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.

Why howl at the moon, when you can howl in the pool!

And the same could be said for all other bodies of water as well, such as ponds, rivers, lakes, oceans, creeks… you get the picture!

I’ve been working on a list of pools of water I would love to explore this year, that are somewhat close to home… home being Ontario. I’m also researching my dream destinations like Iceland, Chile and France, I’m just not sure I can get to all these places in one year. But who knows, never say never right?! It’s always good to have goals.

But until then here is my mini list of close-ish to home, bodies of water I would like to howl in next year:

1. The Centennial Aquatic Centre in Collingwood. I think I can get to this pool before this year is up. Look at this place… are the doors raised in the summer? Is this place for real? It looks awesome. How have I not been here yet!

2. Digging the look of the Grand River Conservation area outdoor pool! This one shall have to wait till next summer though.

3. The Elora Quarry was suggested to me by a good friend. Looks outstanding. Definitely road trip worthy! See you in July!

4. Going to try go to Tobermory and get my Grotto on again, because it’s ridiculously beautiful, and turquoise water. TURQUOISE WATER!

5. The Varsity Pool, at UofT in Toronto. Can I even get into this pool? Probably not, I’m not a student… but I’ve always wanted to try swimming here, or at least in the Benson Pool; The smaller younger sister to the Varsity.

I would love any road trip worthy suggestions as well! Any best kept secrets, or sublime swimming holes you would like to share, please howl them at me!

It's a bit too chilly to be swimming in swimming holes these days, the outdoor pools are closed, so the next best thing is reading about swimming!

Some of my favourite watery reads:

Swimming Studies by Leanne Shapton
This is everything I've always wanted in a book about swimming. There's a narrative that propels the book -- the author, Leanne Shapton's long-time relationship to swimming, from her younger years training for the Olympic swim trials, to her work now. 

Giving a fascinating glimpse into the private realms of swimming, and drawing, Shapton tells an intimate story of suburban adolescence, family ties, and the solitary underwater moments that now ground her artistic habits.

Theres's also an illustration of all of the pools she's swam in and it is the most perfect thing I've ever seen.

Great interview here!



Arguments with the Lake by Tanis Rideout

I am in love with Marilyn Bell, so when I heard about Tanis Rideout's poetry collection about Bell (who at 16 was the first person to swim across Lake Ontario) and her rival, Shirley Campbell, who fell short in her attempt to cross the lake, I knew I'd be a fan. Rideout deftly weaves the lives of these two swimmers together. It makes me want to jump in Lake Ontario (minus the moray eels, thank you...)



The Swim Team by Miranda July (in the collection, No One Belongs Here More Than You)
It's not a book, but it's one of the most perfect short stories I've ever heard (on the radio the other afternoon). In the story, the narrator invites a group of retirees to her apartment for swimming lessons. There is no pool, but instead, the students lying down on the kitchen floor, their faces immersed in bowls of water. 

There's a short film made of the story, but I haven't watched it as the image of elderly folk practising their dives into a bed are too perfect to mar with external visuals.

#theswimmingbook (title forthcoming) by Lisa Congdon
This book isn't out yet, but based on the illustrations Lisa Congdon has posted on her Instagram feed and blog, it is already one of my favourites! It will be comprised of essays, art, profiles of swimmers (Lisa put out an all-call awhile back!), photographs, vintage swimming stuff, hand lettered quotes and history!


Some more swim-lit over at the 49th Shelf!

The colour of water. We have pencil crayons and paint chips named after it.

We admire it when we arrive and praise it for being "that" colour — that colour being determined by your geography. Mediterranean Blue might be your favourite blue in all the world while you are in Santorini, but then forgotten and overshadowed by Caribbean Blue when you are swimming in it in Aruba.

We marvel when it mirrors and absorbs all of the colours of a sky and its surroundings. Sometimes it's a peacock sky with puffy white clouds suspended. Other times it's a quilt of stunning sunset pink.

In our mind's eye, water is a colour.

But isn't it crazy that no matter what landscape you're in... when you pick it up in your hand, the colour of water is always the same. There is no pencil crayon called "Clear".

And then I wonder, if I am made of 75% water as told in science class and countless issues of Shape magazine... what colour am I?