I don't know what made me think about swimming but I spent some time yesterday reminiscing about times in my life I've turned to swimming. Swimming for exercise, swimming for solace, swimming for escape. These days I don't have that much opportunity for swimming although I could - there is a nice big hot springs pool just down the road. Evidently I don't need to swim right at this time.
These are not my photos by the way, so I will give credit when I know who shot it, and if I don't and you see this someday on my blog, please contact me and I will. This particular one is from WikiCommons and is in the public domain.
I learned to swim pretty early in life but didn't really start swimming in earnest until I moved to Oahu after high school. I think I must have taken some classes on teaching swimming since I had a job at a pool as a swimming instructor, and then I started swimming on a master's team. All cause I had a huge crush on some guy. That crush didn't last but the swimming has lasted a very long time.
The solitude of swimming appeals to me and swimming laps is an excellent time to get lost in your thoughts with very few outside distractions. I think that is why I have turned to swimming during the most hectic and stressful times of my life.
Photographer unknown
Paramedic school was one of theose times. I went to learn to be a paramedic in San Diego at the USCD School of Medicine EMSTO program - now long supplanted by some other training facility. It was a fabulously demanding program with great instructors, dedicated classmates and a heavy workload. I lived with my mom during that year and among the many other ways that arrangement helped me emerge successful from the school was the pool where she lived.
The last part of paramedic training is the ride-along (or was, I have no idea how it works now). For two months I rode with 2 other medics on Hartson Ambulance getting grilled in medication dosages and protocol, running calls and calling the shots, getting grilled some more, and learning how to put the classroom knowlege to work in the field. It was demanding to say the least.
I'd get back home after a 24 hour shift, put on my bathing suit and head to the pool. Slipping into the silky water, floating on my back with my ears underwater and the warm sun on my face and that glorious silence all around me, getting into the rhythm of swimming laps... it saved me. It was a perfect release from the intensity of the work.
Photographer: Tim Laman
Maybe it has to do with being born under a fish sign. I love the ocean, too. The salty, sticky, sandy feeling after a day at the beach. Working your toes under the hot sand to the cool, damp sand underneath. Unfortunately I liked roasting under the coastal sun for many years and am paying dearly for that now.
Photographer: unknown
There are and were some amazing bathing facilities around the world... I haven't been able to experience very many of them save the fabulous hot springs around the eastern Sierra. There's a whole history, culture and mystery around those huge pools like the Sutro Baths. What that must have been like to visit!
Photo credit: www.jedroot.com - from Vogue Italia
And then there's fashion - so much fashion around swimming. I could do a whole blog post and more about swimsuits and associated swimwear. Don't you just love these swim caps?
That's it... those are a few of my thoughts on swimming. I don't know why they popped into my head. I haven't been swimming in a long time although I am taking a suit with me this weekend to the graduation. Maybe I'm moving towards another swimming period in my life and this blog will become a watery journal. Maybe not.
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