dec 31, 2019 / 3 miles / 20 feels like 10 degrees / 100% snow-covered
I want to remember Edward Hirsch’s poem, “Stranger by Night.” Maybe I should buy the entire collection, or check it out from the library? I also want to remember my initial thoughts about the poem:
I feel lucky to have stumbled upon this poem by a poet I like very much on a subject that is very important to me. I have the opposite problem with my vision–my central vision is going while my peripheral will always be there. I see people but their edges are fuzzy (and so are their faces). It’s hard sometimes to see where they end and I begin. This becomes especially overwhelming in crowded places, like the Mall of America which I hate going to but often do to please my daughter. I like the gorge because there are more trees and rocks than people and when I can’t see them or bump into them, I don’t have to apologize.
What if I put this last idea into my favorite form (as of 2023): my breathing rhythm while I run: 3 in/2 out
when there are
more trees
and rocks than
people —
there is no
need to
apologize
when you
bump into
someone
that you could
not see
or this:
out here where
the trees
and rocks out
number
the people
there’s no
need to say
sorry
when you bump
into
something you
can’t see.
dec 31, 2022 / 4.5 miles / 26 degrees / 90% snow-covered
I’d like to remember and return to my discussion, inspired by George Sheehan, of openness instead of innocence:
Lots of thinking about being open that I don’t quite remember now. Something about George Sheehan and a mixture of these quotes from his essay, “Running”:
…each day I take to the roads as a beginner, a child, a poet. Seeking the innocence of the beginner, the wonder of the child and the vision of the poet. Hoping for a new appreciation of the landscape, a new perspective of my inner world, some new insights on life, a new response to existence and myself.
I must listen and discover forgotten knowledge. Must respond to everything around me and inside me as well.
Poets do this naturally. A really good poet, wrote James Dickey, is like an engine with the governor off….
The best most of us can do is to be a poet an hour a day. Take the hour when we run 0r tennis or golf or garden; take that hour away from being a serious adult and become serious beginners.
Running / George Sheehan, 1978
I like the idea of combining the wonder of the child with the vision of a poet, but not really the innocence of a beginner. Instead of innocence, I’d say the openness of a beginner, or maybe even the ignorance? — unknowingness might be better — the enthusiasm, lack of judgment or preconceived notions? Innocence seems too connected to purity and whiteness for me, in terms of how it gets imagined. Yes, I like openness.
I wasn’t thinking about innocence as I ran, just openness and being open to everything around me and inside of me. When I lifted from my hips, my shoulders relaxed and dropped, my chest opened. I smiled a lot, greeted almost all the other runners with a morning or a wave, didn’t worry about my upcoming colonoscopy. I didn’t try to hold onto everything I was seeing or hearing or smelling or feeling, but let it move through me.
Returning to Sheehan’s quotes, his emphasis on new — new appreciations, new perspectives, new insights, new response — made me think of an essay I read just before my run:
As we enter this December, we can hunker down to endure a dark winter, or we can head out and see familiar paths with new eyes. As we taste the crisp, fresh air and float through the white quiet we may feel a spark of long-forgotten magic, and maybe even hope; hope for a different spring, one we’ll be ready to embrace with the youthful strength of a winter well lived.
The Magic of Winter Running/ Jonathan Beverly
Also, here’s an exercise that I haven’t tried yet, but that I suggested in this entry:
I was running on edmund, thinking about something else, when suddenly I heard the chickadee. A welcomed interruption! I started thinking about a fun experiment to try with my students that’s about being more open to hearing sounds, like this call. It involves going outside and recording a moment of sound. Then later, listening back and giving attention to the sounds in the recording that you didn’t notice, or that you ignored (maybe always ignore). What sounds are around us that we tune out? Rumbling planes, crunching footsteps.