bike: 20 minutes, bike stand run: 1.45 miles, treadmill Deaths from COVID-19: 94 (MN)/ 31,628 (US)
It’s not too cold or windy outside today but I decided to workout in the basement anyway. Watched more of the Agatha Christie movie on Netflix. I’m really enjoying it so far. Then ran for about 10 minutes on the treadmill while I listened to a playlist.
Right now I’m working on a poem tentatively titled, “How to Sink.” It’s inspired by all the sinking and keeping and dripping I’ve noticed running beside the gorge and by the current need to retreat/withdraw/go deep inside.
How to Sink/ Sara Lynne Puotinen (draft 1)
Think of that time when your young son was so mad all he could do was turn to goo
and slowly ooze down the couch in surrender to the floor. Not giving in but giving up control,
a puddle of body parts pooled at your feet. Go to the
gorge. Let your bones dissolve, your legs liquefy, submit to gravity sliding
down reaching ground seeping deeper through layers of loam, sandstone, limestone, shale.
Drop lower and lower burrow through cracks and fissures carve out a way in
and follow it further inside so far that outside is another idea.
note: “follow it further inside so far that outside is another idea” is taken from a Paul Tran poem, The Cave.
Read it to Scott and he mentioned that “goo” stood out too much. I’m having trouble thinking of another word that fits the idea and the syllable count of the line so I’m keeping it in for now.
bike: 25 minutes bike stand, basement run: 1.6 miles treadmill, basement shovel: 15 minutes deck, back yard Deaths from COVID-19: 70 (MN)/ 21,692 (US)
Woke up to snow. Took a walk with Scott and Delia the dog in it. At first, walking south, it was great. No wind. Snow gently coming down. I thought about running outside. But, then we turned the corner. Wind, snow blowing in our faces. No running outside for me. So I worked out in the basement instead. Started watching “Agatha and the Truth of Murder” on Netflix while I biked. Listened to a playlist while I ran. Coming out of the basement, glancing outside, I was overwhelmed by white. 5 or 6 inches, I think. Hopefully it will stop soon. Decided to quickly shovel the deck. Such heavy, wet snow.
April Snow
Snow in April is not surprising. Last year on the 11th and 12th of April it snowed. On April 16th, 2018, we got over 20 inches! No snow in 2017 but I found a video I did from April 11th, 2013 when it snowed. It snowed a lot in April 2013.
bike: 28 minutes bike stand, basement run: 1.8 miles treadmill, basement Deaths from COVID-19: 50 (MN), 15,774 (US)
11 deaths in MN reported for today. Up from 39 yesterday. A big jump. The peak here is supposed to hit at the end of April. We’re expected to have almost 600 deaths.
Very windy today. Decided to bike and run in the basement. Before heading down there, I sat at my desk upstairs, looked out at the small pellets of snow coming down–looking like little styrofoam balls–and memorized the beautiful poem, And Swept All Visible Signs Away/ Carl Phillips. I was drawn to it back in September because of Phillip’s discussion of seeing the face and connection and the line about wanting less for company than for compassion.
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.
For the first 5 minutes of my bike ride, I recited the poem out loud. I can’t remember if I recited it when I started my run.
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.
walk 1: 2 miles Edmund Bvld 30 degrees Deaths from COVID-19: 24 (MN)/ 8,407 (US)
Walked with Scott, Delia the Dog, and my daughter this morning. Nice, crisp air. Sunny. Hardly any wind. A perfect morning for a run, but I decided to only walk. Trying not to push it too much with the running. They’ve turned the river parkway into a one-way and created a lane for walkers. Will this help enable people to get more distance from each other? Not sure. I’ll check it out tomorrow when I run. Felt great to be outside and moving. Heard at least one cardinal, several crows, a woodpecker. Anything else? There were traces of the snow from yesterday still settled around the trees in the grass by Edmund. Walked by the Cyclops Baby on the garage door again. Enjoyed walking with my daughter–only her second time outside in almost a month.
bike: 27 minutes bike stand, basement run: 1.1 miles treadmill, basement
Gave myself another easy day in the basement today. Watched some of a Joan Didion documentary–The Center Will Not Hold–and listened to Harry Styles as I ran. Don’t remember thinking about much. Happy to be able to move and breathe and not always be worrying.
