so, when i was a kid and i said, “i’m going swimming” what i really meant was, “i’m going to put my swimsuit on, and get into a pool that is never deeper than i am tall and i’m going to splash around and play in the water.” playing in the water included doing handstands, flips, diving for pennies, doing the “whirlpool thing” where everyone walks around in one direction, then tries to go against the current. i had this hilarious garfield swim mask with ears and everything.
in recent years, i’ve been trying to teach myself to actually swim, so when i say, “i’m going swimming” what i really mean is, “i’m going to get into my swimsuit and swim laps in a pool that may be any variety of depths.” but i’ve sort of gotten away from the having fun aspect of swimming.
today, at the pool, i tried out a few handstands. they were pretty fun! but, i had done a few of those in the past couple of months. what i hadn’t been brave enough to do yet was a full flip. instead of coming back up from a handstand face first, i would always just go back up the same way i went down. i seemed to have some old memories of getting water up my nose or making myself dizzy or something. today, after about four attempts, i got up the nerve to come up from a hand stand face first–in essence, a full flip. i did get a tiny bit dizzy, but no water in my nose and wow–it took me right back to my garfield mask days. plus, it really was fun.
