Month: August 2020

3.1 miles
river road trail, south/edmund, north/little loop on river road*/47th ave, south/34th ave, west/44th ave, south
60 degrees
humidity: 89%

*little loop on river road = river road at 33rd st up to 32nd st and back

It was raining until about 9 am. Cool and cloudy, then sunny. I had the river road trail to myself running south. Awesome. Glanced down at the river above the 38th st stairs. Too much green to see more than a sliver of blueish silver. Lots of dripping water, hardly any debris on the trail or road. A nice run.

8 Things I Noticed on my Run this Morning

1. Water dripping off of a tree, shimmering in the sun
2. The quiet roar of water gushing out of a sewer pipe
3. Running through dark green on Edmund, above the river road, and then reaching the bright sunlight as I ran down the hill
4. Several deep puddles on the road near the curb
5. Running into the wind as I headed north
6. The open trail, stretching in front of me
7. The cooler air on my skin
8. The gentle hum of the crickets in the quiet, empty neighborhood

It’s difficult to run more than a 5k these days. Will this change as the weather gets cooler or is it mostly because of my fear of encountering other people?

face blindness

Working on my latest project–blind spots, going blind, and mood rings. I know I thought about it while I was running–I think I was just above the oak savanna–but I can’t quite remember what I thought. Something about how not all of the mood ring poems have to be about finding my blind spot, others could be about my moods around their effects. Another mood: uncertain, unsettled, uncomfortable.

Since my big decline (and when I got my diagnosis) in 2016, I have been trying to adjust to all the changes. Sometimes successfully: Because reading is harder, I’ve shifted mostly to audio books; when I don’t know what’s happening on a television show, I ask Scott; I don’t pretend to see things that I can’t; I ask others to check if there’s mold on my food; because driving is terrifying, I’ve stopped doing it.

Sometimes unsuccessfully. One of the biggest struggles I’m having with my vision loss is how to interact with others. I can’t see faces clearly. Often I can see some features but I can’t see when someone is looking at me or talking to me and even if I can tell they’re talking to me, there’s a good chance I won’t recognize them. I haven’t figured out how to deal with how unsettling and upsetting this is yet, so I try to avoid it. It’s much easier during this pandemic. What a relief to not have to try and interact with others! How much easier it is to not have to wonder if someone was talking to me or what they said or who they are! I like talking with people and I sometimes miss interesting conversations with new people, but mostly I’m content not talking with others, being left alone.

This morning, I read someone’s account of their face blindness and I could really relate. Face blindness is not my primary diagnosis; it’s just a byproduct of my vision loss and the big blind spot (or, what I’m calling, blind ring) in the center of my vision. There’s a lot I could highlight from this article–dreading encountering other moms that I can’t recognize, not being able to identify my kids, not seeing my husband walk past me in a store, only being able to recognize people by their distinctive quirks. I think I’ll spend some more time rereading this article and others on face blindness that I’ve found in the past.

3.05 miles
43rd ave, north/lake st, east/46th ave, south/32nd st, east/edmund, south/river road, north/hill
61 degrees

What a beautiful morning! Sunny and cool. Quiet, calm. As I started the run, I could hear the gentle hum of traffic from a far off freeway. Thought about my latest writing project on blind spots; I’m working on a poem about my feelings of wonder over discovering a way to see my blind spot. As I ran, I asked myself, should I try to convey a tone of wonder by asking lots of questions? (Probably not.)

Things I Remember

• the strong smell of cologne as I ran on Edmund
• two women running below in the tunnel of trees talking loudly
• a couple of crows calling out to each other
• being blinded by the sun as I ran east
• the tree that usually glows a glorious yellow in late september has already changed colors; today it looks a mix of dull orange/red/brown

on metaphor and mood

Right now I’m in the phase of my writing project where I have ideas that I’m really excited about but that don’t quite work yet. I’m immersed in the project, thinking about it most of the time, but I can’t figure out my way forward. So far, I have decided I’d like to do a series of poems about my mood related to my growing blind spot that somehow incorporate my actual blind spot (the one that I was able to trace by staring at a blank sheet of paper, taped to a wall at eye level, and tracing the dark ring that I saw). Because my spot is not yet a spot but a thickening ring, I’m calling this series, Mood Rings. Now I’m wondering how to write about my moods–a literal description? metaphor? something else? A few days I encountered a writing prompt for mood ring poems:

(from Laura Deutsch Writing the Senses via Market Street Writers)

Pick an emotion—joy, anger, frustration, sadness, etc.—and complete your own poem.

When I feel [name emotion] __________________

It is the color _____________________ – like _____________________

I hear ___________________ – like _____________________________

I taste _______________ – like _________________________________

I smell _____________ – like __________________________________

I see ____________________ – like _____________________________

I feel ___________________ – like ______________________________

I want to ___________________ and ___________________________

But ___________________________.

I’m not sure I like this prompt or want to try it–maybe I will?–but it got me thinking about metaphor and how I might try to express my mood of wonder. Will metaphor enable me to get closer to expressing what I actually feel or further away from the IS/THIS of it? In a blog post for poetry foundation, Sabrina Orah Mark argues that metaphor, which means transport in Greek, reduces distance, bringing us closer to the feeling of what is being expressed. But, this transport only happens when the metaphor is encased within a world that supports it and its meaning. Metaphors fail when they don’t have a world, or that world no longer exists (does this fit with the failure of “doing something at a glacial pace” to work anymore now that glaciers are melting faster?). Does this fit with my own struggles to think about metaphor in my poem about wonder? I’m not sure, but I really liked this post and wanted to mention it here, especially this part:

But what if we can no longer tell if the world we are writing from is inside out or outside in? Up above or down below? The future or the past? What if the rules, like clouds, are becoming a rabbit, no an ambulance, no a dragon, no an unraveling spool of thread. What happens to our imagination when the unimaginable has imagined us up first? Is there an emergency hotline for metaphors?

