Month: July 2021

july 6/RUNSWIM

run: 1.5 miles
river road trail, north/south
76 degrees
humidity: 80%/ dew point: 70

Before it started raining again, STA and I went out for a quick run. Today is our 25th wedding anniversary. Amazing. Everything felt hot and wet and thick, but I enjoyed it, especially running through the tunnel of trees.

swim: 2 miles/ 2 loops
lake nokomis open swim
70 degrees
overcast, then light rain

I love open swims when it’s overcast and rainy. No one else at the beach. The buoys easy to sight. The rain drops fascinating to watch from underwater. Tonight’s swim was wonderful. I might have done more if my watch hadn’t died and I didn’t have STA and Delia the dog waiting for me in the parking lot. Just like last night at Cedar, I was able to look through the water a few feet in front of me. Tonight I watched my hand as I stretched it out, noticing the bubbles it generated. I felt strong, especially my shoulders, as I plunged my hands into the water. I mostly breathed every 5, but in the first loop I did some every 3, then every 4. And, in the last loop, I did some every 5, then 6. At one point in the middle of the lake I had a scary thought: what if my kneecap displaced mid-lake? How would I push it back in place? Quickly, I realized this was unlikely and returned to happier thoughts about powering through the water and being able to see the buoys and the Indian takeout STA and I were planning to eat after the lake.

Water in Love/ Ed Bok Lee

How to love like water loves
when it’s impossible to even taste
all the ghostly sediments
each time you take a sip

Impossible to savor
the salt in your blood
the light and island shorelines
in each living cell

When even the plainest mouthful
tastes more of you than you of it

Sweetest of absences
that frees in wave after wave
debris of thought like the dead,
the drowned, the vanished, and yet
sails your lips
on a voyage toward another’s, plying
all luck and regret

Worship, splash, guzzle, or forget
It clears any difference
Stone washer and mountain dissolver
that will
outlive us, even the memory of
all any eyes touched

Wasp and cactus in a desert
Comet through outer space
Sleep among all the cloud-shepherds’ children

A love so perpetually current
it doesn’t care that you love
without even knowing you love
what you couldn’t survive
three days without

How to love like that: wild
dream-sparkler and meticulous architect
of every snowflake
Wise, ebullient, and generous
as the rain

Deepest of miracles
for a time
borrowing and replenishing
a self
overflowing with fate

july 5/SWIM

1.7 miles/4 loops
cedar lake open swim
100 degrees

Two Saras, One Who Loves Cedar Lake, One Who Doesn’t

Calm water, blue sky. No problems sighting the buoys, or, when I couldn’t see them, knowing which direction the beach was. Used my trick for cedar lake: look for the break in the trees. Talked to a few people, who were very nice and happy to be there. When I turned my head to breathe–every 5 strokes, as usual–I noticed the streaks of fluffy clouds in the sky. A blanket of thin, shredded fluff. A tattered veil. Feathery streaks. These clouds (I looked it up) are high-level clouds called cirrocumulus. Underwater, I liked lifting my forehead to look at the water in front of me. I could see about 4 feet, then nothing. Noticed some silvery flashes below me–my fish friends!

Cedar Lake has loud music, people on inner tubes and rafts, smoking at the beach. I am not chill enough for it. I didn’t mind the music, but several times, rafts were blocking the buoy at the far beach. Someone’s smoke made it hard for me to breathe on shore. And half of the swimmers were swimming in one direction, and half, the other. I asked the lifeguard which way we were supposed to swim–with the buoy on our left side, or our right, but he didn’t know. I stewed as I swam, wondering why this bothered me so much. The lack of order? The greater chance of swimming into someone? The feeling of always being wrong? I long for order, and to not care when there isn’t any.

The Nude Swim/ Anne Sexton

On the southwest side of Capri
we found a little unknown grotto
where no people were and we
entered it completely
and let our bodies lose all
their loneliness.

All the fish in us
had escaped for a minute.
The real fish did not mind.
We did not disturb their personal life.
We calmly trailed over them
and under them, shedding
air bubbles, little white
balloons that drifted up
into the sun by the boat
where the Italian boatman slept
with his hat over his face.

Water so clear you could
read a book through it.
Water so buoyant you could
float on your elbow.
I lay on it as on a divan.
I lay on it just like
Matisse’s Red Odalisque.
Water was my strange flower,
one must picture a woman
without a toga or a scarf
on a couch as deep as a tomb.

