Yourself?

Library, Swimming and Toes

I love the med library. If there a better place to study, I haven't found it yet. Where else can you fall in love with physiology and anatomy, get funny Ouyang to give you a summary of GIT at 1 am, look at Cheryl's new slippers, hobble around without shoes, listen to Bryan remind you to put your toes in ice, and simply just hang out with people you love for lunch and dinner!

I just recently fell in love with swimming. Somehow, I've taught myself how to swim pretty decently I think. Lots of things to be worked on I'm sure, but I'm just enjoying myself now, instead of drowning in slow motion like previously, and it's so nice to know you can swim for an hour without much strain. It's just so meditative, looking at the floor tiles pass you by, like a screensaver, counting your seconds under water, lifting your head and seeking air. Just this moment in a day when you don't need to think about anything, but feel instead. Feel the water on your skin, aligning yourself for the least friction, hear the sound of your kicking, floating with the air on your back, on your thighs, on your heels. Watch the people around you just kick and flail their way onwards, while I conserve energy, try and minimize effort, stay light and aerodynamic. Least effort.

I need to work on it though, cos the last time I got out of the water, I felt really dizzy. I think I'm not breathing often enough to oxygenize my brain while swimming, but after a while, I find myself too lazy to raise my head out anyway, until the last moment before bursting lungs. Most efficiently, at the brink.

I dropped a drawer on my toes today. Sort of pulled it out, and it didn't stop and just rolled onto my toes. The pain was exquisite. It sort of overwhelmed me. I could think of nothing but reducing the pain. By trying to get rid of it. But then after that initial wave of pain, I just enjoyed it. Sat up and actually thought "Wow, that woke me up!" Only after seeing the blood then did I realize it was so bad. It's interesting how pain is so transient. How pain is something so essential to life, to feeling alive. I never felt more alive than the moments after pain. In that one instant, I had no doubt whether I was alive.

posted by Downhere. @ 9:18 pm