Isn’t swimming just the stuff?
I had e-junkie classmates in high school, who, at the peak of getting high would jump into the swimming pool, disregarding any consequence and danger of drowning.
“That’s insane,” I told one of them. “What if you drown?”
(Of course I was a goody-goody kid back then. I also had serious water phobia, something I would only overcome when I reached 20.)
“The stuff we take is about touch, man,” my classmate explained. “Every sensation multiplies a hundred times. Nothing better than hitting the pool right?”
I understand him now. I have been regularly doing laps for the past week, and for the past two days I’ve doubled the time I’ve spent in the clubhouse pool. It becomes addictive. Not anywhere else can you feel more aware of your body. Every inch of your skin pushes back against water. When you’re submerged the concept of volume applies and reinforces your physical existence. I could almost hear Arundhati Roy say:
The Mark-shaped hole in the universe.
I have some strange musings while doing my laps. They say you can think about everyday things while you’re swimming, but really, everything I can manage to think about is related to water or swimming, or oxygen or losing weight or the muscular system. Or whether or not my shoulders will be as nice as that of my friend Lyn’s (she’s a girl but she has man-shoulders to die for). Awhile ago, I was thinking about how the crawl was just, really, a glorified dog-paddle technique. It’s basically the same technique of paddling water behind you, only more systematic. I’ve seen a couple of people nearly drown and their dog paddle reflex kick in at the moment they panic. In fact, when I was nearly sucked by the current during Ondoy, I reverted to the dog paddle. It’s a default skill everyone has. I guess it’s just a matter of realizing that the crawl, or some other style is more efficient.
I suggest you try playing this fascinating game I discovered awhile ago, while practicing the proper form of looking facedown during freestyle. I imagined this entire city and buildings below me, laid out on a convex surface. I’ll be looking at bird’s-eye shots of Manila, and other cities too, to help future visualization exercises. It’s great, you really feel like flying.
Come think of it swimming should be a skill parents should push their kids to learn. Forget piano, singing, acting or leadership lessons. That can come later after you throw them into the pool. A lot of people say that it’s a life skill, but it’s really a survival skill. If climate change is really going to do what the experts say it would, then people should start thinking about living in the water. Everyone, especially children should know how to swim. We should begin swimming a lot so we could start mutating gills and fins and learn how to ride the ocean currents, outswim the sharks and fight giant squid. You’ve seen how Ondoy affected us. We clung to our homes and so many died, and even more got displaced. We’ve grown so soft and comfortable, clinging on the earth’s crust, where there’s practically more water out there to live in.
The future. Waterworld. It will be like coming home. Don’t we drown our sorrows in drink? Or float in happiness in drink? Aren’t our bodies composed of 3/4ths water? Did we not begin a priori as single celled organisms in pre-biotic soup?
* * *
Living alone and away from home is like being submerged in water. I have never felt more aware of myself before than now. You can only breathe as much as you surface, you can move only as far as you can paddle in the water. You carry your own weight. You cook your own meals, you manage your emotions, you make your own bed. You work. You think about what has happened today and process it. You exercise and protect yourself from sickness, knowing there will be no one to care for you and you must be responsible for your own body. You stick to your routine, there is no one to tell you to get up from bed or if you’re remiss in cleaning up after yourself.
It’s a selfish setup, a wonderful life. Awhile ago, coming home from doing groceries in Market Market, I suddenly decided to swim some more laps before the pool closed. I didn’t have a towel with me, so I walked back to the unit in my trunks, carrying my groceries and my clothes and my shoes, dripping under the moon. Walking barefoot on in the middle of the concrete road.
I’m so glad to be far away and responsible for no one but myself, and basking in these simple pleasures, I thought.
It felt so selfish, yet so right.
