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The
Esther Williams
Million Dollar Mermaid Guide
To
Fin
Fitness...
Picture this.
A giant oyster shell in the middle of a
pool slowly opens, yawning wide and there inside, a woman, in a floral
swim cap and a passionately pink swimsuit, emerges, poised as a
ballerina, just like the one that twirls in the center of a vintage
jewelry box. Behind her, billowing clouds, and three enormous water
slides. Standing astride the slides are rows of men waving banners. In
the middle of the slides, women ride down down down on their bellies
into the pool below. Soon after, the men follow.
Boom! A puff of bright red smoke atop the
largest, the middlemost slide. Esther poses at the top and standing
completely upright, arms overhead, slides down and dives into the pool.
Moments later, she breaks the surface of the water, her red lipstick
smile, a grin. A ring descends from overhead. Esther grabs the ring and
rises up over the water below. The camera pans to the swimmers below,
their feet and legs outstretched, toes touching in the shape of a water
lily.
Lights and flashes and colored fountains. Esther does not swim, she dances in the pool surrounded by the synchronicity of perfectly timed perfectly placed underwater pirouettes.
Moving in for her close-up,
Esther blows a kiss and sinks beneath the blue.
Sitting here watching her video on You
Tube, I am back in the pool. The day I learned to tread water. Took my
first stroke. Pulled on my ruffled cap and circled my hands in the air,
left, then right, all the way across the pool. I learned to scull and to
twirl. To lie on my back and to bend one knee, sink below the surface
and rise back up with my leg fully extended. I practiced until I could
lie flat on my back and arch underwater making a full and complete
circle ending up exactly where I started.
Synchronized swimming. I wanted to do that. I wanted to be Esther. Smooth as silk, a water nymph, amid the cascading fountains.
I wasn't good enough.
I couldn't hold my breath long enough.
I get a little panicky in the deep end of the pool.
To be honest, I didn't want to be in the
middle of a big production number. I'm kind of shy. More of a minnow
than a shark. I like to splash and kick and cannonball off the edge.
But, I am like Esther. I love the water.
The ocean, the lake, the river, the stream, the pool.
I love to snorkel and float and wade.
I believe that in another life I was a fish.
In my next life, I would love to be a whale.
When I swim I am not thinking.
When I swim, I am a fish.
A back and forth fish.
Back and forth.
Forth and back.
Through the water.
Stroke after stroke.
Kick after kick.
Breath after breath.
Gill breathing.
In rhythm.
In perfect rhythm.
With myself.
I am at peace.
I am "The Minnow"
A Not-Yet-A-Yeti...
Auditioning for the Yard Yeti Synchronized Swim Team...
And holding my breath...
In the deep end of the pool...
I believe Esther Williams was a Yard Yeti Woman.
I still want to be just like her.
Thursday, July 18, 2013
I
Am
Turning
Into
A
Puddle...
Picture me with the back of my wrist pressed against
my forehead, my high necked and severely starched Victorian collar
fastened tightly about my throat with a carved cameo brooch. My dress
has long sleeves with ruffles at the wrists, is cinched at the waist and
the hem drags in the dust as I walk. Underneath, I am wearing a chemise
and a whale bone corset that starts under my armpits and ends at the
tip of my tailbone. I have on six layered crinolines and as I am about
to run some errands and will be in the public eye, I have added a wide
swinging hoop under my skirt. I have on woolen stockings and leather
boots that lace up past my ankles. It is 98 degrees in the shade, and I
am wearing a hat that ties under my chin, my gloves buttoned at the
wrist.
The Summer of 1865. How did we women ever survive?
In deference to the men in the audience, scratchy one
piece body hugging union suits, in the days before boxers or briefs,
make me feel sweaty and not in a come-hither-oh-sweet-rose sort of
way. There is definitely a certain smell that comes to mind, but it is
not that of swarthy strapping men about to sweep me off my feet. It's
more like the smell of my two boys after three hours of football
practice in full pads or in the basement after six hours of video games
and beef jerky. Ick.
My guess is that everyone, back in the old days,
smelled so disgustingly awful, felt so incredibly sticky and icky, that
instead of being inventive and creating a new line of fashion, or
perhaps a military-grade anti-perspirant, some enterprising and
unhelpful snob suggested a lilac scented hankie to sniff. Thanks ever so much.
Summer of 1865. Some of my ancestors must have survived, 'cause in the Summer of 1965, I was alive. Hot and sweaty and truth be told, a little stinky too.
Summer of 2013, ninety-eight degrees outside and I am
sitting here in a tank top and shorts, sipping an extra large Diet Coke
with lots and lots of ice, inside my air conditioned studio, gazing out
the window and reminiscing. I was out today. I really was. Out
in the soup, the humidity, braving the temperatures as I ran the fifty
steps from the air cooled Subway Shop to my car. I got a little sweaty
waiting for the a/c to kick in, and later I will go out and water my
plants when it cools off a bit, say around midnight.
I admit it. I am a weenie. I melt in the heat. I
become a puddle. I have evolved into a hot house flower and I am not
proud of it. No, that's not true. What IS true is that as we age, we
tolerate cold even less than the heat. Why do you think your
grandparents or perhaps your PARENT'S house feels like an Indian sweat
lodge in February? I actually enjoy the heat. I love to go outside in
the summer to work in the garden. I love to get hot and sweaty and muddy
and dirty. I like the feel of the sun on my bare shoulders and the
grass in between my toes. But, it is a different era, and I am
a different age, and too much sun means skin cancer, so eventually, I
have to stop playing and hold the hose over my head until I am a sopping
mess, and retreat indoors.
