Gosh, Emily, this is terrific. I love the transitions from the warbler to your love/hate relationship with swimming, and the imagery that lets me see the hopping warbler making new discoveries, and you allowing yourself to consider a renewed love of the pool. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you and Dilly and Ian! Love you.
The vagrant warbler research detail is brillaint here because it completley reframes the entire metaphor. Instead of being knocked off course by a storm, the bird chose to explore, which inverts the whole injury narrative. I spent a few years in competetive swimming and there's something about pool training that either amplifies or strips away everything else in life. The black line becomes either a meditation or a prison depending on what lens you bring to it. The sensory memory stuff here (chlorine as home, goggle bruises) hits different when contrasted with the jaws soundtrack opening. Curious if the warbler is still hanging around Eugene, those vagrant stays can be unpredictable.
Gosh, Emily, this is terrific. I love the transitions from the warbler to your love/hate relationship with swimming, and the imagery that lets me see the hopping warbler making new discoveries, and you allowing yourself to consider a renewed love of the pool. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you and Dilly and Ian! Love you.
The vagrant warbler research detail is brillaint here because it completley reframes the entire metaphor. Instead of being knocked off course by a storm, the bird chose to explore, which inverts the whole injury narrative. I spent a few years in competetive swimming and there's something about pool training that either amplifies or strips away everything else in life. The black line becomes either a meditation or a prison depending on what lens you bring to it. The sensory memory stuff here (chlorine as home, goggle bruises) hits different when contrasted with the jaws soundtrack opening. Curious if the warbler is still hanging around Eugene, those vagrant stays can be unpredictable.
The ebb and flow of life and our bodies telling us what we need. This is so so beautiful, my friend.