Sunday, January 23, 2011

Swimming, Ballet and Other Inadequacies

Upon the recommendation of my kinésithérapeute (physical therapist), I have taken up swimming at my local branch of the YMCA. I haven’t swum since the Fourth of July party in Host Country, but it’s coming back to me. And I don’t even have to wear a swimsuit bought from a vending machine like last spring in France!

The lap pool adjoins a family pool area filled with brightly colored slides and strangely shaped devices. Though the sounds can be a bit annoying, this arrangement does lessen the clinical appearance associated with white, sterile, harshly lit and badly smelling piscines. Moreover, I’m free to glide along, wearing my lunettes de plongée (goggles), secure in the knowledge that the other adults won’t randomly cross under the lane markers as I used to do during Pollywog swim classes.

I prefer to lap swim poorly rather than tread water or accomplish acrobatic feats. The basic strokes (front crawl, backstroke, breastroke – le crawl, le dos, la brasse) are easy enough conceptually, but I usually manage to falter at least once in the middle of a lap. Part of this is due to my elbow injury and part is due to natural clumsiness. Hand-eye coordination and reaction times were never my best subjects. Consequently, I rarely felt guilt about my lack of physical prowess and reserved my névroses (neuroses) for more academic pursuits.

My thoughts turned to this lack of agility while watching the film “Black Swan” with my mother this week. It was certainly un film percutant (a powerful film), though not one I came away “liking” by any means. In her quest for perfection, Nina (Natalie Portman) descends into paranoia. Her slight physical frame withstood the pain of hours of rehearsal while her mind fluttered like a stray feather caught in the wind. Later, as I tried to force my limbs to gracefully bend and bow to my will, I decided to accept the fact that I look like a drowning duck rather than a gracefully disturbed swan.

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