Category Archives: synchronized swimming

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Any day now

any day now

I will be going going to the lake to the rocks to the place I went to when I was five months and in the womb too

any day now

no electricity and the cell phones don’t work we filter the lake water now as the coliform count rises but still the water I taste it and memories rise like fish like turtles like lake trout from the depths my sister wants her ashes there but no worries there are bits of all our skin my uncles ashes were scattered there last time I went I burned a little of my hair my father’s hair my daughter’s hair my son’s hair so that our ashes would be there too

any day now

forwarded email as I’ve left the cousin email in protest of the emails about my father’s will circulating behind my back the propane delivery has closed down and we must go out of Blind River for propane the 100 pound tanks have to be carried upright which makes the rental car more of a challenge we used to get 60 pound tanks but they are harder to replace we are all always getting older

any day now

my cell used to work on one cabin porch when it was overcast but that was tmobile and I have another now so probably it won’t work and we are all still broken in the aftermath of my sister I will look in the cabin and donate all the shoes that none of us will every wear hers her daughter’s her husband’s that cabin is a castle a monument of dreams and I have not been there for three years and I hear the roof is going we don’t have enough money or cooperation I thought the Trust we fail at that by the way was 30 years but it is 40 and we are now half way and I am thinking about how to handle it

any day now

because I love this land this lake and I will not give it up oh Beloved help us heal

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Ox outside the box

X in Ox for the Blogging from A to Z.

I am still thinking about my dream about refusing to pick a box or stay in a box. They weren’t comfortable and I did not fit. So this morning I thought about the Chinese year of the Ox, my birth year. I am a Metal Ox, or Ox in the Sea. I knew that there is an Ox outside the Gate, and that brought up Ox outside the box, so I read on line about the different Ox years.There are 60 years of cycles and so five of each Chinese animal year. My daughter is also an Ox, but she is a Fire Ox, Ox on the Way. Each of the 60 has different characteristics and different patterns.

I am surprised to be Metal, but I like to be in the sea. I love the water and I dream of water. My daughter has spent more time in the water, as a synchronized swimmer and swim team member, but I love the sea. I love living near the Salish Sea and the coast as well.

The photograph is from the National Junior Synchronized Swimming competition in 2009 in Federal Way, Washington. This team is practicing a beautiful lift. They are wearing caps and goggles, so this is a practice, not the competition itself. In the competition they will have make up, some sort of sequinned head piece and no goggles….

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Water

W for water in the Blogging from A to Z.

Water, water, water. After my mother died of ovarian cancer in 2000, I went to therapy in 2002. I dreamed of water, over and over again.

The photograph is from the 2009 National Junior Synchronized Swimming Competition, in Federal Way, Washington. Cameras with removable zoom lenses were not allowed. There was a professional photographer. I had an electronic camera given to me by my father, with a formidable built in zoom. Synchro is difficult to photograph because they are in the middle of the pool and they are under water at least half the time. I had been practicing taking pictures of my daughter’s intermediate level team and would time the electronic delay to try to catch lifts.

We were at the Junior Nationals volunteering to help. This earned our team points for the northwest district and it takes many volunteers to run the contests.

This is an eight person Junior team at Nationals and six of them are under water. They are not allowed to push off from the bottom. They all have to be in position to do the lift and the person lifted has to be strong and balanced and ready. Two people are being lifted here: the woman below supporting the woman above and in turn, being supported and lifted by the rest of the team. I chose this photo because of the strength, athleticism, balance and teamwork. The team members swim so closely together that they kick and scratch each other. Or fall on each other in a lift. I want all humanity to have this kind of teamwork and lift each other.

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Open

O for open: open water and open heart, for the Blogging from A to Z Challenge.

I kept thinking O for ocean, but the photos that I want to use are not of the ocean but of a lake. My daughter and I were there in 2012. She was a synchronized swimmer for seven years and then joined swim team in eighth grade. We went to the lake and she practiced distance swimming. She is used to a 1950s 20 yard pool. She started at the lake by swimming to a little island we call Kidnap Island. I canoed while she swam, and my cousin’s daughter came along on the first trip. They left the lake soon after that. My daughter swam farther and farther every day, with me in a canoe to ensure that no power boat would run her over.

