What I think about when I think about swimming

The title of this post comes from a question that I was asked by a friend and in part from the title of the new Haruki Murakami book. As we all know I am prone to sudden bursts of activity in regard to my writing of this blog and after being given an all clear of sorts by a knee specialist I am currently exercising again. My chosen exercise being cycling and swimming.

So what do I think about when I swim?

I think about the tips that I've found and read online about improving my stroke.

I try to remember to keep my elbow high and that I have to learn to breathe on both sides.

Sometimes I think there must be an easier way to get fitter.

I think about how many lengths I've swum and how many I should try and do.

I think about and wish I had more stamina.

I find myself amazed at the women who don't look athletic that become dolphins in the water and swim seemingly without pause up and down the pool.

I think about the girl who was the highlight of going into work everyday for me during the month of May and June this year.

I think about what I hope to be doing in a month's time and why I need to improve my swimming for that.

I think about if I didn't cycle to the pool would I swim quicker and more lengths because my legs haven't been used for cycling.

But best of all is when I don't really think too much at all.


Addendum:

12th August

What with the Olympics I have chosen to try and swim another stroke and since added that to my swim and try to pay attention to the stroke making by the world's best. What do I think when I swim it?

Actually its not as hard as I thought it might be, that I need to try and lay my head back, where is the third roof beam and where is the wall behind me? More often than not I smacked said wall very hard with the back of my forearm!

I also spoke with a swimming instructor about perhaps taking some 1-1 lessons to work on improving my stroke, breathing and overall technique but that will have to wait till he returns from holiday at the end of the month.

Yesterday, (Monday) I surprised myself and found that I enjoyed myself without worrying too much about anything.

Later that day (Part 2)

My trip to the swimming was uneventful as I cycled along the back way under the cover of trees and behind the back gardens of various houses. Occasionally I'd pass people a business man head down sending a text message, a teenager with a black shirt adorned with flames and a demonic head on the back, couples out walking their dogs, postmen on their bicycles and fellow cyclists.

I bettered my total amount for swimming freestyle lengths but still wondered when I'd get the stamina to do them without so many pauses. I am always amazed at the swimming pool by others who swim length after length of freestyle without pause.

After a brief lunch and a shower I took the train to London with the intention of visiting an exhibition at one of the galleries only to hear the faint sound of my alarm from my chest. I am in possession of a pacemaker with several functions one of which is to detect a build up of fluid in the chest. However this particular model has proven to have various faults with it, the only thing I can compare it to is when the electronic and computer giants rush a new product out and then discover it has a few faults except this is a pacemaker. Surely it would be irresponsible to let a product out before it was perfect but there you have it. So a visit to the hospital replaced my visit to the gallery. The place has become so familiar to me over the past 3 years.

While waiting in the waiting area I discovered that old exhibition catalogues for art exhibitions were now next to the usual old magazines and dog-eared books. I flicked through all of them, there was no pattern to the selection on view but what it did say to me was that there were some bad artists making a living out there getting one person shows. That being the case as long I create then there's probably room enough for one more bad artist in this world.

Then I saw a film called 'Paris', I think one of my great pleasures in life is going to the movies when the cinema is close to being empty. The film was about a dancer who is suddenly diagnosed with a heart problem and for whom a heart transplant may or may not save him. His sister comes to live him with and we watch the lives of those around him unfold as he waits all set in Paris. I did find it interesting and found some parallels to a situation not too dissimilar to one that I had been in.

It had become muggier when I stepped out from the cinema and headed down the street to one of the deadliest places in London for my wallet that is. Fopp is a store that sells Cd's, books and DVD's at prices that can be hard to beat which in turn may be why they found themselves going bust after trying to expand but this first London store still stands. I went in there with the sole intention of seeking an Art Blakely & The Jazz Messengers CD which I did purchase although selecting just one was a little bit tricky. With nothing more than track titles and covers to guide me and a vague knowledge I chose 'A Night in Tunisia'. What little I know of Jazz I do know that I'm going to be in good hands by selecting a Blue Note Rudy Van Gelder Edition. The other purchase which I hadn't gone into the store for was a classic of French cinema by Jean Luc Godard 'A Bout de Souffle' or 'Breathless'.

