http___margaretcho.com_hr_2012_05_16_swim__1.xml
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The hour that gives me the most difficulty is 2pm. I am good in the mornings. The sunrise is ever hopeful, the strange way you can tell light is new, the way it comes at you, shy through the trees. Yes I love mornings, because it’s another chance, you get another stab at it, whatever it is. Nothing bad has occurred really in the early hours to scar me forever or make me hate mornings, not yet anyway. I usually have slept well and I am prepared. I look forward to the coming day, and maybe fondly backward at the night before. The day begins and there’s an optimism that I associate with waking, a half full glass I anticipate and drink down all the way in one gulp like freshly squeezed orange juice with some sparkling water mixed in. AM is citrusy and bubbly and just squirted from the fruit and that is glorious and makes my mouth water. It’s the best, the opening credits of the movie. Nothing has happened yet and I am ready for it to. I am glad for it to. The only time this isn’t true is when I have stayed up all night, which is rare, I mean, I can count the times I have done this in my relatively long lifetime on one hand. That is terrible, to stay up all night, and this I have never done without some type of drug, an upper, which gives you a burst of good feeling right at the beginning, and then pays you back bad feeling with interest, robbing you of maybe a week’s worth of joy and patience and the accepting of things and peace and reason and that unnamed force that gets you out of bed to put on makeup and dress up in something nice and listen to music and dance and sing and think that anything is possible and a good day is coming on. All that for about 15 minutes of shaky bliss at the start, I don’t think it’s a fair exchange. There’s also a guilt there too, if you haven’t been to bed, and you are looking at everyone who has, and you watch them with your bloodshot eyes as they are getting up and getting their coffee and going to work with big white cups with brown recycled paper rings to keep them from burning their hands and their clothes look just put on and they have the morning face that you wish you had, one that had gotten to bed at a decent hour and dreamed and woke untroubled and now is in front of you, and the sanity of it is mocking the insanity of yours. The streets get more and more crowded and you feel more and more alone and even though you may be surrounded it’s like an island or a raft is surrounded by water and there’s not a drop to drink. Sometimes you can erase that horror show of being up all night with breakfast, trick yourself with the hot black medicine of strong coffee and the crisp, butter comfort of toast, but it’s only while you’re eating and maybe a very, very short time after. The healing power of omelettes and pancakes and waffles only lasts for as long as its on the table. After it’s in you it doesn’t do much good. I don’t stay up all night anymore. I can’t take it. This is not for me. I love the morning too much to sully it. it’s important to me to feel like there’s a newness and a comeuppance and a day that hasn’t happened yet that is gonna happen and you never know, you never know. I get excited about the morning like I am a puppy, jumping and batting my paws all for nothing and for no reason other than I get to go around the sun yet once more. The night is also the same way, as the night dawns much like the day. the sun goes away to reveal the moon herself and there is much delight as she is bright and sometimes a sliver, sometimes full and round, much like me, changing and growing and shrinking and different always and every shape of her has a name and distinct attributes. The night is often when my workday begins, comedians and musicians and waiters and bartenders and chefs and emergency room doctors and nurses and drug dealers even and police and firemen and all of us on the graveyard shift who ensure the nourishment and care and protection, physical and otherwise, of the majority of the working people who make the world turn day after day. I feel safe in the velvet cloak of night and I come alive when I go to work and see my friends and play in clubs and it’s always been exciting to welcome dusk and the rites of dinner and drinks that go along with it and that moment when you can let go of the day, stop white knuckling the afternoon and know that everything is going to be fine, and even if it isn’t soon it will all be over and the bed is a delicious promise that is always kept (unless you happen to do those bad drugs). The night is good to me and good for me and I feel safe and dangerous at once. I am a night person and a morning person and then that leaves the afternoon which is a problem. 