A couple of months ago when work was extra-crazy and I was having a hard time keeping my head from exploding, I reached out to Lindsay and Rhya one afternoon and asked what tricks they both had as creative people to stay grounded.

Their answers:
"Make a checklist."
"Swim."
"Make lists."
"Swim."

I am now the proud owner of a basic brown clipboard which I got at Dollarama, and it holds several pages, organized by category, of confidently Sharpie'd lists. It's true, it does help, enormously.

And, well, swimming.

My musical-kindred-spirit Martin Tielli once wrote, "It's quiet underwater."

As we plunge into a New Year, full of hope and the promise of massive amounts of fun and beauty and creativity, I drew us a little reminder, in honour of epic to-do lists, swimming holes yet to be discovered, and remembering to pack your bag properly on your way to the pool.

Happy New Year to you all.

Don't forget your underpants.


Illustrations by Laura Wills

Matisse's The Swimming Pool at the MoMA | Ruth Freemen, New York Times

I was doing research for my lifeguard novel, trying to figure out what poster Bea has hanging above her desk (Picasso? Matisse? Klimt?) and stumbled on Matisse's The Swimming Pool— Matisse’s first and only self-contained, site-specific cut-out. 

From the MoMA website:
One morning in the summer of 1952, Matisse told his studio assistant and secretary Lydia Delectorskaya that “he wanted to see divers,” so they set out to a favorite pool in Cannes. Suffering under the “blazing sun,” they returned home, where Matisse declared, “I will make myself my own pool.” He asked Delectorskaya to ring the walls of his dining room at the Hôtel Régina in Nice with a band of white paper, positioned just above the level of his head, breaking only at the windows and door at opposite ends of the room. The room itself was lined with tan burlap, a popular wall covering of the time. Matisse then cut his own divers, swimmers, and sea creatures out of paper painted in an ultramarine blue. The blue forms were pinned on the white paper, which helped define the aquatic ballet of bodies, splashing water, and light.

It is delicate and immersive and incredible. My jaw is still on the ground and I wish there was a time machine to take me back to the exhibit (that ended in February 2015). Next time it's up, we swimmers must go!

Christmas at my grandparents was the best. Not only because they spoiled us with a ridiculous number of gifts (Cabbage Patch Kids! Gund dogs named Muttsy!) and not just because my nana put out unlimited almond bark for me, or because there were sweet potatoes with broiled marshmallows on top or because there were trays of bacon wrapped water chestnuts. It was the best, not just because we were allowed to put on all of my grandmother's rings my grandfather made for her, and look at all of her lipsticks in their decorative cases in the bathroom, or because I'd get to blow out birthday candles with my mom and dad and cousin, and ride the elevator, and call up from the intercom, and listen to the police scanner, and stand on the balcony, but because we got to swim.

Their apartment building had a pool in the basement, and the weekend before Christmas, we would pack our bathing suits and goggles along with a trunk full of gifts. The only other time we swam all together was at the cottage, but by then the lake was frozen over, and swimming altogether was a distant memory, but every December, we would do a conga line in the shallow end, practice handstands and show off our somersaults. 

My grandparents didn't know how to swim, but they loved that we did and we would open presents smelling like chlorine. Our hair would be crispy and tangled, and everything about it was perfect.

My little guy (who is 9 months tomorrow) didn't pass his first round of swimming lessons, which isn't all that surprising, given that he doesn't know what his legs are, so flutter kick is pretty much out. And he's not a huge fan of being dunked under the water, but that didn't keep me from being a little sad for him when he got his report card sans badge.

So what's a crafty-swimming mama to do? Make a badge of course!

And so, my little guy got his Master of the Inchworm Kick badge, because it really is ingenious, this kick he's worked out!

(And I've decided that no one should have to go badge-less. If you need one to commemorate a unique belly flop/dive/cannonball, check 'em out in my Etsy shop!)

Outside the trees rattled.
Winter bones,
A wild percussion in the wind.

Inside the pool swelled then sighed.
Pushing in and out,
Against it’s container walls.

A caged ocean of arctic blue.
Its deep end,
A swift decent into heaven.

I swam there for 50 minutes.
Lost in the lonely lanes,
And floating out to sea under a wood lined sky.

*Based on a Sunday swim at the Lindsay Recreation Complex, known to the locals as the Aquartorium. It was an A+ pool!

Last week, Rhya put out an all-call for swim crown submissions and the most lovely swimmers on Vancouver Island sent in their submission. Check out the Claire-and-Suzanne collaboration, complete with PFDs and cannonballs. All sorts of awesome!


If you'd like to submit your swim crown, tweet a picture to: @lindsayzv, @rhyat or @laurawills

I knew it would only be a matter of time before we three water loving creative spirits, found ourselves entangled in a swim related crafting challenge!

Our first aquatic call to action–Swim Inspired CROWNS!