I wandered up the street stopping to take a quick look in a couple of the big bookstores that stayed open late hoping to find a new release one day early but no such luck. How does that work with books? Do they get delivered the night before for the staff to open on the day of release or do they arrive at the store on the release date? By then my stomach was calling out for food and I stepped back out into the evening that was getting heavier and muggier by the minute. It was the kind of heat that you felt would bring some kind of deluge of rain at some point and it seemed like it might happen sooner than later when a few spots of drizzle started but they were short-lived.

I chose to eat in an American style BBQ restaurant and whilst expensive I did enjoy my meal but realized that I must be getting older since it really seemed like too much food to me. The other thing that bugs me is how expensive beer is when you sit down to eat, restaurants are tripling the price of beer over what you pay in an off license or for my north American readers liquor store.

I tried one more bookstore for the book but they too weren't selling it early. I had started to sweat and went up to the coffee shop and bought a bottle of water. Bookstores are strange places when you don't really have a purchase in mind but also dangerous ones too. I don't know how many paperbacks I own that are still impulse purchases that I mean to read. I left the bookstore and headed on towards the underground station, outside a crowd had gathered to be entertained by a drummer whose drums consisted of upturned plastic containers of various sizes. I passed one hopeful Romeo at the station entrance as a blonde whom he quite obviously had hoped for more from blew him a kiss as she flitted away without a second glance. I felt as if I should tell him that he had no chance and that it wasn't going to happen but thought better of it. The last I saw of him was that he was still standing in the same spot taking a drag on a cigarette watching the space she had inhabited briefly.

I took the train from King Cross and read some more of the current book that I had begun which had sat on my shelf for a very long time and after writing about my day wondered what to do next. Perhaps bed or perhaps another movie on DVD or a little reading of one more chapter.

I woke from a strange dream

I woke from a strange dream where it was if I was a fly on the wall despite being in the room with three girls they all carried on about their business as if I wasn't there. They talked of being unhappy with their current boyfriends, joked about kissing each other and what to wear. When they did acknowledge me it was playfully but it was if they were talking right through me. I was the barely visible man in fact I was probably transparent just a faint essence in the room. It wasn't the greatest feeling in the world to rise to and melancholy filled me right from the get go.

This was further compounded by seeing that the object of my desire had added a friend of mine onto her Facebook account but had yet to accept me as one. Now such trivial matters should not hurt but they do and it did bother me. After all rejection is rejection and no matter what spin you put on it, it hurts and you wonder why?

I felt as if I was alone that morning and passed the minutes by mentally calculating when I'd be able to ride to the pool. There was no denying that the swimming had started to melt away some of the fat around my midriff and combined with the cycling was hopefully making me fitter. Yet I'd go and push myself that little bit harder trying to swim more of one stroke than the other, the total laps of breaststroke and freestyle didn't matter so much but I was aiming to steadily improve the number of freestyle lengths and shorten the rest times between laps. I'm not sure that I enjoyed it so much as it was a way to use up a couple of hours in my day and for me to try and close off the outside world and my anxieties.

Despite seeing friends briefly on Monday and even exchanging a few messages with another I still felt empty. Perhaps that was heightened by the music that I listened too which stung of melancholy for various films over the composer's career. I was yet again listless and had been thinking about the job rejections of last year and wondering why I had fallen short. It's not good to dwell on the past yet here I was caught in the trap and feeling unhappiness over the situation again.

I glanced about me and saw all the accumulated paper, bills, newspapers, books, forms, leaflets, appointment letters. What was I looking for in all of these? Answers? Knowledge? Peace of mind? Inspiration? It's hard not knowing in some respect what to do with your day when you have nowhere to go. Time can be passed easily but often there is a nagging feeling of unease and dissatisfaction at being alone that very often trails behind occasionally tugging at your arm or flicking your ear to remind you.

