet, dripping with sweat, and plastered against my neck
hard to get into a rhythm at the start; my feet felt heavy
10 minutes into the run, everything lightened up and I felt like I was floating above the treadmill
several times, my hand hit the front bar — I like to run close to the front
my cheap treadmill works just enough, but not well. It won’t start until the speed is at almost 2, then it goes faster than the speed on the screen. If you adjust the speed too many times, the numbers on the screen get all scrambled. This happened today, and for over half of the run I was staring at strange, squiggly lines instead of numbers
I didn’t hear or see it, but I thought about the mouse (or mice) that are probably sharing space with me down in the basement. I imagined one of them running across my feet
Did it! These things were not really about a place, but about my body. Maybe this winter, when it’s too dangerous to be outside, I should try some experiments with noticing and focusing on my body moving?
Discovered this poem the other day:
It Must Be Leaves/ Jane Hirshfield
Too slow for rain, too large for tears, and grief cannot be seen. It must be leaves. but broken ones, and brown, not green.
Speaking of the phrase, it must be, I came up with a title for my poem about the color yellow, which ends with the idea that some things will always be yellow, even when I can’t see them. The title? If it’s a banana, it must be yellow. This title was inspired by a science article with the same name: If it’s a banana, it must be yellow: the role of memory colors in color constancy
Ah, this fall weather! What a morning to be outside by the gorge. A little windier than I’d like, but wonderful. My legs felt a little stiff and sore, but I kept going and they got better. In the third mile, I started chanting triple berries. Just the same three again and again: strawberry blueberry raspberry strawberry blueberry raspberry. They helped me stay in a good rhythm.
10 Things
rowers on the river! 6 or 8 in one shell
the river was blue heading east, brown on the return trip west
either wind or water through the trees, making a shimmering sound
still so much green everywhere
2 different bikes blasting music that I couldn’t quite identify
click clack click clack — a roller skier passing me as we neared the lake street bridge
a minute later, a rollerblader approaching from the north, heading south
flowers in the pipe sticking out of the trestle railing that’s been turned into a vase — a memorial for someone
a man using a DIY walker/runner — bike wheels, yellow frame (I think I’m remembering that right?)
the glitter effect: wind + sun + water = wow
My view facing south on the Lake Street bridge
No geese or fat tires or Daddy Long Legs. Also, no headphones. Listened to the wind, radios, conversations, my feet thudding on the ground.
I stopped at my favorite part of the tunnel of trees. Walking up the small hill, I noticed leaves gently falling from the trees, birds chirping, the light coming through the canopy. I decided to stop and take a short video:
at the end of my run, above the floodplain forest
Here’s how I see/hear this video: The view of a canopy of trees. Occasionally, a leaf stirs in the wind. All around this view, leaves were drifting down one at a time. If I put my face right up to the screen — nose touching — I can see that these trees are GREEN!, but with my face a foot away, the scene looks grayish brownish, with only the whisper of green. When recording this video, I mostly heard the birds and not the cars above me on the road. But watching the video I hear mostly the loud rushing of cars and some wind. The birds are very quiet.
The birds, both remembered from when I stood at the spot recording this video and heard in this clip, made me think of a wonderful bird poem I discovered yesterday:
Sudden dash of light in the corner of my eye, a soundless flash in hazy swathe of trees leaps stealthily from the small maple to the crabapple that has taken this year’s drought hard. My eyes bore into foliage. Is it a mynah? Dad, you taught me well how to look and listen. This is Michigan, and it’s probably a grackle, but I think of the crow pheasant (the coucal) I often watched in India, a wily master of camouflage. I remember the first
time I ever saw one close up. I was seven or maybe eight, sickly and bookish. While sitting in the shade of a sprawling gulmohar that dropped scarlet whorls of flowers on me, it darted from under the hibiscus. So graceful its arched tail, so fiery its beady eyes. I was reading some Enid Blyton novel about young girls in a boarding school in rainy England who ate scones and crumpets, and had
fabulous adventures. It was a hot afternoon as this avian beauty that normally threaded light woodland and field slipped into my grandaunt Lily’s garden. She was a famous doctor at Tata Hospital when few women stayed single and had careers. She drove a grey Standard Herald, and her frantic beeping of the horn sent her gardener’s sons rushing to throw open the low iron gates when she came home. Once, she gave me a nest a weaver bird had abandoned. It adorned my bedroom for years. She would tell me