Regardless of how much sense this discussion is making, it is helping me to come up with some more ideas. Now I’m thinking about ring as metaphor:

RING

• ring of fire, burning a hole through my retina
• tree rings, expanding, thickening like my blind spot as time passes and my vision deteriorates
• boxing rings, brass rings, a ring of truth?

3 miles
turkey hollow loop
67 degrees
90% humidity

Keeping this log entry short because I sliced my left hand on glass yesterday afternoon–not enough to need stitches, but almost–and I am trying not to use my left hand so as not to split the just healing wound open again. A nice run. Cooler after the early morning rain. Ran above the river for 10 minutes. The trail wasn’t too crowded.

things I remember

• A group of runners parallel to me on the grass between the river road and edmund, running almost the same speed, talking very loudly
• Squirrels shaking acorns from a tree, their teeth clicking, the acorns plinking on the ground
• Water rushing from the sewer pipe
• No turkeys
• Running by some huge logs–I ran by the crew cutting them down a few weeks ago–between Becketwood and 42nd st

Running on edmund, heading north, an idea came to me about my latest blind spot project. When I finished running, I spoke it into my phone:

2.05 miles
river road trail, south/grass between river road and edmund, south/edmund, north
73 degrees
humidity: 89%
dew point: 70

Another hot day, another short run. I started on the river road trail but it was too crowded to stay. Crossed over to the dirt trail in the grass between the river road and edmund. Rutted and difficult to run on. Didn’t have a chance to see the river, too busy looking out for bikers and walkers.

At some point during the run I thought about the great book I’m reading (one of the few books I’m reading instead of listening to), Bonnie Tsui’s Why We Swim, and her chapter on flow.

Flow: the state in which people are so involved in an activity that nothing else seems to matter” (Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi).

I was thinking, as I ran by Dowling Elementary, how difficult it is to experience flow during runs this spring and summer. It’s partly because there’s too much to worry about–hurricanes, pandemics, the refusal by leaders to do the difficult work of addressing racial injustice and dismantling institutions that create/perpetuate injustice, upcoming elections and the campaign to destroy “liberal cities”–and partly because the trails and sidewalks are too crowded to get lost. I know it still happens to me–running or writing, I can lose track of time–but I wish it could happen more.

Anything else I remember? Tons of acorn shells everywhere. The squirrels are busy. Does that mean we will have a tough winter? Don’t remember hearing cicadas or any birds, not too many cars, no roller skiers or rowers. No leaf blowers or horns honking. I did see an adult biking with a little kid. I love watching little kids biking, especially when they’re very little and very good at biking–so graceful and powerful.

state fair mannequins

In a non-pandemic world, the state fair would have started today. I miss many things about going to the fair. The food, the beer, the mutant vegetables and political crop art (there would have been some really good ones this year), but what I’m missing most today are the state fair mannequins. Every year I love seeing them looking so creepy and strange and almost human. Last year I started work on a project about eye contact and faces and the uncanny valley and state fair mannequins. Some day I will finish it. Here’s one of my favorite mannequins:

3 miles
over the lake st bridge!
73 degrees
humidity: 87%
dew point: 69

Hot and humid this morning, but who cares? I ran over the lake street bridge and got my first satisfying view of the river in months, maybe since this whole pandemic started. What a view! What a beautiful river. No rowers or motor boats or paddle boats or canoes. Just smooth, shining blue water. I’ve been reluctant to run over the bridge for fear that it would be too crowded, but I didn’t encounter anyone–and even if I did, the path isn’t that narrow and it wouldn’t take me long to pass someone.

I ran east on 36th st, then north on 47th ave, past 7 oaks, through Minnehaha Academy parking lot, over to lake street, across the bridge, down the stairs to under the bridge, up the other side and over the bridge again, across the river road to the trail then over the edmund, and finishing by running down and back up the hill above the tunnel of trees. It’s nice to do a slightly different route. Maybe next time I’ll try crossing the bridge, then running up to Summit and back down again?

Things I Remember

• Seeing the dock at the Minneapolis Rowing Club on the north side of the lake street bridge, empty
• Not encountering any people on the bridge but passing by three scooters leaning against the railing
• A lone roller skier preparing to ski up the hill
• The bright yellow shirt of a runner exiting the stairs from the bridge
• Checking to see if there was an eagle perched on the dead tree branch on the bridge (nope)
• The socially distanced tables with umbrellas at Longfellow Grill, empty (I think?)
• Passing a guy sitting on a boulder in the grass between edmund and the river road 3 times, first as I crossed over from edmund to the river road heading south, second as I ran down the hill on the river road, and third, as I ran back up the hill

blind spot

At the end of February, while reading Sight Unseen, I discovered how to see my blind spot. Everyone has a blind spot, but mine is in my central vision and it keeps getting bigger every year as more of my cones get scrambled. I stared at the center of a blank white wall for a few minutes and then suddenly a ring, white in the small center, grayish-black on the broader edges appeared. I drew it from memory in my notebook:

Yesterday afternoon, I decided to try finding my blind spot again. This time I took a sheet of white paper and taped it on the wall, at eye level. I closed my left eye and stared into it for a minute or two with my right eye until a grayish circle with a white center appeared. I quickly traced it, then colored it in, using blue for the grayish part:

I wasn’t very precise with this method, but still, I think this gives a good sense of how much of my central vision might be left. I want to keep experimenting with this image–maybe make a concrete poem out of it or something? I haven’t figured it out yet, but this might be a second part to my Snellen Chart poems. I’m also thinking of using the Amsler grid with it and maybe the grid out of words instead of lines?