The Idle Swim

Right now I’m taking a creative writing class (one of three that help me finish up my masters degree this summer).  One of the exercises was to create an “Idle Essay”—or rather, an essay that explores a mundane event with frequent philosophical tangents.  Before writing we studied Thoreau, Woolf, and a few others. Below is my far-from-perfect version.  What better way to jump back into blogging?

 

The Idle Swim

            This is Arizona, and it’s summer.  Each year this season brings sweltering sun.  It also brings a strong desire within its inhabitants to escape the bitterness of the heat.  I find it strange, as an Arizona native, to connect this hellish environment with the imagery produced by popular culture—an image of summer being a glorious blooming of fun and perfect weather.  Today is June 22, so right now we are diving in to the storm, so to speak, a journeying into the inferno.  Mid June means Mid July is knocking on our door and July doesn’t bring wine to a party, she brings fiery blades of sunshine.  What a party girl.

            It’s on this day that I decide my escape shall be the pool.  I will combine both a much needed workout (damn the summer’s association with bikinis) and a welcome respite from the heat.  But, for me, the idea of going to the pool comes with some trepidation.

            I have spent a lifetime in a pool.  Starting to swim competitively at age thirteen, I was bound by talent and the promise of success to see where the road would take me.  Until I was twenty-two, I spent roughly 3-5 hours a day in the pool, year-round, regardless of sun, wind, or rain.  In the end it earned me a scholarship and the title of MVP for a division I, top-25 team.  I might have also gotten a work-ethic out of the deal.  Perhaps I also earned a more acute sense of the boundaries of my body, and the levels I could push myself to both physically and mentally.  I guess I got more than I expected.

When I left the world of swimming, I did so because I was ready for some new adventure to conquer.  Since then, it has been some years since I’ve touched the water—but today it calls my name.  I suit up: latex swim cap, some bad-ass looking goggles (not the kind that make me look like an alien), and a polyester blend suit (it lasts longer than lycra).  I stand on the precipice, ready to jump into the relief that gurgles and splashes below—the lane lines doing a poor job of jailing the water’s impulsive energy.   Here goes nothing.

My initial response to the water is immensely positive.  It’s cool and warm simultaneously and it wraps around my body; the familiarity of it feels like my mother’s arms when she hugs me as I enter my childhood home.  It’s beyond comforting.  My body instinctively, rhythmically sets into its old patterns and I’m off.

It is moments like this that I wonder about past lives, and if the theories are true.  Usually I think it’s a bunch of hooey, but as I slip through the water, grace in motion, I find a sense of peace.  If I did have a past life, it had something to do with water.  Perhaps I was a pirate, or a mermaid, or a fisherman, or an explorer.

I decide to do my first test—and time myself—like old times.  The water expresses my enthusiasm in choppy waves of energy.  I touch the wall, and, and, and then I think “…wait, let me take my goggles off…no, that can’t be right.”  It takes me twenty seconds longer than it did six years ago to swim one-hundred yards of freestyle.  Ouch.

It’s an interesting thing to so intensely feel how far you have fallen from your former glory.  I suspect some people feel it when they look at old photographs and realize they have gained weight or have wrinkles.  These changes are expected.  I was amazing, now I am merely average.  This is what it means to grow old?  Do I still find happiness here?

I finish my workout and as I launch myself from the water onto the scorching deck, I come to an epiphany.  I got what I came here for: a workout and some chill factor.  Another thought tickles my noggin: perhaps we are meant to fall, to become gratifying underachievers.  While this workout carried the pressures of my past, next time I know what to expect, and maybe I’ll even begin to climb the mountain path back toward success.  Or maybe next time, I’ll just sunbathe.

 

The Art of Online Dating

I did it. 

I got myself one of those online dating accounts.  Despite knowing there’s a social stigma attached to online dating, I did it anyway.  This stigma is a thought I don’t understand.  I don’t find ANY shame in online dating.  I mean, how else am I to meet someone?  Most the other teachers are married, so finding someone at work is out—I have primarily female friends, and they’re HOT but not my thing—the other friends are already part of a couple.  I tried the church thing—the result of which was a relationship with a man I affectionately termed “Psycho Christian.”  Ahhh, but that’s another blog.  There are other options I suppose, but none so convenient and cheap (because everything comes down to time and money, doesn’t it?).

Online dating is like living in the dorms in college—it’s one of those experiences you need to have at some point in your life.  It’s not because it’s a good experience, or a bad experience…it’s just something that teaches you a lot about yourself.

I feel like I’m my own little science experiment in this process—I monitor my reactions, my thoughts—as if I wasn’t the one experiencing them.  Sometimes I surprise myself.  After eight hours of working with needy teenagers (who I adore) I come home and see what’s turned up online.  Tired, delusional and under the stress of selling my “best” traits online I sometimes succumb to insanity.  This fortunately (for you) produces some unusual responses to the well-meaning men who message me.  I’ve shared some of the conversations below.  I’ve also begun to categorize types of conversations—see the notes at the beginning of each entry.  Oh, and I’ve changed the screen names to protect the innocent.

