Love/Water

I love to get to the Natatorium early 

to watch the swimmers.

Very often there are large groups 

either practicing or warming up for competition.

The sounds of the water and the rhythm of 

people moving up and down the lanes

is both mesmerizing and comforting.

None of the pictures I've taken so far of

the swimmers has captured the fascination

I feel by the almost balletic routine

of their movements.

While swimming myself, I sometimes 

think of the swimmers and try to emulate 

their long line, keeping my body straight 

and toes relaxed yet pointed.

"Relaxed." Yeh, that's the big thing for me;

I don't think about going fast, I think 

"Technique, technique, technique. 

Technique fast, technique fast, technique fast." 

My body comes up "on plane" and I feel 

as though the water is zooming by me.

It makes a difference.

I count my laps. I count my strokes.

I cast a glance at the clock

and then turn my eyes toward the bottom

of the pool to begin again,

another step in my odyssey to achieve a dream.

My love for you is like water.

Clear as crystal, its currents weave through,

creating inclusions, weaving, changing

yet always there, adding depth

and bands of color, rainbows of feeling 

from the darkest indigo

to the happiest of yellows.

Fight it and you flounder.

Rest quietly and it will support you,

carrying you to the other side

as quickly or as slowly as you may care

to go, but always there.

Clear As Mud

The water flowing from the Central Canal into 

the White River looks as crystalline as one might want, 

but as the sign a few feet away advises, 

looks are deceiving. 

Soutache on Limestone

Back to the little waterfall feature at Eskenazi Health,

where the water rushing past the rocks adorns 

them with icy embroidery, creating lovely soutache 

collars and lapels for the blocks of limestone.

Reflections on Waiting

At night, the lights in and around 

Eskenazi Health create patterns 

of light and color, making the place 

seem to glitter and move in its own reflections.

This is not a place of fear and shadows. 

People are all around, sitting on the benches,

at ease in the beauty and light around them.

Morning Guide

After a year of extremes, which saw us endure 

a hot summer in 2013 that became an interminable 

winter, 2014 had an extremely short spring. 

That turned into a summer that is flying past; July will 

be one of the coolest on record and, as we ease 

into August, the area has seen near daily thunderstorms

as the West Coast endures drought conditions

for the third year in a row. There's something wrong

here; while weather cycles are to be expected,

at least a portion of the problem is due to man's

selfishness, his narrow expectations that the basic needs

will be satisfied at the turn of a faucet.

And in Detroit ... by the end of the summer, 

the municipal utility is expected to shut off water

supplies to roughly 150,000 residents,

over 20% of the city's diminishing 700,000 population.

Telling people to "just pay their water bill,"

the utility is threatening 38% of a population that is 

living below the poverty line, underemployed, unemployed,

and trapped in what is becoming "an urban desert."

Increasingly, as those who pay for and control

the Congress sip their triple-filtered bottled water,

scenarios such as these will become common.

With cutbacks and laws weighted towards the

wealthy and their interests, they will one day

wonder why the masses are at the gates.

In spite of the fact that they enjoy privileges

bestowed upon them by their massive pocketbooks,

one day, the people who toil in the shadows

of the corporate boardrooms won't be there

to kiss their masters' asses. Instead, they will be 

in the streets looking for water.

Of course, one can't think along these lines without

considering the old saw attributed to

Marie Antoinette, "Let them eat cake."

There's another to be considered --

When the Nazis came for the communists, I remained silent; 

I was not a communist.

When they locked up the socialists, I remained silent; 

I was not a socialist.

When they came for the trade unionists, I did not speak out; 

I was not a trade unionist.

When they came for the Jews, I remained silent;

 I wasn’t a Jew.

When they came for me, 

there was no one left to speak out.

~Pastor Martin Niemöller

Ebb and Flow

The little girl was visiting Eskenazi Health on Saturday

 with her family. They sat on one of the benches, 

resting in the shade, while she and her brother played 

in/on the gurgling water feature on the north end 

of the hospital's plaza. 

In recent days, the designer of this pool has

apparently been working with the hospital's grounds

staff to get the fountain outlets to perform

as she had designed. Now, rather than just a gurgling

low-profile pool, the water level ebbs and flows

as the outlets perform sequentially,

the better to illustrate the quote incised

at the edge of the pool.

A Healing Vessel

Waves fall away

"I don' know what to do.

They told me he flat-lined twice on them

and the obscured is revealed,

an' they brought him back, but he's got brain damage

an' they want to take him off life support.

all that remains are our deeds,

That no-good daughter of his is in lock-up

an' I know she ain't signin' no papers.

cupped like hands for water:

And that fuckin' brother of his

that he don' get along with is somewhere

in fuckin' Wyoming and all he said was

'the hell with him."

a healing vessel.

