5.3 miles
franklin loop
37 degrees
humidity: 87%
Breezier and cooler today but humid, so no cold, fresh air. Sunny. Possibly more leaves on the ground than on the trees. Wore my winter running tights, a bright yellow shirt, black vest, black gloves, a baseball cap that used to be black but is now a dingy gray, a bright pink headband, and a not bright orange and pink and cream buff. No stacked stones. No view through the floodplain forest of the water. No geese in the sky.
10 Things I Noticed (about the river)
- Shimmering white heat through the small gap in the trees
- Running over the Franklin bridge, the light reflecting on the water was hitting my peripheral vision just right, or just wrong — painfully, irritatingly bright
- The surface was a smooth, flat, unmoving blue (above on the franklin bridge)
- No rowers
- Shadows from the trees on the east side darkened the river at its edges
- Reflections of the golden trees on the west side brightened the water, coloring it yellow
- A circle of light on the water’s surface followed me as I ran south, mostly staying ahead of me, occasionally beside
- Most of the trees along the shore have changed colors, many yellows, a few reds, hardly any oranges
- Running above the paved trail below on the east side, I couldn’t see it or the water until I reached the trestle
- Looking ahead of me at the path, everything looked fuzzy, barely formed. Looking below me on the bridge, the river looked intense, sharp, clear, solid
As I ran, I thought about echoes and rings, circles and cycles, shadows as evidence of something else t/here. I also thought about how the tracing of a paved trail/loop can’t happen on the surface — unless it’s raining or snowing, the hard asphalt leaves no evidence of my footfalls. Instead the evidence is found in my memory, my familiarity with the path in my mind and body:
Familiarity has begun. One has made a relationship with the landscape, and the form and the symbol and the enactment of the relationship is the path. These paths of mind are seldom worn on the ground. They are habits of mind, directions and turns. They are as personal as old shoes. My feet are comfortable in them.
“A Native Hill”/ Wendell Berry
Returning to the rings:
A Ring/ W.S. Merwin
At this moment and through every moment
this planet which for all we know
is the only one in the vault of darkness
with life on it is wound in a fine veil
of whispered voices groping the frayed waves
of absence they keep flying up like flares
out of hope entwined with its opposite
to wander in ignorance as we do
when we are looking for what we have lost
one moment touching the earth and the next
straying far out past the orbits and webs
and the static of knowledge they go on
without being able to tell whether
they are addressing the past or the future
or where they are ever heard these currents
that are the living talking to the dead