MINDING THE EDGES

I started swimming again on Friday.  I didn’t all winter because the pool got too cold but with our recent heat wave (It was 102 here on the coast) all is toasty again in the pool.  I swim for about an hour doing the breast stroke.  I love the balance of it and how it looks in the water.  I know I can’t see it when I swim but my dancer mind has a good imagination.  Anyway, I got in my lap lane, got my goggles on, and dove in and began my strokes.   I found that I was often catching a bit of water in my mouth.  Not doing this thing for about six months had blown my timing.  It took me about 15 minutes to make a lap without missing the right edge of the water.  It got me thinking about edges of things.

Sometimes they are so important that perfection is almost necessary. Sometimes we need things a bit blurry, almost like squinting your eyes to see better.

Later the same day I was looking at a wall hanging that I had found at a garage sale.  I loved the shapes but it had big triangles of mustard yellow and a field of yellow upon which the main figure rested.  Since I am rarely liking that color, I found some red and green fabric dye and mixed some up with hot water and decided I would just use a paintbrush to put it on.  I knew it wouldn’t be an exact edge, but I kind of wanted a more rustic, aged look as I was going to hang it in my patio.  I kind of reveled in being messy.  I didn’t get the perfect lines along the geometric shapes, and some of the paint ran a bit.  But when I stood back to look at it.  It was PERFECT!

In swimming, the edge between the lip of water and my lips has to be very precise for maximum glide.  Too much of a head raise slowed me down, too little and I was taking in water. Hard to know just where to put oneself.   

I know this isn’t an earth shaking thought, but I did muse on the maker of the weaving and how beauty for him or her was probably based on no mistakes, perfect edges, but later than same object made so precisely could now be beautiful in a messier looser way.

 

I suppose there are a few things to extrapolate from

this.  First, at my age, I shouldn’t stop swimming for six months.  Second, it is good remember that things are what they are for NOW.  How we see something, use something or want something will probably be very different later on. 

We do tend to want things to remain the same, as it adds to our illusion of safety and control, but letting things go the way they need to go can be wonderful too. Adjusting ourselves to now, moving in on what is being asked in this moment, listening to something other than the old patterned thought of what we should do… can be lovely.

Have a good week.  Misty

May 18, 2014