When weather in Chicago breaks records, it is bad news. We just did with a storm that dropped 11.2”/ 28.4 cm of snow, the heaviest fall recorded in November in more than a hundred years. Protected by a micro-climate caused by the relatively warmer water, here by the lake only a couple of inches/5 cm accumulated, but the temperature was 14ºF/10ºC when I got up at 6 a.m. yesterday morning.
To satisfy my insatiable and pitiless Apple watch, at 10:30 I walked to the lake.
I was not concerned about the cold. By then it was 25ºF/-4ºC and unfortunately I have winter clothes. What is unfortunate is that I need them.
I was concerned about ice. Slipping and falling on my left shoulder is not a good idea.
The sidewalks were mostly icy, so I mostly crunched through the snow beside them.
The morning was bright and clear and sunny. The snow was pristine and pure white.
Some lingering leaves had fallen and made interesting patterns on the snow.
Ice sparkled like diamonds on bare branches.
I noted that the walk took me four minutes longer than usual.
My watch beeped approval.
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A few of you, who are consequently now counted among my dearest friends, correctly identified the line, he holds the world in his mind. One local sailor, who I do count as a friend, thought the line came from THE BIBLE. I think highly of myself, but not that high.
Art was by far the first and his prize will be on the way tomorrow after I use the walk to the post office to appease my watch. Today is a full work-out day which, along with twenty flights of stairs, gets the circle closed.
Of those stairs: this morning I demolished my old personal best of 48 seconds with a blazing 42 second sprint. I’m not sure I’m ever going to improve on that.
If you are curious about the source of the line, go to the poetry page and scroll down to ‘Ithaca, Illinois’. You could read down, but I suppose that is too much to ask.
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I lifted the spectacular photo above from Sailing Anarchy. It is reported to be the French sailor, Frank Cammas, ‘rounding Cape Horn in a foiling catamaran.’
I think it was an interesting sail. I don’t think he rounded Cape Horn, which traditionally has meant sailing from 50º South in the Pacific Ocean to 50º South in the Atlantic Ocean, or vice versa, outside of everything but the Diego Ramirez and Staten islands. It does not mean sailing down the channels and hanging around until conditions are fine, then darting out, around Horn Island, and back in.
Everything is hyped. Everything is cheapened. Rounding Cape Horn shouldn’t be.
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Three articles have been added to the articles page: ‘Pounded’, ‘The Good Old Days in Neiafu’, and ‘love of the thing itself’.
If you have been here a while, you will find that they are, as almost all my published writing now is, reworkings of entries from this journal.