I wanted to go and travel but part of me knew that what monies I did have should be kept since there were no current job prospects lined up in my near future well nothing concrete at least. I still had the option to become a student at the end of September and this was beginning to look more and more like an attractive proposition. The hardest thing despite my protestations was the inner conflict over whether I actually wanted to stay and work in the film industry. A wise friend told me if I was to leave then it must be with no regrets and to walk away without looking back. It truly was a love and hate affair that I was having with the industry. I'd long for it but when I got there it wasn't all that I hoped and I'd swore that that was it but here I was wondering about work again.

It would be ten thirty soon enough and then I would ride my bicycle to the pool and swim some lengths before returning to spend my day half heartedly wondering what and where I was going to be in my life.

Content

Last week I went on one of my wanderings and visited Yorkshire Sculpture park.

Primarily I went because I hadn't been there and also because there is an exhibition of Isamu Noguchi's work for the first time in Europe. I had heard of Noguchi but had never really looked at his work nor read about him.

What I found was sculpture that in some cases just really did something to me, unfortunately the ones that I particulary like were indoors and photography wasn't allowed. I was almost reduced to tears by the work which is something that has never happened before. Somehow or for some reason the work spoke to me and touched me. Also some of his aims and beliefs struck me as something that I could identify in myself. I even took a picture of the board and if you read it, those of you that know me will probably find which bits I identified with. Hopefully some of you will google him and see some of pictures of his work.

Even wandering around the park by myself didn't seem lonely and now 5 days later I've started to realize that there in the grounds I felt some sort of contentment. I was actually at ease with myself and my environment in a strange park surrounded by sculpture and strangers all there to look as well perhaps it was the complete lack of threat in the atmosphere as well as the sun shining.

There is also a Noguchi museum in Long Island, New York and in Japan although quite a few pieces are currently at the Yorkshire Sculpture Park.

NOTE: A week has since passed and I am back to my old ways of trying to gee myself up this week.

A Life More Ordinary

Sometimes, I wonder about the people around me and what it would be to more like them, not all of them but some of them. Perhaps this will sound arrogant or snobby but sometimes the ordinary people in the supermarket walking around as couples or as families seem very appealing. My assumptions might be wrong but nevertheless I wonder why aren't I in a couple. The answer to that is probably that I really don't make any effort to pursue women anymore and I partly feel like I missed my window of opportunity there are other reasons too but that's a whole another post.

What if I didn't have fanciful notions of a career in film or my non starting career as an artist? If I had a job or a trade that I went to everyday and had found a nice ordinary girl to settle down who would like going to the movies, holidays and meals. I'd feel secure in the knowledge that I'd be going to work on Monday that the week ends on Friday and that I have my mortgage to pay.

But you know what then I'd be worrying about my mortgage, complaining my nice ordinary girl is too nice and ordinary.

It would be nice to have a base of operations that I could call my own but then I don't even know where that could be at the moment...

The past week

24th July, Saw 'The Dark Knight' it was good but way too long.
Cycle, Swum 30 Lengths

25th July, Tate Modern, London.
Attended birthday drinks for all of 5 minutes no single girls in the party
and poor bar service should have stayed at the Tate.

26th July, Cycle, Swum 24 L

27th July, Cycle, Swum 22 L, Cycle to Bushy park saw deer!
Bowling.
Moved out from Shepperton.

28th July, Anti-coagulation Clinic
Drive north to Wakefield, Yorkshire.

29th July, Go to Yorkshire Sculpture Park discovered Isamu Noguchi's work and am
astonished and feel a sense of understanding.
Drive onto Whitby, Yorkshire.

30th July, Walk 199 steps to Whitby Abbey impressed by the ruins, fish and chip lunch with friend from north followed by
afternoonn stroll and ice cream.
Drive back to Hertfordshire.

31st July, Cycle, Swum 30 Lengths

1st August, Bowling am
Cycle, Swum 30 Lengths.
Discover puncture will repair tomorrow.