Hues

There's a moment in Sabrina (Audrey Hepburn, Humphrey Bogart) where Sabrina (Hepburn) fixes Linus' fedora as they drive along a country road. She begins humming "La Vie en Rose," a French classic most known by Edith Piaf. (Louis Armstrong also does a rendition of this.) Anyway, the song is a lovely little ballad about seeing life through rose-colored glasses.


Yesterday, for the first time in ages, I swam. I'm quite terrible at swimming--have always felt awkward and slightly uncomfortable in the water--but I'm 23 years old, have lived on an island for over a year now, and have YET to go snorkeling! In my entire existence, I've never even been snorkeling!
So yesterday, I went. A friend helped me, and we alternated between just snorkeling for the fun of it and practicing our swimming form. I must say, I'm definitely behind in the times. My body just doesn't feel right when I swim--my legs twitch in odd ways, my arms feel gawky and strange, and...ohhhhh, look at that pretty purple fish! Wooowwwww the currents down here, and the reeds are blowing because the current is like the wind of the sea! Man! Woah--check out how deep that drop--
Suddenly, a jerk on my foot and I'm screeching underwater. It's Andrew, pulling me back into focus. Right. Swimming. (Let's consider that the fixing-the-fedora moment.)


I got tired within minutes; it's been a long time since my arms have moved like that, so my shoulders are extremely sore, but I think this is just the low-impact workout they need.
I've always been a respecter of the sea--I admire its beauty, mystery, power...from a nice, comfortable distance. But yesterday I saw the world through blue-colored glasses. As I tried to practice on my form, I kept thinking of metaphors via fish, sea vegetation, floating diapers (we were on the waterfront, where sh*t gets dumped all the time.) Seeing through a different hue just changes things a bit. Though I felt awkward in the water, I also felt reed-like, just bobbing around where the current took me, randomly choking on water that sucked into my snorkel.


And I've finally come to a point in my life (I've been working on it the last couple of years) where, no matter how big or small the task, I'm accomplishing things I would normally be embarrassed to even try. Of course, it helped when Andrew said he wanted someone to swim with because he's a terrible swimmer (no intimidated factor is good), but I'm finally at patience with myself. I do have an undercover competitive thing going on, but mostly, it's with myself. Sometimes I often think it's this American mentality we have--like we need to be good at EVERYTHING, we cannot fail at something so we don't try it. (Plus, if you grew up with sports, it's kinda there.) So I'm sore and I'm happy about it. I'm pretty sure my 3-year-old niece, Ella, has much better form than me, but it's okay, I'll learn. Plus, I got to see fish that looked like zebras!