here. Forget. There are simply tones cloudy, breezy birds & so on. Sit down with it. It’s time now. There is no more natural sight. Anyway transform everything silence, trees commitment, hope this thing inside you flow, this movement of eyes set of words all turns, all grains. At night, shift comets, “twirling planets, suns, bits of illuminated pumice” pointing out, in harsh tones cancers & careers. “Newer Limoges please.” Pick some value mood, idea, type or smell of paper iridescent, lackluster &, “borne in peach vessels,” just think “flutter & cling” with even heavier sweep unassuaged which are the things of a form, etc that inhere. Fair adjustment becomes space between crusts of people strange, rending: as sound of some importance diffuses “as dark red circles” digress, reverberate connect, unhook. Your clothes, for example face, style radiate mediocrity coyly, slipping & in how many minutes body & consciousness deflect, “flame on flare” missed purpose. Your eyes glaze thought stumbles, blinded speck upon speck ruffling edges. “But do not be delighted yet.” The distance positively entrances. Take out pad & pen crystal cups, velvet ashtray with the gentility of easy movement evasive, unaccountable & puffing signs detach, unhinge beyond weeds, chill with enthusiastic smile & new shoes “by a crude rotation” hang a bulk of person “ascending,” “embodied.”
bike: 35 minutes bike stand, basement Deaths from COVID-19: 22 (MN)/ 6,605 (US)
Biking in the basement this afternoon. When I went down there, everything was brown. When I came back up, most of it was white. A dusting of snow. Classic April in Minnesota. Finished the documentary about Merrily We Roll Along while I biked. Lots of great reflections on what we do/fail to do with our lives.
Decided not to run today. Time to give my legs a break. It’s difficult not running. It really helps with stress over rising body counts and expected surges in cases. But it would be worse to run and get injured so I didn’t run.
Found out last night that they have cancelled all summer parks activities. No open swim this year. No open beaches at all. So sad, but necessary. I can’t imagine swimming this summer. It will be hard to wait another year–will all of my central vision be gone by then? Will I even be able to see the buoys to swim?
We can only carry so much breath with us and I learned then that it may not be enough.
Every summer morning, we rushed to be the first body to break the pool surface, still and cold as a bare marble altar long stripped of cloth and candle.
Diving from the deep end’s edge I followed my open, empty hands into what was once mist or cloud or untidy ocean before being bleached and boxed in for us.
Down toward the drain, a starless night sky just beyond its iron grate.
A thin current pulled past. Ghost tide needing no moon, that never turned, that kept whatever it washed away.
Love this line: “what was once/ mist or cloud or untidy ocean/ before being bleached/ and boxed in for us.” Also the idea of a starless night sky by the drain and a thin current.
walk: 3.5 miles edmund bvld, south/north 45 degrees Deaths from COVID-19: 17 (MN)/ 4.749 (US)
bike: 26 minutes bike stand, basement run: 1.2 miles treadmill, basement
Scott and I took Delia the dog on a long walk this morning. We discovered that there is a trail that connects Edmund at 42nd with Edmund farther south. Hooray! I’m excited to try it out tomorrow. I should be able to run over 4 miles that way. As we walked near Becketwood, across from the double bridge, I noticed 2 big birds soaring above us. Bald eagles, we both decided. One was close, the other much higher in the sky, both circling. Riding a thermal? So cool.
In the afternoon, I biked in the basement to get my exercise minutes (a 72 minutes, 3.5 mile walked didn’t earn me a single minute of exercise on my apple watch). Watched more of the S Soundheim/Hal Prince documentary about the failed 1981 musical, Merrily We Roll Along. Finished by running 1.2 miles on the treadmill.
Starting off national poetry month with one of my favorite poets, Maggie Smith.
Rain, New Year’s Eve/ Maggie Smith (from Good Bones)
The rain is a broken piano,
playing the same note over and over.
My five-year-old said that.
Already she knows loving the world
means loving the wobbles
you can’t shim, the creaks you can’t
oil silent–the jerry-rigged parts,
MacGyvered with twine and chewing gum.
Let me love the cold rain’s plinking.
