just keep swimming

About halfway through my first year of graduate school, I started swimming at the pool on campus. I can't even remember why it occurred to me, but it was a great decision. Historically, I've had a wishy washy relationship with swimming. Being in the water is great, but the before and after are so harsh. I also used to consider swimming something to do when I can't run because of an injury. Swimming instead of running is like eating baked lays when you want smothered nachos. Same food group, but oh so unsatisfying. OR so I thought. I now view it as a meditative experience because it's not a replacement for something that involves sweating and outdoor scenery. It's become a separate entity in which I get to observe so many little oddities while feeling the freedom of weightlessness and maybe burning a few calories, although that's debatable because I do not swim with vigor. I'm too busy watching the bubbles cast by other people's movements or zoning out to the black line on the bottom of the lane or tuning into the way I can feel the water wrap around my feet as I kick. It helps that the Brooklyn College pool has a wide bank of windows that lets in natural light and incredibly high ceilings. When I walk through the door from the lockerroom to the deck, I can feel the expansiveness of the room. Sometimes I can't settle in and my mind races through whatever challenge I'm having that day, but for the most part, those 25-30 minutes are spent criss-crossing between the present and a state of contemplative ease. And now in short form:

languid strokes through cold
water as bubbles rise up
and my goggles leak

picture taken at a state park on a drive from MA to NY, 2010, cross-processed slide film, Canon Tlb (scanned from a contact sheet before I started scanning straight from the negatives) 

fried

How do people do this every day? Clearly I need to start earlier, so here comes a tired, abridged version of what I had in mind. We became domestic partners today. That's right. We are now the proud owners of a $35 blue and white certificate with our names (Partner 1 & Partner 2) that says we're entitled to health insurance and a host of other benefits. Welcome to a world of privilege for people in serious relationships! Never mind that we've been together for over 9 years prior to jumping through this rusty hoop in order to get health insurance. I have a complicated relationship with the institution of marriage, some of which I know is an irrational spite for authority and a holdover from the days before gay marriage became legally recognized. BUT forgive me, oh married friends, but I just don't get it. I know this may offend some of you (if you've managed to find your way back here), and I'm sorry. I don't have the energy to parse out the arguments, so instead I leave you with this party pooper of a haiku:

up the marble stairs
through the double doors to sign here
now what's for dinner?

picture: incredible brunch at Broder Cafe, September 2011, Portland, OR, cross-processed slide film, Canon Tlb

have you seen my delorean?

Some days I get home from work (mental health profession), and all I can think about are the various ways I could have made a session better. I'm sugarcoating it - change that to "should have made a session better, but failed as usual" and that's closer to the real way I speak to myself. Ah yes, the healing powers of language. Sometimes I feel lost and inadequate, and I can't stop the merry go round of shoulds and didn'ts. Here's what it's like trying to read a book on the subway after having a particularly challenging session:

over and over
I read the same lines, hoping
to go back in time

picture: a Citroen, taken near Hackescher Mrkt, Berlin, September 2010, film, Canon Tlb 

find a new trail

I spent nine months in an emotionally abusive supervision experience during my counseling internship. We had weekly meetings on Tuesdays. The minute I escaped from this person's arctic glare, I reclaimed Tuesday as a day of adventure, enjoyment, and rest. Sometimes my partner and I find a way to get out of the city to hike for hours on end (sadly this often involves sitting in traffic for hours on end). Sometimes it's a ho-hum day of errands, dog walking, and exercise. Sometimes we see a movie at the theater that has Tuesday discounts. Whatever happens, my goal is to get as far away from how my Tuesdays used to be.

How is hiking "rest" you ask? Because it lets my mind wander while also helping me stay exactly where I am: putting one foot in front of the other in order to connect with something beyond the myopia of every day problems. And now today's haiku, with options:

crunch of leaves echoed

as we crossed a muddy patch. 

hear the woodpecker? 

alternate ending: where's that damn dog now? 

top picture: hiking on the Appalachian Trail in early October, near Kent, CT, cross-processed slide film, Canon Tlb 

bottom picture: a rare moment of stillness from our hike today on the Appalachian Trail, near Salisbury, CT, iPhone

process

Sometimes you have to give up on the complicated post and go with the short one about the process. Here's a haiku about writing haikus on my subway commute: 

counting syllables* 

jostled by zombies on phones 

did i miss my stop? 