It began when my “birthday” swim was foiled by a very spotty case of Roseola applied on one very fiery toddler. So no lunchtime swim for this lady, instead I stayed home from work to take care of my rash and fever ridden kid, while watching Annie, and eating Mac N’Cheese on the couch. Rash and fever aside, that’s a pretty fun day in my opinion! Ha! But I was a little bummed about missing that swim window… so I thought maybe to cheer myself up, I could make myself a birthday crown, all about swimming!

So out came the craft paper, scissors and tape! And from the flurry of snips, clips and aqua colored paper fluttering about the living room… emerged my pièce de résistance! An ode to swimming laps in my favorite red bathing suit!

I sent the image to my fellow swimmers and challenged them to each make their own. And the results were OUTSTANDING!

Laura and Lindsay of course, both knocked it out of the pool with their crowns.

Lindsay made a fabulous and nostalgia inducing swim badge inspired crown!

And Laura’s created an outstanding work of swim art, with layers of waves and swimmers towering above her head!

So I’m going to call our first Swim Crafting Challenge (which I hope will be one of many more to come,) a resounding success!

Now it’s your turn! I’ve sketched up some quick and simple instructions on how you can make your own swim crown! Really the whole idea is to have fun and meditate a little on why you love to swim yourself… and then create a crown to celebrate those buoyant thoughts! Last request… share them with us! We would love to see what you make!

How To Make Your Own Swim Crown... in three easy steps!
*Main rule... have fun and make some waves!

Clockwise: Rhya's flip turn badge, Patrice's nightswimming badge, Laura's roadtrip-to-swimming-hole badge and my remembering-to-pack-post-swim-snacks (namely swim biscuits) badge.

I can still remember the last day of swimming lessons, where, after we finished the final game of frozen tag in the shallow end, Jennifer or Rebecca or Mark or Andrew would hand me my report card, towel wrapped around my shoulders, my mom waiting on the other side of the fence. I can still see the blue-ish photocopy of the girl swimming on the front of the Canadian Red Cross report card.

But even before opening it up to the the checkmarked boxes, or the empty boxes (damn treading water!), there was the thickness of the report card. If there was a badge stapled to the inside, you passed! Onto the next colour! But if it was thin, no dice.

(Now that I'm thinking about it, it's kind of like receiving grant acceptances/rejections in the mail these days...)

But badges! Rhya mentioned badges the other day on our months-long swimmers text thread and I literally dropped everything and started stitching.

• Flip turns? TOTALLY A BADGE! 
• Nightswimming in the nearby river? BADGE! 
• Driving, finding a different swimming hole, missing ice cream, the finding the right swimming hole? BAAAAAADGE! 
• And my own humble badge, celebrating when I remember to pack a post-swim snack so I don't turn into a monster on the bike ride home. 

But it's no fun to just have one badge to sew to your bathing suit! So I made docktail/rocktail badges too!



Clockwise: Caesers, Dark and Stormys, Aperol Spritz and a classic gin and tonic.

Nightswimmer by Lisa Golightly

It is still dark out on this strangely warm November morning, but I've downed a pot of coffee and watched my little guy practice his crawl (his on-land crawl is the same as his swim-crawl these days!) and have fallen in love with the swimming art by Portland artist, Lisa Golightly. 

The postures and slight awkwardness of standing poolside in a bathing suit are so perfectly captured. Every piece feels like a hazy memory of my childhood swimming lessons on the deck of Parklawn Pool.

There are so many incredible pieces at her shop, Kiki and Polly, I might just have to make another pot of coffee and keep pouring through them.

All together by Lisa Golightly

You first by Lisa Golightly

An early May dip in Lake Temiskaming...just days after the ice had just melted.

I've been thinking a lot about learning to swim lately. In part because I've started taking my seven month old son to swimming lessons (where we chase after purple boats and he practices his signature inchworm kick) and partly because when I swim on Saturdays, there's a boy who practices his dives and straight armed front crawl with a tenacity I haven't seen in such a young person. He swims for nearly a full hour, back and forth and back and forth. It's so inspiring.

I floated tonight, in one of those sensory deprivation tanks

It was the first time my neck—
all knotted up and sharing the weight on my shoulders—
has ever really let go

Maybe
if I go again
if I keep floating…
maybe my heart—
all locked up and covered in armour—
maybe eventually it'll let go too





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Illustration by Belhoula Amir, another piece of swimming art that I love.

It turns out, I have a water baby, which isn't surprising, given water has always been an underlying theme to his dad and I being together, he was born a Pisces, and loved swimming, even in utero. But the half hour of chlorinated, overheated indoor swimming a week isn't nearly enough. 
And so, we read about swimming, about water, whenever we can.

Our current favourites:



Swimming Swimming, illustrated by Gary Clement

We all know the song (sorry, you'll now be singing it under your breath for days!) but this illustrated version is so wonderful. It captures the excitement of heading to the pool, complete with putting your bag in a locker, and taking a pre-dip shower. And then as the song begins, it becomes a Where's Waldo-esque swimming pool. The "fancy diving too" page really is the best!

I love the little boy has spaghetti and meatballs, and feeds his fish after a long afternoon in the pool.