Thoughts

The first time I heard Ani Difranco was on a hotel deck in Israel overlooking the Mediterranean Sea. It was also in Israel that my swimming career unravelled.

There is no relationship between the two events other than the fact that Ani was my solace for the next 10 years after that fall from grace. She continues to be my favorite musician to this day. I'm listening to Hello Birmingham as I type.

It was 1997 and just weeks before I had qualified for Senior Nationals. A feat that I could say I have been pining for since I started swimming when I was five years old. It was my highest point in the sport. I never got to swim at Senior Nationals though because the art of my life unraveling got in the way. Eleven years later I have perspective. I will keep my hands out of the skin and blood of my life's 3 year bender that ended abruptly and beautifully with the birth of my son in 2000. I will only say that time and life is cyclical and that everything really does work out for the best in the end.

I plan to haul my amazing gift of a body to the YMCA tonight, to the pool where I swam when I was 8, to where my name still hangs on the record board, and I'll swim in my own private heaven with my mind a million miles away and it will be really good.