Category Archives: swimming

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Swimmers

There were long distance swimmers out going parallel to the shore on my last beach walk. Four of them. Women, because voices carry over the water. Brrr, but wearing wet suits. Good for them, I’m jealous.

I had my big camera with the serious zoom. The swimmers would stop to talk.

swimmers in the sound at North Beach

They don’t look tired or cold or stressed, do they? They were ending their swim back at North Beach.

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look, ma, my feet match!

NO, I did not injure the other foot. But… I couldn’t find a shoe that matches in height and rocker bottom so I was walking funny. Which is bad for the hips and back and all the other joints….

I told my friend that arrived that I needed a boot for the right leg and she had one… in the trunk of her car… that she was going to throw away! WOW!

Feels peeeQueueliar, I do think, but at least the rocker bottoms match. The right leg is a large and I need a medium or hmm, dunno the size but smaller. If anyone has a smaller one lying around….

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broken

I wrote this poem in 2014. Sometimes you know things without knowing them. Or you know them before you are ready to know them and so…. you forget.

broken

I think you said
“Break her.”

And you told them how.

You told them my weaknesses
and my strengths.

You told them that I twisted your words.

You said, “You twist my words.”
K said, “You twist my words.”
S said, “You twist my words.”
Ko said, “You twist my words.”

and on everything2
they, too, twist my words.

Twist
twisted
fisted.

When the outer is charming and perfect
the damage is inside.

I wear my spikes on the outside.


No one, to date, has been allowed more then
visitation rights
inside.

No one except
you
and my children
and all children.

Only they are allowed inside.

Twist
twisted
fisted.

I am broken.

But I was always broken and knew it.

I hope that no one cut their hands
when they tried to smash me.

Pretty on the outside
deadly on the inside.

Yet I think a spark in you said,
“Break her.”

What you didn’t tell them
is that I don’t bother to lie
because no one listens anyhow
no one ever listened
and so I can always tell the truth
until they stop listening.

because they don’t believe me

but you knew

I tell the truth

And I was already broken.

8/22/14

And this should connect to this: https://drkottaway.com/2014/11/

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slippery

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: slippery.

The front rocks at the lake slope down into the water. The rocks are terrifically slick when it first rains.

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They are also slick when we try to step into the lake to swim.

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We invented a new way to get in this year. On the edge of the water, go forward a bit and then…

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slide in….

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the luxury of space

For the Daily Prompt: simplify.

We say we want simpler lives, but do we? The Olympics are starting. I took this at the 2012 National Synchronized Swimming event. It was anything but simple. Teams of eight girls, often with two alternates, with gear and parents and coaches, converging from all over the country. Hours and hours of practice, elaborate swimsuits, music, hair fixed in place for the performance, lifts out of the water.

The front part of the pool is empty. The teams of girls are along the edge, warming up, getting ready for competition. There were over thirty teams. Not simple at all.

Magazines portray houses with a shelf or a table, empty except for a vase and a single book. My books escape their shelves and careen around the house, in spite of my little free library… My house does not look like those magazines, but I love it.

What does simplify mean? For me, it is not the empty surfaces. I admire those but don’t much aspire to them. For me it means spending quiet time every day listening to my heart and doing my inner work.

Blessings.