May 3, 2010

Reflections on the sensations of swimming

3polaroids
And though we are like the sea and it's right we be so
we could chase tails all the years I've been given.


'There's one man, he's like
the wishful thinking in my life, I see so
and he's like the wine on the weekend...
and though he is like the sea and it's right he be so
if I hold tight he'll wash over me...

There's one girl I like she's a smile on a Monday
and she'll fight to stay so...
and she's like the sun on the weekend
and though she is like the sea and she's right to be so
still I like that she sails with me...'
- Lisa Hannigan

These polaroids were taken maybe a little under a year ago, but only today did I manage to find the rest of the set hidden in a Moleskine and scan them in.

I took them not long after my friend and I had purchased our favourite polka dot bathing suits and mine was enough of a novelty that I was wearing it most days under my dresses, even when I didn't plan to swim. I remember that the camera was a novelty too, and J. was worried about getting sunburnt. Summer heat and a day spent floating around an inflatable swimming pool; the feeling of tiptoeing out back and forth from the house through the sharp, crunchy gravel on the driveway. Polaroids floating on the surface of the water, the strange sensation of our skin pruning and the faint, comforting (am I the only one to think this?) scent of chlorine.

One of my resolutions for the summer is to swim more. Swim a lot. I had a dream once that someone asked me what I would have liked to do with my life, had I been able to re-live it - for some reason, I told them that I would have spent more time swimming in the ocean.

Tomorrow, I plan to spend some time at the beach.

3 comments:

  1. oh to have lovely weather like this!
    x

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  2. I love your pictures! What kind of camera do you have?

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  3. The beach! So lucky. I like your resolution to swim more, and your bathing suit....I've got my eye on the navy and orange colourway they're doing this year.
    I am going to swim soon. Yes.

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