4 miles
veterans home and back
57 degrees
wind: 14 mph / 28 mph gusts
Ran with Scott. What did we talk about? I remember Scott talking a lot at the beginning — it was something he was excited about — but I can’t remember what it was. I do remember him complaining about Spotify and how some of their new policies hurt independent musicians like him. I talked about shadows and wind and marveled at a tree branch creaking in the wind. Oh — and I complained (again) about my new yellow shoes. I tried them one more time and they still hurt my feet and make my calves ache. I need to remember: no more yellow shoes!
The water was gushing at the falls. We could smell something being fried at Sea Salt — it’s open for the season! I heard and saw a cardinal. I was dazzled by the bright white paint on the locks and dam no 1 sign — we both wondered if it was a reflective paint that made it so bright. A mile later, I could barely make out the bright yellow sign at 38th — the one I referred to as a bee last month. It was dull and blended in with the greenish-yellow trees behind it.
My favorite thing today: the wonderful shadows the new leaves made on the sidewalk. Tiny little jagged dots or points, making the tree shadow look like something other than a tree. What? Not sure. A strange, magical sculpture? Glitter shadow? The leaves made the shadows strange, the shadows made the path strange. First encountering them on the double bridge, I didn’t think they were shadows but some sort of blob on the asphalt.
During the run I had mentioned that I didn’t know what my May challenge would be but that it would be fun to have a theme that I could make a playlist for. By the end of the run, after witnessing the wonderful shadows, I had my topic: Shadows! As we walked back, I was already creating my playlist.
I’m Shadowing You
- I’m Shadowing You / Blossom Dearie
- Me and My Shadow / Frank Sinatra and Sammy Davis Jr.
- Shadowboxer / Fiona Apple
- My Shadow / Keane
- Shadow Dancing / Andy Gibb
- Shadow Song / Screaming Trees
- Shadows and Light / Joni Mitchell
- Silve Shadow / Atlantic Starr
- Total Eclipse of the Heart / Bonnie Tyler
- Help Me Make It Through the Night / Kris Kristofferson
- Sunshine in the Shade / The Fixx
- the Shadow of Your Smile / Astrud Gilberto
- Evening / The Moody Blues
- White Room / Cream
- Shadow Stabbing / CAKE
- I’m Beginning to See the Light / Ella Fitzgerald
- Twilight Time / The Platters
- The Shadow Knows / Link Wray
- yesterday / The Beatles
- Moonshadow / Cat Stevens
- Golden Years / David Bowie
- Candle Mambo / Captain Beefheart
- If You go Away / Neil Diamond
- We Will Become Silhouettes / The Postal Service
- Crepuscule With Nellie / Thelonious Monk
Discovered this poem on the Slowdown before my run. Oh, Dorianne Laux, what a gift your poem is today!
Life On Earth/ Dorianne Laux
The odds are we should never have been born. Not one of us. Not one in 400 trillion to be exact. Only one among the 250 million released in a flood of semen that glides like a glassine limousine filled with tadpoles of possible people, one of whom may or may not be you, a being made of water and blood, a creature with eyeballs and limbs that end in fists, a you with all your particular perfumes, the chords of your sinewy legs singing as they form, your organs humming and buzzing with new life, moonbeams lighting up your brain’s gray coils, the exquisite hills of your face, the human toy your mother longs for, your father yearns to hold, the unmistakable you who will take your first breath, your first step, bang a copper pot with a wooden spoon, trace the lichen growing on a boulder you climb to see the wild expanse of a field, the one whose heart will yield to the yellow forsythia named after William Forsyth—not the American actor with piercing blue eyes, but the Scottish botanist who discovered the buttery bells on a highland hillside blooming to beat the band, zigzagging down an unknown Scottish slope. And those are only a few of the things you will one day know, slowly chipping away at your ignorance and doubt, you who were born from ashes and will return to ash. When you think you might be through with this body and soul, look down at an anthill or up at the stars, remember your gambler chances, the bounty of good luck you were born for.