butterfly

An absolutely delightful swim on an absolutely delightful day….

I am nothing but grateful! Blessed and grateful! This felt easy-peasy, efficient, and extremely enjoyable:

100 short-course yards (breast) (warm-up)

1050 short-course yards (free)

3200 long-course meters (free) (!)

400 long-course meters (breast & free) cool-down

Bright sunshine…84 degrees… and cooling trade breezes keeping the water super comfy….just tooooooo nice to get out of the pool….

I noticed my arms in perfect triangles, my hands entering the water, middle finger first, with each stroke….and I was so happy….my body knows what to do!

Last week, every swim was a challenge….my body was fatigued and felt so heavy, and my mind felt like it was full of cotton cobwebs….

But not today!

I’m learning to anticipate, recognize, adapt to the waves of fatigue…to endure them without complaining or worrying….for then, soon, I will ride atop the waves again….

Mahalo nui loa (thank you very much) to all of you swimmers out there…who swim no matter what…through difficulties and challenges…who inspire me to swim no matter what…

I’ve recently read a book, and have left it out so that I can re-read my favorite parts, entitled, “Einstein & the Art of Mindful Cycling…Achieving Balance in the Modern World” by Ben Irvine…and I’ve really enjoyed this book, for in addition to being a swimmer, I am also a cyclist and who knew that Einstein was a cyclist? He wrote, about his theory of relativity, “I thought of that while riding my bicycle.”

I ride every day…not as much as I did before my diagnosis, and not as much as I once again will….but every day, and my bicycle has long been an appendage…I gave up driving about ten years ago and I am quite lost without a bicycle.

But I find that much of what the author, and Einstein, wrote/thought about bicycling applies just as much to swimming. There is a section in the book called, “Flow Motion” which is completely applicable to swimming. The flow and the rhythm are extremely important to me; I always focus my first few hundred yards or meters on getting into my flow/rhythm, for once I am in a comfortable flow/rhythm, I can swim and swim and swim…almost endlessly.

Unlike on a bike, though, or even in the ocean, in the pool my mind can wander even more freely. There is nothing to distract me: there is no traffic, no traffic lights, no obstacles in my way, no noises, no one talking. It’s just me and the water and my body totally knows what to do! I am completely free!!!

Today, I thought about how for many years, I desperately tried to keep my train on the tracks. Every time my train derailed (divorces, financial disasters, etc.), I cried, felt like a failure, eventually licked my wounds, and then mustered all my strength to get the train back on the tracks (of life….a new husband or relationship, a new job or career, a move to a new home or a new town)...to “get back” to the business of living in the way I’d been conditioned to believe that I “should.”

Until, finally, I stopped. After the final derailment, I decided that I was done trying to get that old, broken-down, dysfunctional train back on those outdated, dysfunctional tracks. I decided that I was ill-equipped, anyways, to be a train conductor. No...more….I walked away from that train wreck. I did not know where to go, without a track, but I wandered away…and I meandered for a while…

And then, I had a brilliant idea! A different mode of transportation! A plane to take me to a completely new environment (where there are no trains or train tracks!)...where I could meander sunny beaches and swim in the warm ocean to my heart’s content while healing and learning and growing in new directions!

And that is what I did….like a butterfly with wet wings newly emerged from a dark chrysalis, I spread my wings and flew to a new place where I now happily flit among many beautiful and colorful flowers which soothe and delight and nurture me.

And I am happy. So very happy.

People tell me that I am strong; I guess I am, because I’ve lived, and I've learned, and I’ve survived....and I've grown...through some very difficult things. I have a strong mind, which my emotions and my body obey. Most of all, Jesus lives in me…and no evil is compatible with Him in me!

Before I was diagnosed with malignant, metastatic, stage four cancer on June 8th, I was truly living my happiest, healthiest, and most grateful life….and I still am!!!!!!!!!!!

I. JUST. KEEP. SWIMMING.