Rescuing the Dancer

I. Must. Swim.

I have been going to the Quinte Sports and Wellness Centre, with its pools and gym, for some time now.

My friend Carol has started to swim as well, and she is amazing. She walks with a cane and needs to rest, but when she gets in the water, all the pain goes away, and she can breathe, and she is supported, and she can swim multiple laps, one end of the pool to the other. It is very inspiring to watch. And it is very nice to have someone to go with to the pool. I hope to go three times a week.

Last Friday, I did something I have never done before.

I had arrived at the pool with Carol, and I noticed a rather attractive woman in the pool. (Yay prescription swim goggles!) She appeared to be with a family, so I didn’t pay much more attention; I just got in the pool and started to swim a little, gradually dunking my head under and getting used to that. But for some reason, my attention kept being drawn to the deep end and the diving board.

I decided to make my way over there by doing my trademark dogpaddle along the edge of the pool. I remembered going through a waterslide at the West Edmonton Mall and being dropped unexpectedly into a deep plunge pool at the end, the feel of the drop and the bubbles and finding my way back to the surface. So I decided to work my way up to the diving board by first jumping into the pool from the side.

On the way to the deep end, I noticed the attractive woman on the diving board. She jumped in just as I looked. After her were several kids. I thought, “If they can do this, I can do this.” I got to the poolside ladder in the Deep End and pulled myself out, walked along the edge a couple of metres, and turned and looked at the waiting water. It was blue, mobile, and deep. There was nothing else to do. I jumped.

The water was deep. I flailed my arms about and started to rise to the surface–and thanks to the swim goggles, I could look around and orient myself. I surfaced and went back to the ladder. Then another jump.

Then it was time. I got out of the pool again and walked around to the diving board. There were a few steps to go up, and then the board. Railings extended only partway along the board, and then I was at the end. At the end, exposed, in mid-air. I looked down at the water, which was further away.

I hesitated.

There was nothing else to do. I jumped. The splash as I hit the water was the same. I may have gone deeper in; I don’t know. I got a bit of water up my nose. I oriented myself and came to the surface, and started to swim to the left, back towards the ladder. I decided to do it again before I lost my nerve.

Up the ladder, around to the board, out to the end. Jump. Splash. Swim to surface, and back to the ladder. This time I decided to walk back to the other end of the pool, where Carol was. I jumped carefully back in when I got there, but as the pool is only armpit deep on me there, my feet hit the bottom.

To my surprise, Carol was talking to the attractive woman. I said Hi. Carol mentioned that that jump had been her first time off a diving board! I said that her jump had inspired mine. We chatted a little more, and I started to swim back towards the deep end. At this point I lost track of the attractive woman. I think she may have left the pool around then.

Carol swam to the deep end, and I swam through the shallow water, resting at the beginning of the deep end, so that I would have enough stamina to swim across the deep end to the end of the pool near the diving board.

On the end wall of the pool at the deep end, there is a ledge set into the wall a little over a metre below the surface. You can put your feet in it and hang on to the lip of the pool deck, and relax, almost standing in the water. Carol and I rested there and chatted. She was telling me about how to dive, how to arrange my arms in a point above my head, and how the dive means you go in headfirst and water doesn’t go up your nose.

A little while later, I went back to the diving board and almost tried this new way of going in, but ultimately just jumped.

After one has been in the pool a while, the water suddenly goes from feeling comfortable to being just slightly irritating: a little too cold, I’m not sure. But this is a good signal to get out.

We got out and headed over to the smaller pool, which is warmer, shallower, and provided with jets of bubbles on one side. It is called the ‘therapy pool’. It is always crowded with parents and kids. Often there are mothers introducing their adorable little babies to the water.

It’s a good place to relax. We relaxed.

And I had jumped off a diving board for the first time in my life.

Three months in

Here I am after three months of this plan. I was ill for a couple of weeks, so got completely out of the habit of doing anything. However, I continued to swim.

I have noticed that my arms are starting to feel more muscular. I am swimming three times a week, and today (Sunday 7 April), I went ahd did a workout with a personal trainer before swimming.

Prescription swim goggles!

For the first time in my life, I have prescription swim goggles! I will finally be able to see what’s going on (no regular glasses or contacts lenses in the pool), and I won’t need to ask the lifeguard for the time because I can’t read any of the clocks overlooking the pool.

A new week

And now, after a day of rest, I am picking up the pieces. Need to get willpower to exercise and write/draw again. After work…

A frisson of horror

At work yesterday: an attractive process tech is repairing the machine in the next workstation. Someone drops a cloth. I ask, “Is this yours?” She says, “Thanks, sir.”

:: shudder ::

Not only am I unattractive; I am old and unattractive…

Art inspiration

A few days ago, my friend Carol sent me a link to a video, “The Seven Habits of Highly Effective Artists”:

The Seven Habits are, briefly:

1. Daily Work
2. Volume, Not Perfection.
3. Conscious Learning.
4. Steal.
5. Rest.
6. Get Feedback.
7. Create What You Love.

I watched the video on the way to work. It has inspired me. For the past four days, I have been doing an hour of drawing/painting after work each night. It’s pencil, India ink, and watercolour in a new sketchbook of thick multimedia paper.

Of course, there are ulterior motives… Like Andrew in the video, I made a bet. In three months, I will have a draft of my children’s book done and printed to hand around, or I will pay my friends $250.00. ?

A sketchbook page, four days in:

One month in…

This… is me, one month in. Nothing looks different; I am still my same unimpressive self. But I feel different. I have been swimming and doing the upper-body exercises, and at times I feel like I actually have muscle in places!

Sleepiness

I am sleepy. Much of the time.

I generally wake in time to get ready for and go to work, and I come home from work and relax for a little while, and then go to bed, but during the week I don’t do a lot else. I work the afternoon shift: 15:00 to 23:00.

My friend was saying that she eliminates distractions when trying to go to sleep: locking her phone, no reading, etc.

Maybe I should do the same. Then I could wake earlier and do things before going to work. Maybe I will have more energy.

Contacting a trainer

I am hoping to hear from a trainer at the Quinte Sports and Wellness Centre sometime soon, so that I can get more organized about all this.

Looking for Pictures

I’ve been looking through various photographs online, trying to find a good image involving exercise rings for the front of the blog. As I did so, memories of the feel of the gymnastics equipment started to come back to me… the warm textured wood, the way the uneven bars bounced as they took my weight, the climbing bars along the walls of the gym… all these were good things from Physical Education, remembered from age 11 or 12..