*this happens with my fingers while mouthing the words, so it's hard to say what people think I'm doing. lucky for me, they're usually too distracted by the glow of their devices or [insert crazy shit that happens on the NYC subway] to bother with something as bland as counting with your hands. 

(picture taken during a birthday voyage on the East River Ferry, August 2012, film, Agfa Optima rangefinder camera)

blender

I've spent a lot of energy trying to blend in over the years. I think that's part of what makes this blog such a fraught space: there's no other voice to pattern myself after or to drown me out. Hence my long-standing pattern of emerging and retreating, which happens both here and in every day relationships. We all do it to some extent. Standing out can feel dangerous. Hell, sometimes it IS dangerous, especially when you toe the gender line in a world where people lash out at individuals that don't fit neatly into socially constructed boxes. But most of the time, I am not in that kind of danger. I simply have trouble being seen, even in what some would consider the safest of environments. And now for the short version(s) of what goes on behind the scenes:

straighten your dunce cap
so when thoughts bubble you can
put a lid on them

//

laugh when they laugh and
follow the leader so well
no one knows you're there

//

turn questions around
laugh, scoff, dodge, retreat into
your silent corner

And here's a gratuitous mountain picture to return us all to the peaceful place (assuming you like mountains).

both pictures: hiking somewhere in the woods near Berryville, VA, 2011, cross-processed slide film 

imaginary friends

At the beginning of August, I had an opportunity to get some rest and hold down the animal fort while my partner went to Maine with friends OR I could rearrange some clients, schedule a last minute cat sitter, and drive 10 hours alone with the dog after having just come home from a 12 hour drive from West Virginia. Judging from the opening picture, you can guess which choice I made. It was one of the longest drives I've ever made, which is saying a lot. It ended with Waze telling me I was at my destination when in fact I was across a small channel of water from my destination. This minor detailed added 25 minutes of windy roads because nothing in Maine comes easy. Add fog, an unmarked fork in the driveway that no one warned me about, and not having eaten dinner, and you have one very cranky Me on your hands. I will admit to making the trip considerably longer because of my driving mania, which manifests in taking small roads off the highway (sometimes the occasional fire road that dead ends into a pond) and stopping for pictures, such as this:

 

The manic journey was well worth it because I ended up having an incredible few days in Maine with Charrow, our friends and their almost 3-year-old. We went berry picking, currant picking, river swimming. hiking, running, and on our last night we saw 3 shooting stars in the span of 5 minutes. One of our hikes was on a semi-maintained trail that runs along the Machias River:

We originally started that day by driving 2 hours south to Acadia National Park, but we got about 10 minutes up our first trail and felt smothered by the hordes of people. I will say this, we gave up quickly, which allowed us to drive 2 hours back to the wilds of Machias and still have plenty of time for a 5 mile hike on the Machias River Heritage Trail during which we saw a total of 0 people until we reached the major connecting trail. It should have been an incredibly relaxing hike, but I kept seeing little piles of smushed berries that I was convinced were bear droppings. I've never seen a bear and the prospect of seeing one with our decidedly idiotic prey-driven dog scared the crap out of me. He had proved his lunacy the day before by trying to attack a porcupine (boy was that a messy and expensive mistake that I may make into its own post). We had no way of knowing what the dog would do should we stumble upon a bear or vice versa. Charrow scorned my paranoia, but we kept seeing the piles every 5 minutes and they were right in the middle of the damn trail. After awhile, she caught the fear, and we decided to sing ridiculous songs to supposedly scare away the phantom bears. We started with I'm Gonna Be (500 miles) by the Proclaimers, but that gets old really fast, so we moved on to the very catchy and adaptable call and answer Jewish bible song called Three Wandering Brothers (the internet wants me to call it Three Wandering Jews, but Charrow disagrees). I wish I could remember some of our made up verses, but they're long gone, much like the bears we never saw. I think Red picked up on the anxiety...

We finally turned off the densely wooded trail and onto a main thoroughfare, complete with a man driving a four wheeler. It wasn't technically any safer should we happen upon a bear, but there's nothing like logic to create a false sense of security. And now for the short version of that story:

lazy river hike
fresh berry scat underfoot
sing sing sing! now run

All pictures taken near Machias, ME with film (Portra 160)