freestyle for (a) change...
Ok. So it seems that everyone I know (or almost everyone) is going through massive meltdowns. Even people I don't know. Cynicism abounds and hope seems to be flickering its last dying embers. Why? Well, I know for me the outcome of the elections, really the knowing just before, was a bit of a turning point. For months before we had all been so full of hope and possibility, believing that turnout to affected documentaries actually meant people cared enough to make a difference. We were all so liberal and proud of ourselves. We were going to change the course of history. Only we didn't. Was there cheating involved? Maybe? Was there unfair use of unlimited (and mostly stolen from the poor) funds? Sure. But we all knew that beforehand, so why didn't we prepare? Why is it that only now, after the fact, are people concerned about the monopoly on electronic paperless vote-counting machines? Would it have made a difference? I am guessing that the answer is "no", nevertheless, we all just seem to keep spinning the wheels, stuck in the mud, splattering all that hover around us wondering, "what the f--- is wrong with her (him, it)?"
So. That's one possibility. But the kinds of miserable depression and crisis that are attacking are actually mostly of a more personal nature. Not one day in the last week has passed without someone recounting a close-to-home account of someone's marriage falling apart, one partner stealing everything from the other, multiple families/lives, broken promises, dreams etc. Is there really more of it at this time of year? Is it just this year? I don't know. I think that maybe as the cycle closes we have higher expectations for the goodness of people. After all, we have all these futile constructions, "holidays" in which we are all supposed to be just a little bit happier, and really we are mostly just a little bit sadder. You can't possibly be alone for the season, but then, what if being alone is really the only thing that you want? You are a party-pooper, a scrooge, a miser. Therefore we all go into it, to some degree. Maybe only to add a little magic to your children's lives or to not estrange your spouse's families, or to not have the boss hate you or to not be the hated boss. We (well, not me, but I'll take cultural liberties) kill massive amounts of living, green, life-breathing trees in order t o create fire-hazards in our homes for what? So that we can say that we believe in something? Or to fill our houses with scents from time of yore? Perhaps.
Don't get me wrong. I loved visiting friends and watching the toy trains run around in endless circles, with hot cocoa and spiced cider and nuts to be cracked. I even remember one year that my friend Ben and I absconded with all the almonds from all the nut bowls and cracked them until our hands were raw, and then dipped them in melted chocolate that was left over from the chocolate house molds. Those were good times. But I wonder how they felt for Edie, Ben's mom, the years that she was alone with the kids, I wonder how it must have been... Probably every bit as depressing as the Pennsylvania mid-winter always promises to be.
What, then, do I propose? I say fuck it. I am tired of ennui (ha - tired of it - how silopsistic of me). So I just remembered why I am here in So Cal... so I can go outside and do shit and not freeze of my tuchus...I say we all stop wallowing and just start moving... aimlessly perhaps, at first... but then the motion begins to take on its own purpose. There is no such thing as good or bad, there just is, in the moving, cutting through water or air...
Today I started swimming again. Oh it felt so good to glide through the water and lose myself in the controlled breathing. I remember the summers chasing Chris Daly, his freckled back teasing me, taunting me to move just a little bit faster. His bleached smile, and blond head, and then together off to diving practice, the blue board scratchy under our feet, shivering in the early spring and basking in the glory of mid-summer. The conquering of fear as I dove in towards the board. I never did hit my head, just my heels once or twice. Reverse dives, arching in swan-like beauty backwards into a perfect splash-less entry. This is what I want to retrieve, this is how I plan to change the world, at least my world. Now, I don't propose that massive trips to the local gym are going to solve the problems of corrupt governments and the impossibility of human relations, but being an active agent, and not wallowing in self pity... well there can't be anything bad about that.
Let us observe the only stumbling blocks for my one-woman regimen...
The Pros and Cons of buddyless swimming (being an active agent sometime means doing things by yourself, a skill which I seem to have lost over the years but am slowlly recuperating)
Pros:
1) No one to mock my horrificly poor form
2) No need to share a lane (necessarily - see cons)
3) No one to see as my breast slides shamelessly out of my suit because the shoulder slips off (must use racing suit from now on)
Cons:
1) No one to keep me honest (I was totally done after only about 1000m - pathetic, but tomorrow I will do at least 1500m and so forth)
2) No one to fill up lane so that unwanted lane sharer feels free to share
3) No one to set the pace or push me...
