BEAUTY

 

“For me, it’s all about Beauty. About being one with the water….”

LS’s voice drifts off, lost in thought? 

Our small after swim group had been talking about the various approaches to swimming: the zone, the techinique, the beauty?

Of course, this makes sense that LS would  say Beauty. She is, after all, an artist. And artists, at least the ones I know, are all about Beauty. Yet, how does Beauty translate to swimming?

            I think she puts it well—to be one with the water. Of course, this isn’t an uncommon claim. I think it’s the reason I swim---to be one with the water. To be the water. To feel its warm embrace. To float in its gravity free environ.

            Yet is this Beauty?

            I’m more about ‘cute’ than Beauty. In fact, this morning, as I was getting ready to head out to the pool, I was in the locker room, frantically tucking my too long hair in my bright pink cap when a little girl, maybe 4 or 5, and her mom emerged from one of the bathroom stalls.

            I didn’t really pay attention to them, just noticed them from the corner of my eye. But as I was about to put my mask on, the mom smiled over at me and said: “She said for me to tell you that she thinks you’re so cute.”

            OMG! Make my day little girl!

            I turned to her, grinning, and returned the compliment: “You’re so cute too!”
            She gave me a big bright smile and you know what? Here was beauty! The smile of a child that lights up a locker room. And, I was the cause of it!

            They headed out as I headed into the Natatorium, the noisy chaos of swim lessons echoing through the hallway. But I was floating. Even before I got in the pool.

            I couldn’t remember the last time someone had told me I was ‘cute’ except for Ian, of course, and he better!

            It used to be something that I took for granted. Being cute. I had cute hair. A cute nose. Cute feet.

            But beauty?

            I never thought of myself as a ‘beauty.’ There were women that I’ve known who are beautiful: DL, GP, my mom and sisters.

            And of course, when LS had mentioned the ‘beauty’ of swimming later, I don’t think she meant that it was a visual beauty---though, for me, this is part of it. The way the light hits the water as I stroke through it; the way the clouds float through the skylight as I swim backstroke.

            No, beauty in swimming is really that feeling of not being a separate being from the water, but to be the water.

            And sometimes, when I’m swimming (not all the time), I do feel this way. That I’m not separate from the water. My movement through it is easy and graceful and beautiful.

            But today, I’m happy with being ‘so cute’!

            Cuz, frankly, cute can beautiful too, esp when you're five years old and the world is a big beautiful so cute adventure!