So many of my thoughts of late feel too dark/down/complex to write here, but I miss posting. So will write of something simple that does feel good right now–which is swimming. I haven’t done much swimming at all in many years, but have rediscovered it the last few weeks. Am going to a warm therapy pool–it started as a way to rehab my body, suggested by a friend of mine who is a physical therapist. But it has become hope in fluid form. When I am in the water, I feel possibilities. I experience my body as flowing, and pleasurable and supported in a way I have not in so long. I remember days when I was young spent in and on the lake, the best days physically of my life. To spend an entire day in boat, on raft, in water, in sun, is like no other pleasure I’ve ever known. I was in my element then–literally.

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The pool I go to has huge windows, and sometimes as I paddle across (often I am the only one in the pool)I see nothing but blue sky and big drifting white clouds. It feels surreal–I feel surreal, like I could drift there forever and be ok. I hang on the side and let my body sway and unwiind–

seaweed/jellyfish/anemone/octopus, watching a gull soar through those white clouds I now am flying. Flying/floating become one.
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There are days when two little boys have swimming lessons. They alter the atmosphere completely. Yet I enjoy that in a completely different way. They are like pulsars, little wild bodies of flaming life. Jumping, screaming, laughing, splashing. I’m surprised the water doesn’t sizzle when they jump in. A different species than adults. Does it have to be that way? How do we lose that vibrancy and vividness–they are made up of more water of course too. Are still fluid in a way adults are not. One day I talked to a little girl/mermaid in the locker room. She made me even more fluid, melting my heart. In her little ruffled suit, she twirled around happily singing as her mom got her little brother into his trunks==or attempted to. He was a squiggling squirming mass and just as a leg almost was in it would fly free again. Mom was incredibly patient though–won my admiration. I told the little girl how wonderful her seahorse “tattoo” was. She came up close to me and looked right into my eyes, her own huge and brown and innocent as a fawn, “my MOMMY gave it to me” she said, with such love. What a joy to get to interact even if only for a few minutes with such magic.
I watched the DVD of the Ashes and SNow exhibit last week and once again was moved by fluidity. There is a scene with two dancers underwater in which they flow in around each other in way I have only imagined in dreams and trance states. It brought tears to my eyes to see it brought to life. I told someone I know who is a therapist about it, and about my intense longing as I watched. She characterized it as the longing for the baby state. I think that is a limiting view. And reminded me of a quote from a book I’ve been reading, “How Life Moves”. The authors say that “Emilie Conrad, the creator of Continuum, mentions that Oscar Ichazo said that all search for consciousness is about mother loss. Emilie believes it’s more appropriate to say ‘matrix loss’. In other words we all search for a context big enough that we will feel reassured and at peace.” I feel that is what I long for–and though it may encompass the baby desires, it is much broader than that also.
It doesn’t make “sense” necessarily how important this has become to me. I don’t have words for all I feel when I am in that matrix of water. But my body says it doesn’t care if I have words==it is getting what it wants and needs.

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