“Somehow I kept my head above water. I relied on the discipline, character, and strength that I had started to develop as that little girl in her first swimming pool.”
Esther Williams
A nod to Esther Williams who influenced my mother’s love of swimming which then influenced my love of it~ and my daughter’s, and on it will go. My mother raised us playing in the water, fantasizing about being mermaids, yet only once did I see her go under and get her hair wet.
The memories are vivid- my mother’s rolled out hair neatly tucked into her petaled bathing cap, the smell of that bathing cap, laying like a lizard on the bluestone to warm up because pools in the 70s were freeeeezing! It was a different time. But the message- the experience- the nourishment that water delivers is timeless.
watch this- and smile to your mothers & grandmothers…we’ve come a long way!
Times sure have changed. Thankfully. And to think these young mermaids were progressive in the 40s is mind blowing. But, alas, we play the hand we are dealt, and do our best. And are reminded, you never know the ripple effect of your efforts, decades later~~~
“Take every minute, one at a time. Don’t be fooled by a perfect sea at any given moment. Accept and rise to whatever circumstance presents itself. Be in it full tilt, your best self.”
Diane Nyad, called the toughest athlete in the world. First person in the world to swim from Cuba to Florida w/o a shark cage in 2012, at age 64.