                     -- Mitchel L.H. Douglas

While taking pictures of one of the new water features 

at Eskenazi Health, I happened to overhear 

a bit of phone conversation a woman was having.

about her very ill friend. She was asking

someone to come stay with her during what was

certainly a very difficult situation for her --

saying good-bye to someone she loved,

unable to get any support from his family.

The words in italics are incised 

at the base of this fountain.

Inner Lights

They're small things, really, but the way the light 

in the fountain is caught and bent by the falling water 

seems beautiful. I especially like the way 

the fiery glow of the light contrasts 

with the foamy bubbles at the bottom.

A Pleasant Break

Monday evening, I walked over to Eskenazi Health 

to catch the bus for home and to check out 

the newly completed fountains and water features 

at the hospital's main entrance.

There I saw three women taking the time

during their evening break to enjoy

a word game.

On their way back to work, a couple of them

paused to wade in the gurgling water

of the new fountain, a low-profile installation that 

invites such innocent, relaxing pleasures.

Swimming: Yadda-Yadda-Yadda

Some evenings, the hardest thing to do is just jumping 

into the pool, trusting that the cool water 

will support me and return me to the surface.

I began this little enterprise in earnest last July, as an aid

to help me lose weight, but it has become 

an end in itself. I am surrounded by tri-athletes, long and short course

competitive swimmers, and open water swimmers and every 

damn one of them is a better swimmer than I; to date, 

there has not been one person I have shared a lane with

who has not been a stronger, faster swimmer.

My coach, a nice man (even though I think of him as a dick),

knows I'm frustrated, tells me I've improved but that it 

takes a long time to be any good. But just how long is

"a long time"? I've seen enormous changes in my body as the fat

burns away and my muscles become toned. 

Things are changing for the better, but when 

will I be strong and fast? 

Will I ever get to be attractive again so I can wear

a nice swimsuit made from a pretty print?

When will it be my turn?

Uh-oh.

  

Sun-Jeweled

I reached the Coke Field around noon, 

hoping to be able to see turtles basking on rocks 

in the creek. However much I tried to be quiet,

my footfalls still sounded like explosions

on the gravel approach to the bridge, while

walking on the grass was almost as loud.

The only part of a turtle I've seen so far is the

backside of its shell as it glided into the concentric

circles made as it dived into the water,

and this time was no different.

I leaned against the bridge railing to look

at the water as it flowed over the rocks in the creek,

looking at each likely looking rock, hoping

it was a turtle. There were none, but the beauty

of the sun as it was reflected by the ripples

was enough to capture my interest.

For whatever reason, I like the colors of the rocks 

and moss. Stray leaves, trapped underwater, 

accentuate the patterns of the creek's flow over the rocks,

with the sun's light sparkling like liquid jewels

on a silken tapestry.

November Theme Day: Water's Edge

The day I took this the clouds were moving in to hide 

the bright sun. I turned to look over the little bridge at the Coke Field, 

where the sun reflected off the water so brightly it drove the plants 

at water's edge into shadows and silhouette.

Today is Theme Day for the members of the 

City Daily Photo community of bloggers.

Here are other interpretations of the theme,

made by photographers from all over the world.

  

So Blue, So Cool

The combination of heat and humidity today made today's temperature feel like 115 degrees. I went to the pool, stepped off the side into the water and was enveloped by its blue coolness. I try to make it my rule that, once I am in the water, I do not stop moving or touch the sides or bottom. This might make me the Michael Phelps of treading water, but with so many other people around it's hard to swim lengths. I swam, treaded water and watched the trees undulate in the breeze for an hour while about a dozen teenagers laughed. splashed and ran around nearby. Either way, we all enjoyed ourselves, irrespective of the heat.

On the other hand...

Help meee!! Pleeez! I want to go home! 

Water

How much we need, how much we get, is such a delicate balance, like the colors in this picture. So far this season, just about every other day has been cloudy. Last summer, we had drought conditions, the thunderheads of anticipated storms passing just to the north, lightning within the clouds serving only to accentuate the heat.

This year, we would, if possible, share some of our rainfall with the people in the Southwest and Florida, to put out the brush fires and save their homes from burning.  Folks along the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers have, once again, been losing their homes to flooding. I'm sure they want the rivers to retreat to their banks. A lot of this can be attributed to our human conceits, attempting to impose controls that have, in many cases, reached up to bite us in the ass. Have we gone too far to ever achieve some sort of happy medium?