Conversation Style #1: The Booty Call

Note: after offroader345 messaged me I checked out his profile.  I was astonished to find that entire thing did not have one, not even one, punctuation mark or capitalized word.  It was a very stream-of-consciousness approach; how modern!

offroader345:

hey can we get know each other a lot more

 Me:

*coyly* are you flirting with me? :0)

I love a man who uses punctuation sparingly.

 offroader345:

Hey can we get know each other a lot more?

 Me:

Adorable.  God, those question marks get me every time ;0)

offroader345:

hey do you have yahoo messenger

Me:

What happened to the question mark?  You really had me interested.

No messenger for me, sorry.

————————————

Conversation Style #2: The Flirt

Note: sometimes I get conversation starters that throw me for a loop.  I don’t know how to respond, so, I usually turn to my friend Sarcasm and then go off in some random direction.

 Azdavidguy:

So how cute is ur tushy?

Me:

It’s really, really, really cute.   It’s so adorable that I had to get it trademarked.  So everywhere I go a little ^TM follows my butt around.  It’s in the process of being registered…so pretty soon a little ® will be tattooed noticeably on the right cheek.  That way no one tries to steal it.

Hugs, Linz

 Azdavidguy:

Why the right cheek is my question?

 Me:

The right is always right ;0)

—————————————————

Conversation Style #3: Keeping It Interesting

Note: Many, many conversations start and end without ever saying anything at all.  In these instances, I choose the path of least resistance—I mirror.

Imaguy222:

Hey

Me:

Hey you.

Imaguy222:

What are you doing?

 Me:

I’m on this dating website called ******.com answering emails with really thrilling people.  You?

 Imaguy222:

Nothing much

Me:

Cool.  Sounds like fun.

Imaguy222:

Yeah.  It is.

Me:

Totally

 Imaguy222:

You wanna come over a play wii?

Me:

Since we’ve built such great rapport, I don’t see why not.

**(I never actually went…btw)

——————————————–

Conversation Style #4: Compliment Her Physical Appearance–That’ll Make Her Notice

Note: Despite my smartass reply, ladiesman followed up his comment with some conversation about my blog—thus he achieved redemption and endeared himself in one fell swoop.

ladiesman:

supercute..

 Me:

Me or you?

—————————————-

So, here’s the moral of the story kids: beyond all this silly business and these conversations that haven’t lead anywhere…in the space between I’ve actually met a few rad people.  Real people with personalities, with charisma, with charm.  And even if nothing ever comes of these conversations, at least they give me hope.  When I shared the idea for this blog with a sage friend she offered some thoughts…and I think they are the best note to end on:  “Only writers or parole officers should do online dating. Good thing you’re a writer; otherwise, you’d be totally unprepared.”  (thank you Kerri :o)

A Review of The Help and My Own Healing

I few weeks ago I finished The Help by Katheryn Stockett.  Since that time the story has stuck in my mind like taffy—twisting and softening and pushing itself into the many nooks and crannies of my life.  I love books like that.

As a female, I have a very profound emotional reaction to literature.  Usually I base how much I like a book on how I “feel” about it.  And though this book, like many before it, was pulling back the curtain on the Civil Rights Movement (usually a very hard topic) I felt uplifted, brightened by its story.  The stories of these women warmed my spirit.

As an English teacher, I can’t help but look at a piece of literature critically.  Though cliché, the rotating perspectives was charming.  The characters are well developed, but fulfill very archetypal roles.  What does have complexity? The relationships.  It’s one of the few novels I’ve read that pushes its plot forward primarily by building stronger connections between its characters, rather than by events or outcomes.  The voices of the three narrators are superb and identifiable to most women.  Minny is all sassafras and determination—but she’s weak too, in her relationship with her husband.  Aibileen is tried and true—she is wise and strong and practical.  She carries herself with humble dignity.  I love her.  Then there’s Skeeter.  She’s complex and real.  I want to be her friend.  Be warned that this novel is typical “southern” literature—it meanders.  So don’t expect to get to a punch line in any kind of a hurry.

**********

            This book is healing.  It soothes, despite conquering some heavy stuff.  This week a former student of mine took his life.  It’s the first time I’ve met this situation, though many of my compatriots have been here before—some, unfortunately, many times before. Upon finding out this news I lost myself, and I found Aibileen.  I forget, sometimes, how important my students are to my being—how connected to them I become—like Aibileen to her white babies.

I want to take each of them into my arms, these children born to other women, and I want to rock them back and forth.  I want to whisper into their ears, “You are good.  You are kind.  You are smart.”  I want to repeat this until it embeds itself into their souls.  I want them all to realize that each day they remind me of optimism, and the luster of youth, and how to live unbroken.