(Swim Journal, August 6, 2020: Holes)
Swimming with thoughts about the psychic space of holes and the pictures we employ to produce alternative ways to relate to the self. My mind feels like it is on overdrive scanning my body as I cut through the water. I’m hyper aware of patches of sea kelp, trying to avoid getting snarled in their long blades. When it happens I am instantly panicked by the feeling of dragging dead weight through the water.
Recently, it’s been hard to focus on anything other than my body and its holes. Yes, holes: mouth, ears, nose, vagina. Where I’m most porous; wondering if my skin is really a barrier. I’ve also been thinking about the dimensions of the La Jolla Hole (Canyon). I envision the perimeter of the Canyon based on the group of scuba divers I see bobbing together as they gather to dive the 20–30 ft. depth, or the more advanced divers who are out along the drop-off at 40–50 ft. I imagine I might be swimming over a shallow tributary to the larger Canyon, where the wall height is said to be 360 ft. It’s an ancient hole, (the fine grained sediments on the steep canyon wall are consistently around 1.232 million years old). It isn’t a hole I can fall into, though it does make me feel like I’m falling apart.
(Or gives me a sense of falling into place.)
Swimming with thoughts about the psychic space of holes and the pictures we employ to produce alternative ways to relate to the self. My mind feels like it is on overdrive scanning my body as I cut through the water. I’m hyper aware of patches of sea kelp, trying to avoid getting snarled in their long blades. When it happens I am instantly panicked by the feeling of dragging dead weight through the water.
Recently, it’s been hard to focus on anything other than my body and its holes. Yes, holes: mouth, ears, nose, vagina. Where I’m most porous; wondering if my skin is really a barrier. I’ve also been thinking about the dimensions of the La Jolla Hole (Canyon). I envision the perimeter of the Canyon based on the group of scuba divers I see bobbing together as they gather to dive the 20–30 ft. depth, or the more advanced divers who are out along the drop-off at 40–50 ft. I imagine I might be swimming over a shallow tributary to the larger Canyon, where the wall height is said to be 360 ft. It’s an ancient hole, (the fine grained sediments on the steep canyon wall are consistently around 1.232 million years old). It isn’t a hole I can fall into, though it does make me feel like I’m falling apart.
(Or gives me a sense of falling into place.)