But you are a different shape than before? I ask. She’d had cancer, and hadn’t swum since, and the doctor said it was alright but… She stopped. A woman came to the pool after finding my open invitation in the bookshop, but hesitated on the side, still dressed. I was also entrusted with tales made of heavier elements. Always pushing, more laps, quicker lengths…In Pells now, I dawdle…As I pootle, I think about language: Pool: Fat / Lido: Strong - Pool: Competition / Lido: Community -Pool: Doing / Lido: Being…” “I usually swim urgent and fast, a strong front crawl and a battle on each stroke. Would I feel better or worse about myself?” What would I be if I was 12 laps instead, or 18. “Your presence allowed me to consider more deeply my own process of being in the water…I lost count of the number of lengths and began to wonder what 16 laps meant to me as an identity. I invited people to write posts for a Laps/Lines blog, in which they revealed what was happening while they swam: The next season, within days of kneeling to my scrolls, I was delighted to find pool-goers confiding their feelings about my work and their private experience of the water.
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