Tag Archives: swim

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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.

 

 

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bears

Those aren’t bears! Oh, yes… this is the New Year’s Polar Bear Plunge and these intrepid swimmers are now Polar Bears. The plunge is at noon on Marrowstone Island. A cannon is fired and people jump off the dock and into the water, cold Salish Sound water, in the low fiftys. Brrrr. The ambulance crew stands by and family and friends to witness this transformation into bears for the day.

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brave women

For the Daily Prompt: brave.

I took this in 2010, at a synchronized swim meet. These are very young swimmers, yet each girl is being lifted by three others, who are lifting only by swimming. They may not touch the bottom. It takes enormous amounts of practice and teamwork.

I hope that more women speaking up and saying “Me too” and refusing to tolerate the Weinsteins and all of the others will change the pattern.

Strong girls and brave women.

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dive

I am diving into my Saturday like this turtle, a breath of air and then paddle down into the depths, hi to the local fish and other fauna and look, lovely places to paddle and hide. I am puttering, wondering, not directed, no list, I might wander by and do laundry but some of the day I will just revel in sloth…. I hope you get lazy time, down time, undirected time, unscheduled time, dream time, time to expand and paddle around and float in the sea of dreams…..happy Saturday.

….and I submit this to the Daily Prompt: dignify….

Today I refuse to dignify the type A part of myself with any attention: I am relaxed.

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art and horses

I refuse to take the arrows
refuse to step on the hawser
say yes to Artemis
but by building her a statue
not taking on her role

I am a mere human
not a goddess

Hestia interests me
at first she does not appeal
home fires burn
my home is messy and creative
which is an excuse
to keep people out
only a few people
a select few
may enter

horse because hest
in Danish is horse
but this is Greek
but I play with words
women are the draft horses of the home

I have avoided that
by marrying a house husband
who agreed to stay home
until the kids were old enough
and then to work

he lied

I am not sorry

he’s working now

with my daughter launched
last child
what next?

I see singles
forming couples
marrying and divorcing

Beloved
I love you first
writing poetry
and medicine

and who is my muse?
I am female
and we have none

Gods and Goddesses
alike
I do not want to be held
to one
dedicated
to one

Beloved
you are all
you are one

you are my muse

My daughter looks so comfortable, doesn’t she? She looks as if she is standing quiet.

But I took that with a zoom lens. Really, she is here:

matinenda 2 049

say yes