The walls of that grotto
were everycolor blue and
you said, “Look! Your eyes
are seacolor.  Look!  Your eyes
are skycolor.”  And my eyes
shut down as if they were
suddenly ashamed.

july 4/RUN

5 miles
austin, mn
Hog Jog 5 mile race route
72 degrees
80% humidity/ dew point: 66

Out the door by 7. Still hot. We ran the route for the 5 mile race they usually have for the 4th here in Austin. Stopped for a few walk breaks. In the shade it was fine, in the sun it was not. Very hot. We started at east side lake and ran, mostly on a trail, to Todd Park.

things I remember

  • STA talking a lot, which was nice; I’m usually the one having to talk
  • The sound of the boards on the bridge banging as we ran over them
  • Trying to quicken my cadence to match STA’s. Not to go faster, just to lift my feet more
  • A runner greeting us as we passed–“Good morning! It sure is getting hot”
  • STA telling me a story about a pedestrian bridge that collapsed a few years ago in london
  • Hearing a few firecrackers (already, at 7 in the morning) and joking that someone was pre-partying before the parade. Then we talked about how rarely we have had a drink before noon
  • Remembering past years of running in the race on this trail, especially the people–the heavy breather, the girl who stopped to puke near the end, the guy who ran fast, then stopped, then ran fast, then stopped repeatedly, all the women wearing shorts/skirt combos

july 3/RUN

3.5 miles
2 trails
75 degrees

Crowded on the upper trail. Lots of bikers, runners, walker, often in pairs or packs. Running on a shared part of the trail, moving over to give an approaching runner some room, a passing biker called out repeatedly, “you’re fine. you’re fine.” At first I thought he meant I didn’t need to worry about running into him, but then I wondered, was that his way of saying, “stay where you are, you’re fine there, don’t move over anymore?” Descending the 4 stone steps to the start of the Winchell Trail, I heard a bullhorn call out, “Women’s quads start in 4 minutes.” “Yes!”–I called out. A rowing race! I heard the start, but couldn’t see any rowers through the thick trees. I thought I heard some sloshing as I ran north and imagined it was the racing rowers below me. Maybe they weren’t, but in my world, they were. Kept on the Winchell Trail past 38th, onto the dirt leading to the Oak Savanna. Ran past the ravine, over the metal grate, up the gravel. Thought: running up a somewhat steep, loose gravel hill is the worst! Greeted an older jogger, doing a half walk, half run–“Good morning!” He greeted me back then wished me a happy fourth. “You too!” A good run. Nice to be out with other people, early-ish on a Saturday morning.

Last night, walking Delia the dog with FWA, my kneecap slipped out of place. I wasn’t doing anything strange–no turns, or curbs, or quick stops then starts. I stopped, slid it back in place, and we kept walking. It felt a little sore, so I iced it. No big deal. It is still unsettling to have no warning, just a sudden slip, a sharp pain, a strange feeling that something isn’t quite right. But, it’s also not strange, but familiar, no big deal. The capacity of the human body/mind to adapt and adjust always amazes me!

july 2/SWIMBIKE

swim: 2 miles/ 2 loops
lake nokomis open swim
78 degrees

A wonderful open swim morning. I couldn’t see the backlit orange buoys at all, but that didn’t matter. No swimming off course today, or stopping. Powerful strokes cutting through smooth, calm, fast water. Excellent. Thought about how it’s hard to daydream while swimming across the lake because I need to focus on making sure I’m still going the right way. Will this change the more I swim? I could hear the water sloshing over me as I breathed every 5 strokes. I worked on pushing down more with my left hand as it cut in under my body. Noticed lots of splashing from other people and felt smug about how little splash I create. I am not proud of my smugness, just wanted to make note of it. I might have seen some fish. Noticed at least 3 different paddle boarders crossing the path just before I got there. What an amazing way to spend a Friday morning!

bike: 8.6 miles
lake nokomis
85 degrees

STA came with me for open swim and we are so pleased to be by the lake on this summer morning that we drove home to get our work and then biked back for the afternoon. We sat at the same picnic table we had the night before, drank some beer, ate some fries, watched 3 cute french bulldogs at a nearby table, and did a little work (STA, emails to clients/ me, reviewing notes, writing in my plague notebook). What a day! Lots of paddle boarders, sail boats, swimmers, bikers, and runners.

Morning Swim/ Maxine Kumin

Into my empty head there come
a cotton beach, a dock wherefrom

I set out, oily and nude
through mist, in chilly solitude.

There was no line, no roof or floor
to tell the water from the air.

Night fog thick as terry cloth
closed me in its fuzzy growth.

I hung my bathrobe on two pegs.
I took the lake between my legs.

Invaded and invader, I
went overhand on that flat sky.

Fish twitched beneath me, quick and tame.
In their green zone they sang my name

and in the rhythm of the swim
I hummed a two-four-time slow hymn.

I hummed “Abide With Me.” The beat
rose in the fine thrash of my feet,

rose in the bubbles I put out
slantwise, trailing through my mouth.

