Back to the Water

I've talked to you about water before.  Talked to you about swimming. Talked to you about the pool, about the pond, about the lake.

For about a year now, I've been thinking a lot about water.  About the chaos the ocean represented to ancient peoples, the total absence of control.  About suspension within the depths, both literally and figuratively.  I hinted at it in this post:  hinted at what it means to go deep, below the surface, simultaneously floating but also deliberately diving down.

Somewhere in there is a big story - deep in my writer's heart it seems clear that I'll find my story in the water.

In the meantime, I found a more prosaic way to go meet the water.  I finally sucked it up and re-joined my local Y.  What took me so long? I wondered this morning.  Swimming is an action that lives deep in my DNA, and my body does it without thinking. I sliced my arms into the water, over and over, feeling the familiar burn in my triceps, feeling an unfamiliar burn in my lungs from weeks of inactivity.  What took me so long to come back to the water? 

“Artists and athletes speak of something called “flow.” When they are deeply involved in what they are doing, time ceases to exist. So does their sense of themselves as separate from what they are doing……..Awareness blooms, as the individual self escapes its confines to become part of something bigger than the self.” – Barbara Brown Taylor – An Altar in the World

This morning, I didn't miss pounding the pavement in my Nikes. Didn't miss the iPod or my playlists.  Didn't miss the sweat streaming down my face.  I do miss running.  I may get back on the road someday, after a long season of healing.  But the silver lining has been re-discovering the place where I flow.

The water welcomed me back.  Here, it whispered.  Here is where you will find your own depths.

Diving in: Summer 2010

Swimming Laps

If twelve hours in the car with 3 small children and their grandma, way too many snack food products and driving through the night fueled by coffee doesn't leave you in need of a dip in the pool, I don't know what will.

I slipped into the cool water intending just to swim a few laps. For the first few strokes my triceps and biceps moaned loudly about how old I'm getting, I decided this was a terrible idea, I thought I might as well stop there in the middle and start doing old-lady water aerobics. It took the next few strokes to silence the chatter of voices in my head - all of the 'should dos' and 'why didn't I's' slunk quietly away.

stroke stroke stroke breathe..... stroke stroke stroke breathe...... stroke stroke stroke breathe.

the habit, the rhythm, the cadence of the stroke took over, and my muscles repeated the movement over and over, up and down. I wasn't counting laps, or speed, or time. Just swam up and down the pool, over and over.

stroke stroke stroke breathe..... stroke stroke stroke breathe...... stroke stroke stroke breathe.

I watched the sun refract at the bottom of the pool into a million watery squares, like so many scales of a rainbow fish.

stroke stroke stroke breathe..... stroke stroke stroke breathe...... stroke stroke stroke breathe.

I registered with a shock this was the first time I'd swum more than ten uninterrupted laps in close to ten years. I thought about how much time I've spent in the water in my life, how many hours, and then thought about how few hours I've spent by myself in the water recently.

stroke stroke stroke breathe..... stroke stroke stroke breathe...... stroke stroke stroke breathe.

Treading water - that's what I've been doing. I've spent my recent years treading water - working my arms and legs as hard as they'd go, keeping my head above water, keeping my focus on what needs to happen next. Treading water isn't the same as floating - treading water is work. It's a holding pattern, with a distinct subtext of survival in there.

stroke stroke stroke breathe..... stroke stroke stroke breathe...... stroke stroke stroke breathe.

But in recent months I've been.... surfacing. Not working so hard to stay in one place. I've been getting ready to swim: to strike out in new directions with long strong strokes. Turns out the strokes are second nature to me - I haven't forgotten how to do it.

stroke stroke stroke breathe..... stroke stroke stroke breathe...... stroke stroke stroke breathe.

The long brown arm that crooks high above my head and then slices back into the water stops being part of my body and instead beckons as it hovers above me for a second, then propels as it pulls underneath me.  'C'mon - this way!' it says. 'Keep moving' it says 'you'll get there.'

stroke stroke stroke breathe..... stroke stroke stroke breathe...... stroke stroke stroke breathe.

Fifty minutes later I flipped over on my back and floated in the baking August sun. Closed my eyes, pointed my face to the sky, and smiled as I floated. I'm not treading water: these days, I'm swimming.

Wanna Go Deep With Me?

A while back I told you I'd have to explore the meaning behind water's elemental call sometime later, when things cooled off a bit.  Well it's the third week of July, and we're looking at another week of high 90s, high humidity, and I'm still angling to spend the majority of my days in the water.

So I thought maybe we should just dive right in. Ha!  Today I'm guest posting over at Katdish, about an early memory of being alone in the deep water.

Can I just tell you, I'm still hyperventilating a little bit about this, not just because Kathy is a tremendous writer herself, but because she also takes the time to find and really encourage new writers who are just starting to dip their toes in the writing pool.  I was floored and a little overcome by her offer of a guest post, but I was all over it like, well...... like sunscreen on a red-headed toddler.

Random fact:  she was also one of my very first Twitter peeps.  She's on fire on the Twitter machine, let me tell ya.

There's a lot to be said about water, and its profound call to our hearts.  Maybe we'll have to do a little bit of thinking on this in the next few weeks.  Bit of virtual cooling off.

But for now, go on over to Katdish and check out Going Deep - join me in the murky muddy pond water, won't you?

Water. Where Else?

Spent the day in the water today.  Really. THE ENTIRE DAY.

Baltimore came close to breaking ALL TIME RECORDS today for the heat - local experts put the official temp at 104 degrees Farenheit.

I made the executive decision that nothing productive could happen in weather like this.  Oil change?  Forget it.  Laundry?  For another day.  Endless hours on the phone with phone company? Postponed indefinitely.  We had to hit the water, and stay there.

Kicked the day off at 9.45 with swim team for the big kids, and survived that hot 50 minutes by splashing in the already-warm baby pool.  But the minute the all-clear whistle blew for the big pool, Little Miss Two made a bee line for the deep end, and launched herself off the wall bellowing CANNONBALL!!!!!!!!

And so it went, hour after hour.  In the pool, catching one small child, one medium child, one tall child, over and over and over.  Mommy played Dolphin (swimming along the bottom with child hanging on for dear life around my neck.)  Mommy played Tidal Wave (standing firm whilst child tries to drown her with 'giant' splash.)  Mommy watched as the big kids hurled themselves from the diving board, attempting dives and flips and tricks inspired by the hallucinatory heat.

The only food that anyone wanted to eat was watermelon and fresh raspberries.  Peanut butter sandwiches weigh heavy when you need to float on your back in the diving well.  Temperatures above 100 require many doses of freezer pops - homemade AND purchased with our stash of Snack Bar Dimes.

The heat?  Nigh on apocalyptic.  The water? The balm which will stave off the End Times.

The meaning, the metaphorical significance of the elemental, primordial call of water?  It'll have to wait 'til it cools off a bit.