i’ve taken up swimming
i love swimming now
my mom is a swimming fiend and has been for years. she always out-paced me, out breathe-ed me; she’s legit. she has the swimmer’s tan on her back and everything. i did not care too much for swimming in the style she did it, so i didn’t do it much in high school/when i lived with her, etc.
but then! last year my roommate and i went swimming together, and she approaches it as a sort of meditiative practice, which was intriguing to me. so now! I swim (ideally once a week but more often it’s once every couple weeks sue me!) and i literally just glide through the water like i am a fuckin mermaid. it’s sick. i love it every time i go. i feel so powerful and fluid and curious about the shadows my body makes against the pool floor (i loooove a night swim). i could definitely do without the old men in their speedos sitting in the hot tub completely unabashedly damn near open mouthed staring at me and my hairy pits as i prepare to plop into the water, but hey, they’re everywhere anyway! so what can ya do. i listen to mistki 9/10 swims and she sings about womanhood and the self and creation and i’m just like wowwww i am listening to musicccc and i am swimminnnng i am so stronnnnnnnnnng!! i am a woman!!!!!! i have muscles!!!! and then the other day i did a pull up (??) which lowkey shocked me and i feel was definitely made possible by my swimming routines. so that was a plus. but it feels nice that that ability or display of fitness or whatever was very much a sidebar/extra discovery. i feel like my awareness of my body, and specifically the way it looks to other people and sepcifically the opinion men have of it, has been so acute since i remember becoming aware of mine and others’ bodies (like 7th grade), so it feels lovely to have my efforts be focused on the mental exercise, with the result of the physical exercise becoming a kind of superfluous if not simply less of the focus. i think that’s why i love it so much, it feels so easy to get into it because i’m not chasing anything, i’m not seeking to change anything in myself, i’m just focused on the sounds in my ears and the sensations of my body in the water.
also i bought a very grandma like bathing suit that is basically a one piece with shorts attached type situation and oh it is m a r v e l o u s. i wonder who designed bathing suits?? there’s probably something ergonimically beneficial about having it be a one piece that like has a hole in the back and rides all the way up your ass etc but i can’t help but feel?? like why?? must the gendered differences in the bathing suits display the butts for some but not for others?? but that’s… a different conversation.
jesus that makes me think of the grammys which just happened and the whole bianca censori (is this her name ?? idk) being on the red carpet essentially naked thing? many thoughts about this many of which i have read further about on the internet and find to be really thoughtful takes but i don’t know that i want to write about them here. if you see me in person u should ask me ab this so we can talk about it. all i know is it feels like an undeniably uncomfortable (and to me undeniably unsafe) stunt and i really hope that woman is okay. (re read this and considered deleting but feel like this is an interesting historical touchstone to return to when i re-read this in a few years)
ok well that took a turn! here’s to swimming and safety and one piece bathing suits amen! and MITSKI !!