about the trips she had taken when she was young. All over Europe, and yes, to the Isle of Capri—her favorite. All eyes, I would listen. Then she would sing “‘Twas on the Isle of Capri …” or play a Vera Lynn record. Did she have many lovers? I wanted to wear expensive Dhaka saris, high heels, smoke cigarettes (as I had seen her do at dinner parties sometimes), travel— be like her. Would I ever go anywhere? I who failed in math and science, hated bullies, hated school. My head sailed in the clouds. My brain, they told me, was for the birds. My handwriting a bird’s nest. My weak fingers would never grasp a pen properly, my legs never walk normally again. When would my flesh grow light, my bones breathe only air so I could fly? When the bird
appeared from nothing, shapes shifted, my book levitated. The bird floated, not walked. Did it even have feet? I felt my weight lift. Floating was as good as flying. It seemed not to see me, as if it were a peaceful spirit passing through. Strange girl, they said. A dreamer. Did I imagine it then? Hearing a creak of leaf and branch near my deck, the blur I saw earlier turns to flesh and blood—a gawky crow who arrows to the roof from the forsythia and caws shrilly. Curious juvenile, her glance is full of questions. Friend or foe? Food or death? I throw my head back, look up at her. She peers at me over the edge. I slip indoors for bread, then leave ripped bits on the railings. Where is she? She’s hiding somewhere, watching me
watch her. They emerge and melt, these wily beings— show a wingtip, glitter of eye, flick of tail. Leave me a feather to dream on, a map to follow. My mother and I fed them scraps everyday.They jostled each other on the ledge, fought for crumbs, always hung around our windows. Then disappeared into neem, peepul, or the banyan tree as big as a city. Did they wonder where we’d gone? Had they heard us weep? Had they pecked at the shuttered windows and silence? Wild fig seedlings now grow from cracked brick. A sudden woosh
of wing beats. Listen! The air throbs. Three trumpeters pass over me to land on the pond. I wave. This is where I live. And there and here and there. Crow, sparrow, finch, blue jay, nuthatch, chickadee, cardinal, mallard, cormorant, heron, geese, swan. They visit, feed and fade. Return. They know their own. I’m for the birds. I’m never alone.
I love how place — both India and Michigan — are so present in this poem. And I love the story she tells, about seeing a bird in India, being a misfit only for the birds, looking up to her grandaunt, and how she tells it. Also, I want to think some more about this line: All eyes, I would listen.
Ran all the way up Marshall to Fairview this morning. Slowly, Scott and I are building up distance for our 10k race next month. What a wonderful morning to be outside! Running up the hill, Scott talked about REM and their first performance on Letterman — how shy Michael Stipe sat at the edge of the stage and wasn’t part of the interview. Then we discussed the big houses on Marshall, wondering how many of them were duplexes. We ended the run wondering why people were stealing the wires out of the street lamps on the bridge — was it out of desperation? If so, how much money could they actually get for selling these wires?
10 Things
people gathered outside the church, talking — was a service about the begin?
crossing the lake street bridge, part 1: admiring the fog hanging low on the water
crossing the lake street bridge, part 2: saying to Scott — this view looks like a fogged up window that needs to be wiped! Everything smudged, fuzzy
a pileated woodpecker, laughing
a whiff — the smell of up north, at my family’s farm in UP Michigan. What plant triggers that memory?
running past a grand old building. Scott guessed that it used to be a school and that the big windows on the top floor were for an old gym
Woodpecker castanets! A double clicking sound as a woodpecker drummed into a tree above our heads
the house on the Summit that almost always has the sprinklers going during our Saturday run. This time they were shooting out from under the low bushes near the edge of the path. I felt a soft, cold spray as I ran by
a runner ahead of us, running with 2 big golden retrievers. Their steps were so in sync that initially I thought there was only one dog — this could have also been because of my bad vision
crossing the lake street bridge, part 3: returning to Minneapolis 40 minutes later, the fog had lifted. The river was empty and blue
Yesterday we buried Scott’s dad in Austin. No big service, just family at the cemetery. 11 months ago we were here to bury his mom. Then it was colder and overcast, today sunny and 70. As the pastor led some prayers, I noticed 2 squirrels leaping across the lawn behind her. My first thought: Scott’s mom loved squirrels and would have enjoyed watching these two. My second thought: life continues to happen around us, indifferent to us and our pain. For me, this indifference is not upsetting, but brings comfort.
