Finding Your Bliss: Magic

Cover of Night Swimming

 

Finding your bliss in the pool

Last night I went to a water aerobics class at a local pool and got there early as usual.  The night was cool and the water, warm, and the sky was filled with stars. As I was the only one in the pool I half heartedly began a few laps. First I swam breaststroke as that is my relaxing mode, and then I did my dolphin turn over and began my favorite backstroke. I found it hard, initially; to continue my path across this pool I know so well but had never swam in at night time. The steam from the warm water created a thick mist which flowed in unexplained currents across the water.  The night air chilled my arms and the top of my head yet the clouds of steam entranced me in a way that was mystical and very magical. I felt almost hypnotized by the appearance of sky and mist and then more sky and more mist. When the other members of the class began to appear in the pool I felt as if I were a part of the cast of Cocoon . People entered the pool with a great silence and yet a familiarity with each other. There were proper introductions all around of me, “the new kid” and I was welcomed to the class led by a very funny woman. I allowed myself to be directed by the leader for a while and then noticed I was disregarding the instructions and simply swimming where ever I wished which was mostly back to the backstroke which had produced this amazing feeling of hallucinogenic drugs but without having to swallow anything. I remarked several times to my fellow class members that the backstroke was definitely euphoric and the sight of the steamy water interspersed by the clouds was something they should see but I had no persuasive power.

I think I must have some type of autism as I know my behavior must have seemed odd to others but I really didn’t care. I just wanted to be lost again in the dream of the mist and the pleasures of the hemisphere. There is a reason I live alone, I know this.

There are many of us who live alone and some of the time it is a good thing and some of the time it feels lonely but I am not certain I know how to live in the company of others. Maybe I never did. I have always had this ability to see magic which I refuse to give up. People have found it annoying in me but I find it a secret treasure. I am very grateful that it is there in my mind and has refused to leave me all of these years.

I startle easily, am very sensitive to fragrance unless I have chosen to have it under my nose, and dislike loud and harsh sounds. My mother drank while pregnant, smoked L and M cigarettes and was heavily sedated while I was being born. Most of us boomers had the same kind of mother. In those days mothers didn’t think about all the things mothers have to think of today. When my very serious Grandfather visited my mother after giving birth in the hospital she was smoking. He knocked on the door to her room and she threw her cigarette in the drawer of the nightstand and told him to come in. The trail of smoke from the drawer never seemed to cross his attention and she told me the story with laughter in her voice every time. It is a funny story.

Life brings you stuff to deal with every day that may or may not be stressful, painful, difficult or joyful. Most of us worry a lot about things that never happen. Most of us live in the future all the time and constantly create fantasies that sometimes happen and sometimes don’t. In this New Year it is a good thing to try to stay in the present moment and find your own magic there. Maybe it is a glimpse of moss covered rock or heron fishing for lunch, or maybe it is the turn of an ear of your children, or maybe a conversation of a stranger you overhear, or maybe it is the steam from a pool you are swimming in at night.

I loved night swimming as a child and my mother would drive us up to the country club pool near where we lived in her glamorous car with her hair tied back like Audrey Hepburn and she would play old Frank Sinatra songs on the radio which would fade in and out according to the hills and dales of Connecticut. Her eyes would soften as she turned each curve and though we were right there sitting up high on the back of her convertible car we could have been anywhere as she was lost in her magic. I was happy to see her face glowing in the moonlight and her slight smile as she drove wistfully into the night. Happy she knew how to create magic for us and happy to find the pool, deserted and waiting.

Holiday Thoughts

Cover of The Nun's Story

This time of year is always interesting as on occasion, despite attempts at maturity and evolvement, one may revert to a child’s perspective and remember all of the excitement and expectation surrounding Christmas. In our house acquiring the tree was always an interesting adventure. Our mother would ask who wanted to go on this adventure and we would all scream “yes”. Our car was one of those old fashioned ”woodie” wagons with no seat belts or electric windows. The back seat could be flattened out with the help of four usually swearing men. There were six children in our family and we were spaced like Catholic children though I was repeatedly assured we were not Catholic. Cynthia Paterno lived next door to us and tried to convert me all the time. Apparently good Catholics gave all their allowance to their neighbors. Once I took all of the clothes out of my closet and made an altar out of my mother’s show boxes but when I lit a candle in there one caught on fire.

I liked being a temporary Catholic. I prayed every night and put a white towel over my head like Audrey Hepburn in The Nun’s Story and admired myself a lot in the bathroom mirror being careful to look pious. I knew I would never sleep with a boy until I got married and that I really wasn’t supposed to actually swallow the wine during communion. I knew that good catholic girls didn’t wear patent leather shoes because boys could see their underpants if they did. I learned that if you did something wrong no matter what it was you went to confession and told the priest what your sin was. He would give you a penance and you would be forgiven. A clean slate.

Now that I am grown up and no longer a Catholic I wish I was one. How nice to have the ability of simply telling someone what you had done wrong and being forgiven for it. I think that no one does things that are consciously mean unless they are 14 or a criminal. Relationships are just tricky as we are all so fragile. A friend said to me the other day that you couldn’t reason or understand someone else and have a good relationship if the other person really didn’t want that good relationship. I think that is a very wise thing. We sometimes worry and think about all of the things we have done that are wrong and wonder why another person is angry with us and this is a waste of time. It is better to assume that sooner or later you will find out the truth and that in the meantime all you can do is think loving thoughts. Feeling guilty is a waste of time. Feeling shameful is, too.

This time of year it is important to tread lightly on the earth and with each other. We are all still hoping for a miracle.