Nuotare / notes on swimming

I'm a bit in love with swimming. Today the water was really warm and murky in the pool, but I felt so happy trying to swim. Coach said my backstroke was very nice and that made me feel very good about myself ((((: Maybe I like it so much because I get positive affirmation. And also because for that solid hour I'm so focused on trying not to drown that all my emotions from the day get drowned out, and all that matters is staying alive, and then some -- making my strokes more perfect, less resistant.

I think I haven't tried so hard in a long time. And it's very lovely to swim. I don't know how to describe it. The breath you hold and expel and gulp, the slicing through the water, pushing against the tension of the water surface to move forward, turning off the switch that says "Give up, you're gonna drown", turning off the fear switch, and all around, the water glowing blue and chlorinated, and the strength in your legs, your hips, your arms, swivelling and diving, dipping in and out. Smoothly, go forward, go forward. And when you stand and breath in deep, you're alive.

Part of me wonders if this is what baptism symbolises. To be washed clean by the waters of new life, immersed, plunged deep into the water, it's not easy to plunge in, you lose your breath, but it happens anyway. An invisible grace occurring in the outward sign of immersion in water, the sacrament of baptism.

CCC1214 This sacrament is called Baptism, after the central rite by which it is carried out: to baptize (Greek baptizein) means to "plunge" or "immerse"; the "plunge" into the water symbolizes the catechumen's burial into Christ's death, from which he rises up by resurrection with him, as "a new creature."

I feel new every time I come out of the pool. Not washed clean per se, but panting, but refreshed. And part of me wonders if this is what it should feel like to live my life as a baptised person. That every time I bless myself with holy water, I'm reminded of my baptism. In a sense, like the way diving into the pool comes as a shock. The water goes everywhere, I lose my breath, but then I glide underwater and come out resurfacing, and breathing hard and triumphant. And isn't that a triumph, God's triumph over sin is my triumph too, he shares it with me.


Psalm 42
My soul is downcast within me;
therefore I remember you
From the land of the Jordan and Hermon,
from Mount Mizar,

8
Deep calls to deep
In the roar of your torrents,
and all your waves and breakers
sweep over me.

9
By day may the LORD send his mercy,
and by night may his righteousness be with me!
I will pray to the God of my life,

10
I will say to God, my rock:
“Why do you forget me?
Why must I go about mourning
with the enemy oppressing me?”

11
It shatters my bones, when my adversaries reproach me,
when they say to me every day: “Where is your God?”

12
Why are you downcast, my soul,
why do you groan within me?
Wait for God, for I shall again praise him,
my savior and my God.