My bones drank water; water fell
through all my doors. I was the well

that fed the lake that met my sea
in which I sang “Abide With Me.”

july 1/BIKESWIMBIKE

bike: 8.6 miles
lake nokomis and back
85 degrees

Biked with STA to the lake for open swim. Not too difficult. Again, it helped that I didn’t need to pass anyone and it wasn’t that crowded. After the swim, leaving the lake, it was a little crazier. Lots of walkers on the bike path, feral kids zig-zagging on the path, a stalled surrey stuck in the middle of the trail.

swim: 3 miles/ 3 loops
lake nokomis open swim
85 degrees
partly sunny/slightly choppy

Wow, this was the most difficult open swim yet. I didn’t mind the swells near the big beach, but the placement of the green buoys so far from the beach, the bright sun draining them of color and shape, and the sneaky sailboats impersonating them, it was very hard to sight anything. When I stopped a few times to get my bearings, I still couldn’t see anything. Luckily, I never got off course too much and I kept swimming for 3 loops. After the swim, I met up with STA for a beer at Sandcastle. Very nice. It really felt like covid had never happened, which was mostly good. Saw lots of cute dogs and sailing boats. A beautiful night to be out in the world instead of holed up in the house.

july’s theme

It’s the first day of July, which means a new theme. Last month was water and stone. Up until a few hours ago, I was convinced that this month’s theme would be water, especially as it relates to my swimming. But I started thinking about open swim and then wrote in my almost finished Plague Notebook, Vol 8:

not wild or natural…not a wild swim, but an open swim…not pure adventure in unchartered territory but not really urban or tightly planned either…just off the beaten path…how do I describe where and what this is—this = being = running or walking or swimming or breathing outside?

And then, after walking Delia the dog:

Thinking about the “wild” and my neighborhood. Not wild, but messy, unkempt, order still there (or the trace of order) but yards/flowers left alone to roam or wander. Not rigid, tight control or the sharpness of a trimmed, edged lawn, approximate, not tidy but not chaos, a bit disheveled, off-track but cared for, attended to, intentional

I started thinking about centers and edges, which led me back to Emily Dickinson and her circumference, but also to Mary Oliver, and her devotion to things having a place in the world, in the family of things. And now I am wondering what to do with all of these ideas, what to spend time with this month? I think all of this wandering and wondering has to do with making sense of the place I’m recognizing (and creating) for myself, swimming in a swamp that was made into a lake 100 years ago and is carefully managed by a park system. Swimming across a lake in designated areas, with hundreds of others, watched over by lifeguards. It’s not the ocean or a remote lake or a secret swimming hole, but it’s also not a safe, chlorinated, regimented pool. There are bacteria and big fish and weeds that want to drag you to the bottom.

I’m listening to the latest Between the Covers podcast with Arthur Sze. Wow, he’s amazing. He read this poem midway through the episode.

The Unnamed River/ Arthur Sze

1

Is it in the anthracite face of a coal miner,
crystallized in the veins and lungs of a steel
worker, pulverized in the grimy hands of a railroad engineer?
Is it in a child naming a star, coconuts washing
ashore, dormant in a volcano along the Rio Grande?

You can travel the four thousand miles of the Nile
to its source and never find it.
You can climb the five highest peaks of the Himalayas
and never recognize it.
You can gaze though the largest telescope
and never see it.

But it’s in the capillaries of your lungs.
It’s in the space as you slice open a lemon.
It’s in a corpse burning on the Ganges,
in rain splashing on banana leaves.

Perhaps you have to know you are about to die
to hunger for it. Perhaps you have to go
alone in the jungle armed with a spear
to truly see it. Perhaps you have to
have pneumonia to sense its crush.

But it’s also in the scissor hands of a clock.
It’s in the precessing motion of a top
when a torque makes the axis of rotation describe a cone:
and the cone spinning on a point gathers
past, present, future.

2

In a crude theory of perception, the apple you
see is supposed to be a copy of the actual apple,
but who can step out of his body to compare the two?
Who can step out of his life and feel
the Milky Way flow out of his hands?

An unpicked apple dies on a branch:
that is all we know of it.
It turns black and hard, a corpse on the Ganges.
Then go ahead and map out three thousand mile of the Yantze;
walk each inch, feel its surge and
flow as you feel the surge and flow in your own body.

And the spinning cone of a precessing top
is a form of existence that gathers and spins death and life into one.
It is in the duration of words, but beyond words—
river river river, river river.
The coal miner may not know he has it.
The steel worker may not know he has it.
The railroad engineer may not know he has it.
But it is there. It is in the smell
of an avocado blossom, and in the true passion of a kiss.