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Michael considered fate at 00:33   |   Permalink   |   Post a Comment

when i was young - really young, so little that not only did i not know how to swim but i didn't know i didn't know how to swim - i still loved the water. we lived near a local watering hole back then, one of the pond variety with a dammed stream nearby, not some sort of public swimming pool. we'd go down on what seemed like random days but now i know enough to assume it must have been the weekends. i don't think i was ever big enough then for swimming lessons so, while my sister got to partake, i did not. my mother told me i would keep busy splashing around in the shallows of the beach doing what most toddlers do in the water, which is to say, doing what most adults do in the water too, except for those silly 'competitive' types - reveling about, splashing, and generally having a grand old time.

it wasn't until later, when we lived in the city, that i finally started in on the swimming lessons proper. by this point i had grown up near a pond, spending time at my grandparents lake, and now.. now they wanted me to swim in this.. this pool. i wasn't a retarded kid or anything, i got the concept. revelling and splashing and generally having a good time indoors, right? riight.. except there were lanes. little plastic and rubber floatation devices splitting the surface of the water into big strips. there were straight lines on the bottom of the pool, too, and marks around the edges. and it was in the shape of a big rectangle. i immediately smelt that something was up and i didn't like it. the whole place was humid and smelled of horrible chemical aroma. there were loud noises and echoes everywhere. this, i thought, was no place for quiet reflection or revelery of the sort i was interested in.

nevertheless i did want to know how to swim. i was too young to really understand then what it was that i hated about the place, how the chlorine bothered my eyes and made my hair squeak afterwards while i was drying off, and how the thick air was like a sauna - not refreshing but stifling. i showed up and put my trunks on in a strange place, a big room with rows of metal lockers. as i changed old men were walking around with their guts hanging out and the place smelled like a bad gym sock. when i came out into the pool area i learned that i was a guppy and i met my instructor. i don't have a whole lot of memory of the experience but i'm told that the first excercise was to find out how well each of us could swim. one by one we were asked to jump off the diving board at the deep end of the pool. knowing my limits, i was nonplussed by this idea. regardless, i was coaxed onto the plank and slowly shuffled out to the end of it. the instructor followed me and tried to encourage me by saying that he was "still there". this did nothing for my confidence. when i had finally reached the limits of what the board could do for me to keep me planted on my feet (for my toes were hanging off at this point) i was told to jump and go for it!. i backed off.

i cannot say how long this went on but it is clear that the instructor, at some point, reached the end of his own diving board, so to speak, for he pushed me from behind and off into the great beyond i went. at first i hovered ever so briefly in mid-air, a surprised and horrified expression no doubt plastered on my face like some sort of gory edvard munch painting. then, as is inevitable when dealing with the law of gravity, I began to fall. and with this falling came a certain amount of flailing of the limbs, a flaring of the nostrils, and a general sense of fear and foreboding that, if they existed before, were now amplified to extreme proportions. it is much more normal for me now, when in this type of situation, to stop and compose myself, calm down, and allay the fears within for - far be it from me to suggest otherwise, knowing the strife and struggles of others and my relatively simple and satisfying position in this world - life is peachy keen and fear is for suckers. normally i would check myself and apply measured logic to the apprehension and anxiety within. i would carefully examine the validity of such concerns and only if found to be legit would i allow these feelings to continue. however, at this particular juncture in our story, i was far too busy sinking "like a rock", as the saying - ever poetic - goes. when i hit the surface my limbs churned through the water like a racing propeller, pulling me farther into the depths. my eyes, wide open, stung with chlorine and all i could see were millions of tiny little air bubbles in various shapes and sizes. they seemed to be laughing at me.

how i sunk straight to the bottom is an interesting question indeed. to this day, as good a swimmer as i am (and i do fancy myself fairly adept) i cannot sit in a puddle or pond or pool, and just sink. perhaps fat truly does float and far too much has been stuffed between my ears since those days as a young lad. perhaps i am, as the zen buddhist slyly says, i am thinking about it way too hard. which ever it may be, at that time i sunk like a stone and so i was when i returned to dry land. like a stone i ignored all encouragement to return to the swimming lessons. like a stone i resisted treat upon trophy, promises of candy bars and ice cream, and everything else a small kid might be convinced with. i simply would not go back.

was it one too many seconds of life and death contemplation at the bottom of that pool? was it a distaste for the unsympathetic instructor who pushed me into the deep? was it my own invalid fears of unworthiness towards the water? we may never know the answers to these questions as these thoughts are locked in the mind of a small child who is no longer with us; has, in fact, gone and grown himself up into an adult and left such questions unanswered.

so ever since i've had a particular dislike for chlorinated water, blue tiles, and silly colored rings that sink when you toss them in the deep end. what the hell is that about? i dislike the long scooping net used for insects and other floating debris and i hate the tepid sitting water, day in and day out, unmoving like no other water on earth not even a bog. i am a lake man through and through, the ocean - as grand as it is to stretch your eyes upon - is salted and sours my swimming experience. ponds are mucky and fetid (though will do in a pinch) and so it is that i am a lake man, through and through.

photo (and indeed topic) grokkked from px

it is these memories of lakes that give me true pause and reflection. hanging over the side of a row boat or a canoe, floating practicly in the middle of nowhere just to float in the middle of nowhere just to look down into the shallow water at nothing in the middle of nowhere. watching the little water bugs blip across the surface, the small canoe-like underwater strokers, and the spiders descending with tiny bubbles of air attached to their backs. poking at sticks and tree trunks piled up in beaver dams, climbing over the rocks and through the weeds, pushing through pussy willows and cat-o-nine-tails, sludging hip-high across a pete moss praire. these are the things I remember doing with water, that most eloquent elixir of life, the mead of mother earth that beats all wine and beers, the universe's dillution in every solution, the galaxy's clear and delicious cocktail to best every champagne.

swimming underwater for as long as i can stand it is my favourite pastime of all, perhaps, and i've spent plenty of hours walking the muddy bottom with heavy stone in hand, bouncing like an astronaut on a moonscape with the gravity slowed down. underneath the world of air and atmosphere in the thick liquid medium of H2O things are slow and soothing. i may not meditate but i certainly enjoy my time down there.

this, i think, is one of the more saddening steps that i take every autumn, as the weather grows colder and i must turn away from the reality and turn to reminiscing of lakes and ponds, insects, mud and clay, and water.. it is perhaps partly what brought about the previous post of whining about the status quo, perhaps apropros to put these two together. regardless, it is water that i was thinking of today. lakes i have been to, rivers i have lived on, streams i have fished, and brooks i have heard babble. water in it's many flowing forms.. lots and lots of water.