Let me love the world the way I love
my your son, not only when
he cups my face in his sticky hands,
but when, roughhousing,
he accidentally splits my lip.
Let me love the world like a mother.
Let me be tender when it lets me down.
Let me listen to the rain’s one note and hear a beginner’s song.
walk: 1.5 miles longfellow neighborhood bike: 25 minutes bike stand, basement run: 1.3 miles treadmill, basement 441 confirmed cases of COVID-19
Started the day with a walk around the neighborhood with Scott and Delia the dog. Lots of birds, hardly any people. We meandered, often turning when we saw people approaching. Ended up walking by one of my favorite garages–so awesomely weird.
https://www.instagram.com/p/B-SEUQTnlIB/
We also walked by the creepy, completely shrouded in towering trees, house across from Sanford Middle School. Scott noticed a few windows on one side but they were concealed with thick awnings. Even the side entrance is fenced over, with the railing poking through fence boards. What happened here? I can’t believe my kids haven’t passed on any ghost stories from other Sanford kids about this place.
Later, after it began raining, I decided to workout in the basement. Started watching a documentary on Netflix about a failed Stephen Sondheim/Hal Prince musical, Merrily We Roll Along: The Best Worst Thing That Could Have Happened. So far, I’m enjoying it. I love musicals. Another version of me, in a different universe, would have loved to be in musicals. In this universe, I’ll just have to appreciate my niece Isabel and her amazing talent as an actor.
Finished off my workout with a short run. I’m growing to like these quick, fast-feeling treadmill runs. No 6 feet of distance needed! As much as I enjoy them occasionally, I hope we don’t get to a point where we can’t go outside and this is the only way I can run.
Right now, I’m working on creating an unabridged list of writing experiments (tried or to be tried), inspired by my runs beside the gorge. I’ve thought of turning some of them into an autobiographical poem. This poem is very different from what I imagine writing, but it’s helpful as an example–and so powerful.
Write about walking into the building as a new teacher. Write yourself hopeful. Write a row of empty desks. Write the face of a student you’ve almost forgotten; he’s worn a Derek Jeter jersey all year. Do not conjecture about the adults he goes home to, or the place he calls home. Write about how he came to you for help each October morning his sophomore year. Write about teaching Othello to him; write Wherein of antres vast and deserts idle, rough quarries, rocks and hills whose heads touch heaven. Write about reading his obituary five years after he graduated. Write a poem containing the words “common” “core,” “differentiate,” and “overdose.” Write the names of the ones you will never forget: “Jenna,” “Tiberious,” “Heaven,” “Megan,” “Tanya,” “Kingsley” “Ashley,” “David.” Write Mari with “Nobody’s Baby” tattooed in cursive on her neck, spitting sixteen bars in the backrow, as little white Mike beatboxed “Candy Shop” and the whole class exploded. Write about Zuly and Nely, sisters from Guatemala, upon whom a thousand strange new English words rained down on like hail each period, and who wrote the story of their long journey on la bestia through Mexico, for you, in handwriting made heavy by the aquís and ayers ached in their knuckles, hidden by their smiles. Write an ode to loose-leaf. Write elegies on the nub nose of a pink eraser. Carve your devotion from a no. 2 pencil. Write the uncounted hours you spent fretting about the ones who cursed you out for keeping order, who slammed classroom doors, who screamed “you are not my father,” whose pain unraveled and broke you, whose pain you knew. Write how all this added up to a life.
walk: 3 miles longfellow + normandale lake district bike: 15 minutes bike stand, basement
Walked Delia the dog twice today, both times with Scott. Feels like spring. Lots of melting and dripping and sunshine. Love the sunshine, dislike the mess this warmer weather makes. Spring in Minnesota is always complicated. Saw a funny meme the other day called “The Many Seasons of Minnesota”:
Winter
Sucker’s Spring
Second Winter
Fake Spring
Third Winter
Actual Spring
Summer
Fool’s Fall
Summer Again
Real Fall
Winter is Coming
As one of my friend’s posted on facebook, today (and the upcoming week) is sucker’s spring.
Finished up The Ring this afternoon while biking. Creepy. Looked it up and there is The Ring Two, but it’s not available on Netflix or Hulu. Bummer. I’ll have to find something else to watch.