But...those were the days, my friends. Those were the days.
The Summer of '65.
The days of baby oil and iodine, rubbed into our
young bodies stretched out on the deck of the local pool. Sunburned and
sore and peeling. Back when air conditioning was a gift for the
privileged. Most of us, at least in my sweaty neck of the woods,
survived without it. Farmers farmed. Truckers trucked. Builders built.
Pavers paved. In the heat of the sun. Commuters rode on buses and trains
and in cars with the windows rolled down and the hot air swirling. Kids
rode their bikes and children walked side by side.
How did we survive?
Like the Victorian ladies and gents, I think we
survived because we just didn't know any better, and like the boys in my
basement chawing on jerky, once we all got in the same boat, we all
smelled pretty much the same. Perspiration, the sweat of one's brow, is
the great leveler of pomposity and fancy hankie wavers.
The past, in retrospect, always seems easier.
Comforting. The memories of the Summer of '65 are, like the temperatures
of those long gone august days, warm to the touch.
We slept with the windows open, our bodies fidgeting
on top of the sheets. In the worst of the wee hours of the hottest
nights, we snuck out onto the back porch of our apartment and fought
over who got to sleep in the hammock. Sleeping outside I felt safe, as I
could turn my head and see my neighbors rocking on their porches, or
hear their snoring sing across the sultry air.
During the day, we played hours of baseball and tag
under the shade of the trees in the park. The tennis courts idled in the
heat, so we dragged out our beat up racquets and banged balls into the
net and at each other. Tennis, dodge-ball style. By noon, into our swim
trunks and out on the grass making water balloons to lob at one another.
We rarely stopped to eat as there is truth to the rumor, that sometimes
it was just too hot to eat. But, for a quarter, we could
saunter down the alley to the grocer, slide an icy eight ounce bottle of
Coke out of the big red cooler and snap the cap with a church key. I
can still taste it. That first chilled swallow.
At night, outdoor barbecues, and Little League games
under the lights. Long slow walks, conversation and easy laughs. If you
were good and if you were lucky, the pot of gold, at the end of the
road.
Ice Cream!
Double decker chocolate fudge ripple atop a waffle
cone. The bell tingling as the door swung open. The rows and rows of
cardboard tubs under glass. Orange sherbet. Praline. Carmel Swirl.
Vanilla. Chocolate. Strawberry. Chocolate Chip and more. The napkin
wrapped around the cone and the slow meander toward home. Licking
furiously, as the ice cream dripped down the side and onto already
sticky fingers. Avoiding the cracks in the sidewalk, listening to
cicadas chirp, heat lightning zig zagging across the sky overhead.
Finally, the best memory of all.
Tucking my hand into my father's hand, nudging up against my Mom and watching my older brothers poking each other up ahead.
The Summer of '65.
It was mighty mighty hot.
And so very good to be alive.
Thursday, July 11, 2013
Reflections
From
The
Water
Garden
Can Be
Damaging To Your Health...
A mythical tale handed down over time. The parable of unrequited love and a karmic solution. Echo, a delicate woodland nymph worshipped the stunningly beautiful Narcissus from afar. Deep in the woods her tiny voice spoke his name, filled with hope and aspiration. Narcissus, turned his back and filled with contempt, left her to wither until all that was left was a shimmery echo trilling through the trees.
Narcissus needed no one. Respected no one. Cared only for himself. Narcissus was more than a brat. He was arrogant and capable only of self-love. His perspective focused inward until the fateful day he caught his reflection in a pool. There, an image, floated on the shimmer of the water, so lovely, so beautiful, he reached out for the first time and for the last. He fell into the pool and drowned.
Echo lives on in caves and woodlands and mountain valleys, her voice a gentle reminder that yes, yes I hear you. Yes, yes I receive you. And yes, yes, I return your love to you.
Narcissus lives on as a beautiful white flower bobbing on the surface of the pond. A flower gazed upon, commented on, held in hand and admired for its beauty. A vision. A vision to be seen. A love too late returned.
A myth? No, perhaps a truth.
People do what they want to do.
We do not change them. We cannot.
People change only when what they do doesn't work anymore, and sometimes, sadly, not even then.
I believe this is what I like to call second chances.
Or perhaps you call it karma.
I like to think of it as a change of perspective. A turning inside out. Stepping away from the mirror where we see ourselves as we think we are, and meeting ourselves out in the world where others see us for who we are.
Perspective.
My how things change.
When the world turns upside down.
When seas rise up, when tornadoes crash through town, when earthquakes shake, when floods deluge and the drought dries us out.
We emerge from the rubble, dust ourselves off and reach out a hand.
The doers do.
But what about those frail few, who know
not their neighbors, barely acknowledge the folks behind them in line,
those who must be first, must know best, must be right, those who stand
at the edge of the reflecting pool and only see themselves, their point
of view, their perspective from above.
The world is not fair. It is not fair that
the crass, the self-indulged, the critical, nasty, snarky, smug,
cynical snobs inherit the earth.
Revenge. Yes, that's the ticket.
Even the score.
Settle the bet.
Lay them flat.
No. No. No, I whisper from the middle of the glen.
And the Echo returns to me.
No. No. No.
The voice of love travels wide and far,
down every path and every winding road,
until even the most sorrowful and lost soul lifts its head to hear.
Forgive and forget.
Forget and forgive.
...Fifi Forget-Me-Not...
The Yard Yeti Gardeners Tale Continues
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