It is a fifty-fifty split so, unless things change, I guess I am swimming buddy-free for now. Ah yes. There is one more con... no one to be in the shower with me as I de-chlorify;)
Yes. Get out and forget that we are supposed to be happy, free-style it, and just be happy dammit.
So. That's one possibility. But the kinds of miserable depression and crisis that are attacking are actually mostly of a more personal nature. Not one day in the last week has passed without someone recounting a close-to-home account of someone's marriage falling apart, one partner stealing everything from the other, multiple families/lives, broken promises, dreams etc. Is there really more of it at this time of year? Is it just this year? I don't know. I think that maybe as the cycle closes we have higher expectations for the goodness of people. After all, we have all these futile constructions, "holidays" in which we are all supposed to be just a little bit happier, and really we are mostly just a little bit sadder. You can't possibly be alone for the season, but then, what if being alone is really the only thing that you want? You are a party-pooper, a scrooge, a miser. Therefore we all go into it, to some degree. Maybe only to add a little magic to your children's lives or to not estrange your spouse's families, or to not have the boss hate you or to not be the hated boss. We (well, not me, but I'll take cultural liberties) kill massive amounts of living, green, life-breathing trees in order t o create fire-hazards in our homes for what? So that we can say that we believe in something? Or to fill our houses with scents from time of yore? Perhaps.
Don't get me wrong. I loved visiting friends and watching the toy trains run around in endless circles, with hot cocoa and spiced cider and nuts to be cracked. I even remember one year that my friend Ben and I absconded with all the almonds from all the nut bowls and cracked them until our hands were raw, and then dipped them in melted chocolate that was left over from the chocolate house molds. Those were good times. But I wonder how they felt for Edie, Ben's mom, the years that she was alone with the kids, I wonder how it must have been... Probably every bit as depressing as the Pennsylvania mid-winter always promises to be.
What, then, do I propose? I say fuck it. I am tired of ennui (ha - tired of it - how silopsistic of me). So I just remembered why I am here in So Cal... so I can go outside and do shit and not freeze of my tuchus...I say we all stop wallowing and just start moving... aimlessly perhaps, at first... but then the motion begins to take on its own purpose. There is no such thing as good or bad, there just is, in the moving, cutting through water or air...
Today I started swimming again. Oh it felt so good to glide through the water and lose myself in the controlled breathing. I remember the summers chasing Chris Daly, his freckled back teasing me, taunting me to move just a little bit faster. His bleached smile, and blond head, and then together off to diving practice, the blue board scratchy under our feet, shivering in the early spring and basking in the glory of mid-summer. The conquering of fear as I dove in towards the board. I never did hit my head, just my heels once or twice. Reverse dives, arching in swan-like beauty backwards into a perfect splash-less entry. This is what I want to retrieve, this is how I plan to change the world, at least my world. Now, I don't propose that massive trips to the local gym are going to solve the problems of corrupt governments and the impossibility of human relations, but being an active agent, and not wallowing in self pity... well there can't be anything bad about that.
Let us observe the only stumbling blocks for my one-woman regimen...
The Pros and Cons of buddyless swimming (being an active agent sometime means doing things by yourself, a skill which I seem to have lost over the years but am slowlly recuperating)
Pros:
1) No one to mock my horrificly poor form
2) No need to share a lane (necessarily - see cons)
3) No one to see as my breast slides shamelessly out of my suit because the shoulder slips off (must use racing suit from now on)
Cons:
1) No one to keep me honest (I was totally done after only about 1000m - pathetic, but tomorrow I will do at least 1500m and so forth)
2) No one to fill up lane so that unwanted lane sharer feels free to share
3) No one to set the pace or push me...
It is a fifty-fifty split so, unless things change, I guess I am swimming buddy-free for now. Ah yes. There is one more con... no one to be in the shower with me as I de-chlorify;)
Yes. Get out and forget that we are supposed to be happy, free-style it, and just be happy dammit.
posted by ilana at 6:53 p.m.
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