Learning to Swim
Write about swimming. Or sea creatures. Or your favourite swimsuit. Or your fear of water. It’s all good.
Jellyfish tentacles, Vancouver Aquarium. Photo: Tanya Clarke 2015
Lines Drawn in the Sea
I had another photograph in mind to publish today.
On reflection, I’m not so sure about it. After some further digital digging, I found the image above in a folder of pictures I took in the Vancouver Aquarium during our first visit to Canada before we moved here.
For me, this photograph conjures up a memory. I'm going to guess that I was maybe six years old on a family camping holiday in the north of Scotland one summer. We visited a beach on the west coast one afternoon. The tide was heading out and large wobbling jellyfish lay beached on the sand. I prodded one with my sandalled foot to see if it would move.
There were plenty of warm shallow pools to paddle in and search for more sea creatures. The wind blew wild around us and the afternoon sun disappeared behind thick grey clouds. Despite the cool temperature, I wore my most favourite swimsuit ever. From the back, it looked like I was wearing a bikini (something my mum would never have allowed) but from the front, I was, appropriately, covered in a one-piece.
The soft, damp sand sucked in my feet as I paddled in the shallows looking for shells. I found a tiny crab nestled in the seaweed. As I looked my long hair fell across my face, the ends dropping into the water where the lengths of seaweed trapped and tangled it in its stems. I remember a moment of panic as the waves splashed in my face, the salt stinging my eyes and the water dribbling into my mouth. I managed to grab my hair and pull hard enough to break either my hair or the seaweed. I don't remember which.
For this week, you could write about swimming. Can you swim? When did you learn? How old were you? Can you remember the time before you could swim? Do you remember feeling scared of the water? Are you still frightened of the water? Do you teach swimming? Are you comfortable swimming in open water or would you rather paddle in the shallows?
Write it all. Get right in there.
