april 9, 2017 / 4 miles / 57 degrees
2024: On Sunday, April 7, 2024 I encountered the race I mentioned in this entry. Instead of running with the leaders, this time I ran past the runners at the very back.
Speaking of not seeing faces, this morning my daughter was talking to me. I was sitting at my desk, she was on the couch, in the shadows. Looking at her for several minutes as she told me about her homework, I couldn’t see her facial features at all. Her head was a shadowy blob with hair. I could, however, see her hand gestures. Her small, graceful hands waved and pointed and flexed and reached out as she discussed her assignment. I did not need to see her face or her eyes to understand her.
april 9, 2018 / 4 miles / 33 degrees / several inches of snow
A mention from when before I knew Dave, the Daily Walker’s name!
Encountered a few runners. The Daily Walker–passed him twice and then we turned off the river road at the same time. I thought about introducing myself, but then didn’t.
Typical April. Snow, which melts quickly, and turns into a wet mess:
More snow. An inch or two. Much of it melted by the time I started running. The rest of it–either soft grains that were fun to run through or slick, icy patches to try and avoid. Last year it was 57 degrees on my April 9th run. This winter has been much longer. Still, it was a good run. Encountered a few runners. The Daily Walker–passed him twice and then we turned off the river road at the same time. I thought about introducing myself, but then didn’t. Noticed the cars rushing by quickly, their wheels whooshing through the puddles on the road. The word for today’s run? Wet. Not too many big puddles on the path but lots of slick, shiny stretches. Wet roads. Big drips of melting snow that dropped off the bottom of the bridges and onto my face or my back or the brim of my hat as I ran under them. Dripping eaves. Gushing gutters. The big melt, part two–or is this part three?
april 9, 2019 / 3.1 miles / 52 degrees
Another Minnesota-in-April thing: first a warm day, then snow the next day:
Decided to run again this morning because tomorrow winter returns: ice, snow, blizzard conditions.
april 9, 2020 / 1.8 miles / treadmill
A month into COVID, I wrote about 11 deaths in Minnesota in one day and how I memorized Carl Phillips’ And Swept All Visible Signs Away. Then I wondered about this part of the poem:
But what is the willow doing in the darkness?
I say it wants less for company than for compassion,
which can come from afar and faceless. What’s a face, to a willow?
If a willow had a face, it would be a song. I think.
I am stirred, I’m stir-able, I’m a wind-stirred thing
What’s a face, to a willow?
Thinking about my difficulty in seeing faces, I wondered (and still do): What’s a face, to me? Is a face–having it, recognizing it, expressing with it–necessary for connection?
If a willow had a face, it would be a song. I think.
I like the idea of the willow’s face (does face = Oliver Sack’s definition in his essay about face blindness: that which “bears the stamp of our experiences, our character”?) being a song, this song: “I am stirred, I’m stir-able, I am a wind-stirred thing.” What is my song? What might the songs of those I love–Scott, my kids–be? Fun to think about.
some more on willows and faces
1 — willows
In a later poem, Among the Trees, Carl Phillips offers more about the willow:
I know a man who, whenever he needs to write, or cry, or think—really think—goes to a willow in his local park and hides beneath its draped branches. He goes there so often, you could almost say he’s become part of the willow; he seems a willow himself; he marks a place in my life where I stopped to rest, once, but I couldn’t stay.
Among the Trees/ Carl Phillips from Nov 29, 2020
2 — faces
Speaking of not seeing faces, this morning my daughter was talking to me. I was sitting at my desk, she was on the couch, in the shadows. Looking at her for several minutes as she told me about her homework, I couldn’t see her facial features at all. Her head was a shadowy blob with hair. I could, however, see her hand gestures. Her small, graceful hands waved and pointed and flexed and reached out as she discussed her assignment. I did not need to see her face or her eyes to understand her.
from running log on april 9, 2020
I like my description here, especially: “Her small, graceful hands waved and pointed and flexed and reached out”
A few prompts/exercises to try (from 2023):
- What is your song? What song do you sing with the land, your neighborhood, the gorge?
- Describe your favorite hand gestures, or some of your favorite things about hands, or some ways you use hands to understand the world?
april 9, 2022 / 4.5 miles / 49 degrees
More about mushrooms and fungi and entanglement. I’d like to remember this little bit in relation to Mushrooms at the End of the World from an entry a few days prior to this in 2022:
Written in my Plague Notebook, Volume 11:
The need for new understanding, metaphors for working together (and living together) — and NOT as individuals. Beyond Darwinism and survival of the fittest and competition. Survival of the fittest/dog-eat-dog world are dead metaphors.Plague Notebook, Vol 11/ Sara Lynne Puotinen