I Blame the Armbands

On a Thursday afternoon I have the dubious pleasure of sitting on the edge of a swimming pool shouting encouraging comments at ten year olds as they learn how to swim.

Their swimming teacher is very good, and every time I watch them, I think how much difference your swimming teacher can make to your relationship with water and swimming.

I’m a fairly poor swimmer. I can do a nervous breaststroke that involves keeping my head out of the water (much like a paddling dog) and wincing anytime someone splashes me, but that’s about my limit. And I’m terrified of jumping in.

I love the concept of swimming; I love how freeing it looks to be able to swim well. In fact, dreaming of it is one of my preferred ways to relax at bedtime. In reality though, I’m very nervous of large expanses of water and my swimming skills leave a lot to be desired.

I was taught to swim with armbands by a lady who walked along the edge of the pool with a long metal rod and occasionally shouted at me about how I needed to kick more. I loathed swimming lessons. The pool was sunk in the middle of a concrete building lined with changing cubicles and there was always a faint smell of urine. We were supposed to change much quicker than I was capable of and the teacher would get cross if we took too long to blow up our armbands. I can still remember the sound the reverse alarm on the school minibus made: the sound that filled me with dread every time I had to go swimming.

The children I take to the pool on a Thursday are taught to get their heads wet and jump in before they even start learning to swim. And there isn’t an armband in sight. Floats, yes. Armbands – those bright, uncomfortable inflatables that make it impossible for you to keep your head under even if you want to – no. They’re taught variety: front crawl, backstroke, breaststroke, picking things up from beneath the water... Actually, I think that happened when I was taught too, but you only got to do most of it once you’d mastered breaststroke... which I didn’t.

Every time I watch the children’s lessons, I think about how much I would like to be able to swim properly. It looks relaxing, freeing – comfortable even – to be able to do it confidently.

So I’ve been thinking I might to try to get myself some adult swimming lessons one of these days... though preferably not at the local pool, where I’m bound to run into lots of children I know, all of whom are vastly superior swimmers to me.

Photo by Chip Smith

An Extra Dimension

My favourite kind of art is interactive art: art that places you in the centre of it and forces you to think about your own place in the world.

Yesterday I went to see Anthony Gormely’s exhibition, Test Sites, at the White Cube, and it did exactly that. There are two parts to it but the part that spoke to me the loudest was Breathing Room III, an imposing framework of photo-luminescent “space-frames” that you are invited to walk through.

You are directed into Breathing Room III by an usher with a flashlight, who shows you the path into a dark room. You round a corner and are immediately faced with a glowing web, a structure that appears more like a complex series of light-beams than anything solid. It’s a bit like being in a computer game. Or possibly The Matrix. You can walk through the structure, picking your way through the grids of light, and when you stand there in the middle of all that, it feels a bit like you might have just discovered another dimension.

And then, suddenly, the room is filled with bright light. You’re looking at a plain white structure and a room full of shocked and blinking faces. Suddenly the whole thing seems to have lost a dimension; everything feels flat and empty. Everything feels a bit wrong.

Then, without warning, the lights go off again, and that first moment when you are confronted with the glowing grids is just magical. It’s like regaining a dimension. It feels safe again and beautiful. I could have stayed there for hours just for that moment. I’m a light-beam junkie.

It’s only at the White Cube until 10 July, but if you’re in London with a spare half an hour, I highly recommend it. And if you're not able to experience it first-hand, the Guardian have some great photos of it here.

Image by David Levene for the Guardian

On Rainbows (and Other Colourful Things)

The other day it occurred to me that reading a writer’s description of a colour might be the closest we can get to all experiencing it in the same way.

And then it occurred to me that I was wrong: a writer’s description is just as subjective as anyone else’s perception.

It fascinates me that we can all look at the same pasture at the same time and agree that we’re seeing a green field. Maybe we’ll even agree that it’s a dull green or a yellowish green. But we’ll never have any way of knowing if we’re seeing it in exactly the same way, if that particular shade of green looks the same to all of us. This idea makes me feel both excited and lonely. I really like the idea that we could all be having subtly different experiences of the same colour, that our points of view could be so unique. Yet it feels very isolating to think that we might be the only person experiencing something in a particular way.

This is something that bothers me every now and then. On this particular occasion, I was briefly very excited that we might all be united by reading the same description of the colour of oranges in a fruit bowl or the same passage about the light shimmering in someone’s chestnut hair. Then I remembered the subjectivity of the writer’s own perception, and the influence of the way we normally see things on our interpretation of the description.

There really is no way of knowing whether we’re all seeing the same thing when talk about the colour blue. I find this unsettling.

Image by Gavin Bobo

Drought

I know I’m not the only one who’s suffering from the current blogging drought. Why is it that it seems to get a few of us at the same time? Is there some seasonal factor that makes us more or less committed to maintaining our blogs?

To be honest, I haven’t really settled back into any of my working patterns since I returned from my Easter retreat. But, back from a week away visiting friends in Berlin, I’m aiming to knuckle down this week and try to get back a bit of my motivation. No one is more irritated by my current inactivity than I am.

One of the biggest problems has been my work space. Since I’ve been back from my solitary writing trip, I’ve had to readjust to having my desk in the living room. Before I left I was used to sharing my space with Dave. Now I’m having to relearn how to cope with the constant distraction. It’s been a bit like moving in all over again!

It’s hard for Dave too, of course. He made an album recently which he had to record in hour-long slots between each of us getting home from work. It’s impressive that he managed to complete it at all, let alone that he made something good. You can listen to Going Back to Finish the Job free on Soundcloud if you’re interested, or you can buy it from his myspace. Not that I’m advertising of course...

We’re moving house again in a few months time and will gain more private work areas in the process. While I never look forward to moving, I will wholly welcome the end to this particular problem.

In the meantime, I’m going to have to force myself to focus and remember how good it feels to be productive. You never know, maybe I’ll even be able to show you some evidence one of these days!

The Dave - 07 - Audio - The Flaw by The Dave

Image by Bidgee