Picture, if you will, a noble, grand, imaginary scale.
Two pans, one on each side.
One hangs low, nearly scraping the floor.
The other, completely off balance, is jutting high up into the air.
What could possibly be causing such an imbalance?
What is this symbolism intending to illustrate?
What even happened?
Well – strictly speaking – nothing. And that’s precisely the point. It’s the first little nod to our opening metaphor.
On the low-hanging pan rest many of “my Saturdays”—those days when I occasionally ponder which subject or theme to pluck from the overflowing buffet of possible inspirations.
And on the other pan? A weightless nothingness – the rather uncool byproduct of my unstructured nature and forgetfulness.
Something Sarah, ever so unintentionally, reminded me of just last Saturday – when she indirectly mentioned that it hadn’t been her turn for the blog… but that it was actually mine.
Arrrrghh.
At the very least, I did manage to take three low-resolution snapshots on my phone that day.
Mostly just to show Sarah – and maybe the tourism board of Rhode Island – how fondly I still wear the memories I brought back with me some time ago. But now those three pictures play a way more important role: to act as the foundation for a modest attempt to balance out two things at once:
First, that reoccurred, aforementioned forgetfulness.
And second to finally write some light-hearted blog post again – one that’s not dealing with any of my usual, more or less subtle life philosophies or thoughts about human purpose.
So it happened that I ultimately came up with the following, pretty nice idea:
Because that little snapshot happend right after I slipped into that merch-shirt after another day in and at the indoor pool and because swimming and diving still remains a blissfully simple source of joy in my life, I thought that it would be wonderfully silly and banal – and yet, somehow not at all – to share my very personal list of my most favourite and fun underwater diving moves with any curious readers! So, finally – here we go:
- The Crazy-Eye™: diving down, holding the nose, rolling onto the back and staring up at the magical, shimmering surface from below
- The Crayon Ponyfish™: diving all down to the bottom of the pool and brushing the chin slowly along the pool floor
- The Hennessey Maneuver™: taking a deep breath, diving below the surface, exhaling strongly underwater all while doing a forward somersault
- The Klaus Daimler Walk™: doing a handstand beneath the surface and walking a few meters on the hands
- or: simply sinking below the surface, just enough that the head is fully submerged, closing the eyes, listening to the merciful silence that’s within that world and thinking how right Ned Plimpton was indeed when he told Steve Zissou that he still wished he could breathe underwater.