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We were on our way to the parking lot one day, when a power boat slowed. “Long way out, aren’t you? All alone?” said one of the men. I was in a small one person canoe that only weighs 18 pounds and is really tippy. I wouldn’t take it out in any sort of nasty weather.

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“No, I am with my daughter.” I pointed to the water.

“She’s swimming? Where did you start?” he said.

I pointed back to our cabin. Far enough that he couldn’t see it.

“Really? She swam that far?” He and his friend watched my daughter power along.

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“Yes. Swim team.”

“Is she swimming to the parking lot?” The cars were still really distant.

“Yes and probably back, too.”

“Wow. I thought it was a long way for a canoe!”Β  They drove on, shaking their heads.

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Open water and open heart. It takes practice to swim that far. I swim about two days a week, about a mile in the pool. My daughter shakes her head: the swim team swims three to five miles at each practice, and she swims six days a week in the season. She considers me a wuss. I consider her a calorie burning machine.

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It takes practice to keep an open heart. That is what I need in my rural family medicine clinic. An open heart allows space and expansion and time for people to open up. To say things that are bothering them or frightening them or grieving them. I am back at work now for two weeks, but by the end of the day yesterday, I was tired, tired, tired, as if I had swum across that lake. I need to rest sometimes…..

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Lift blur

This is for the daily post photo challenge “Blur”. I took this photo at the National Junior Synchronized Swimming Competition in 2009. This is a team of 8 practicing before the final competition. Six girls are under water doing the lift and the girl doing the flip is lifted to launch into a flip off of the other girl’s shoulders. My daughter did synchronized swimming from age 7 to age 14. She said that they kicked each other all the time, because the tighter the formation, the higher the score. Synchronized swimming has Olympic scoring right from the beginner stage. These Juniors score in the 6.0 to 8.0 range.

I photographed with a zoom lens and an electronic camera. Because of the delay, at first I mostly had pictures of disturbed water. It took quite a bit of practice to be able to anticipate and time the shot.

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Lift

I am writing this for both Weird Image Wednesday and for Ronovan’s BeWoW.. Be Wonderful Wednesday. The image is from 2010 from a synchronized swim meet in Washington State. The girls do the lift from under water, and they are not allowed to touch bottom. They do the lift with their swimming skills. This team is very young and probably novices, so the girls lifting have their heads out of the water. As they get older, stronger and more skilled, the lifters would do all the lifting from under the water, holding their breath. I have seen girls lifted out to their feet in more experienced teams. Everyone has to be in the right position under the water and the person lifted has to have the core strength to stay straight or stay in their split during the lift.

Isn’t that wonderful and amazing?

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Teamwork

The photo is of a synchronized swim trio.

Only one swimmer is really visible. She is being lifted by the other two. They are not allowed to touch to bottom at all. It is all done lifting their own or each other’s bodies out of the water by swimming.

Sychronized swimming is a shrinking sport in the United States, because it is such hard work. My daughter started at age seven and had to swim three laps. She made it one length and then had to hold on to the lane divider to rest during the rest of the laps. She went under three separate times during that first practice. I nearly jumped the divider all three times, but she came up each time.

“How was it?” I asked when she got out.

“I nearly drowned three times.” she said, stomping past me in a rage.

She says that she hated it for the first year and that I made her keep going. If I did, I would feel guilty, except that she loved it so much after that. Seven years of synchronized swimming, until our very small town team folded, and then swim team. She is now a junior. What she wants most in college is to continue to swim on a team.

Back to the photo. To be lifted straight out of the water that far, you must be in the right position, you must have very good core strength, and your two partners must be in the right position underwater and lift correctly. You must practice and practice and practice and practice.

And you do this in time to music.

We need to work as a team in the world to deal with infection, to deal with ebola, to work together. My daughter loved synchronized swimming because it is so challenging and because it is above all, teamwork.