2pm is the fearsome middle I struggle with. I’m a strong swimmer, having been on swim teams as a child, always smelling a little of chlorine, with dry tight skin and choppy braids that dried into hard gel waves. There was also an issue of mold in my locker. My existence was mostly wet and then you mix that with dark, you get mold. It’s a fact. I can’t say I loved swimming but I did it because it was the right thing at the time and I was fairly good at it and there was a simple kind of reward involved because I grew up in a cold climate and the water of the pool was often slightly warmer than the air even though it seemed like it would be colder and you didn’t want go in initially as the threat of being colder even still was almost too much to bear but if you actually did it and jumped right in and braved the bracing shock of ice in your life, in a moment you’d be fine and warm and swimming and the fear would melt with the cold and you’d be alright. I swam for that small victory as well as other minor wins like having a place to go in an important somewhat distracted hurry right after school. “I can’t. I have practice. Yeah sorry, I can’t.” which to me kind of meant, “I belong somewhere. I belong to something. I belong.” I remember that Culture Club video where beautiful Boy George is singing and climbing up the ladder out of the pool and I thought that he and I were the same and that song played in my head from beginning to end as I swam and at the point when he would come out of the pool I would come out of the pool to encourage our sameness. I did have to stop going to the pool when my body started to change, and grownups in the shallow end would give me looks and then more. One old man, who was teaching a tiny girl to swim, she was maybe 4 or 5, just a baby really and too young to be in the big adult pool with the serious and sporty thick black lines painted on the bottom to guide the face down butterfly stroke swimmers in their lanes and rope and floating Styrofoam borders that were supposed to keep everyone not on the swim team out – crossed into illegal pool territory and actually grabbed me between my legs as I crawled my continuous laps that my allegiance to the swim team claimed as its due and lifted me whole out of the water struggling and flopping, exclaiming “I caught a fish! I caught a fish!” and the little new swimmer laughed and clapped as the man rudely and unashamedly shoved his fingers inside me. If he did this to me, a small stranger, I don’t want to think about what he did to that little girl. I don’t want to think of it. I swam maybe one or two or three times after that but I eventually quit the team, because it never felt right to go back in the pool. It felt scary and ugly and I started to really notice when people would spit in the porcelain rim around the perimeter of the blue tile and see the spidery clots of hair that would collect in the filters and on the wet ground and I suddenly got fed up with the chlorine and the mucus of others and athlete’s foot and the child molesters that all these foul things represented and I refused to go and took up cigarettes instead. But before all that, I was a strong swimmer, as our coach used to say, whistle and stopwatch hanging from his neck, looking down at me. I forgot his name, which I cannot believe now, because it was so important then. From the ages of 8 to 12, my schoolbag always contained a large plastic ziplock containing a cold and damp athletic orange swimming suit and an old rubber cap that squeezed my temples into a lifelong tendency toward migraine when it was on me, and stuck to itself and stank unreasonably when it was off. I swim good for a long while but then I get tired, unexpected and instant, a wore down feeling that is inescapable as water and it usually happens when I am right in the middle of the pool, where I am surrounded by the wore down and the water and the only thing left to do is drown. That is what 2pm feels like to me. It’s not the beginning. It’s nowhere near the end. What can I do? The sunlight that seemed charmed and uplifting in the hours before now seems ordinary and relentless. Time stretches out before me and behind me and I can’t make sense of it and I wonder what I can do until night falls to make me whole again. There’s no running from the middle of the day. The broad daylight offers no escape. You can’t start drinking or indulging in anything then because then that would mean you have a PROBLEM and I would do anything to avoid having a PROBLEM so I just suffer mid-days as if it is my cross to bear. I wait to be resurrected and it always happens and that’s not the concern, it’s the waiting that bothers me. It’s the waiting that is the cruelty of crucifixion. It takes so goddamned long to die. I have the worst time of this midday malady in hotel rooms, as usually if I am working somewhere on the road, my day is far emptier, even more than if I am at home. Hotel rooms are bad places in my opinion, as most of my friends who have died thus far have done it in those temporary spaces that are meant to contain us only for a day or two. They have checked into hotels and never checked out and that seems like the worst thing to me, to have to die there and essentially stay there forever. That’s hell. At 2pm in a hotel room I am lost and I don’t know where to turn or what to do. The hour oppresses me and there’s no escaping from it. The only way out is through, and through means minutes and then hours and the sky can’t darken soon enough to save me. I haven’t found a solution to this other than to complain and allow the existential dread to overwhelm me and crash over me like a wave and at times I can write and possibly describe the desolation and desperation I feel which helps because when I put words to a thing, it helps me own the thing and understand the thing. It’s like I am eating the thing or making love to the thing, letting the thing inside me and have its way and become a part of me. At 2pm, perhaps I should go swimming. Most hotels have pools. I don’t think this is just by chance. I think the pools must be there for me.
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Sat koji mi daje najviše problema je 14:00. Ja sam dobar u jutarnjim satima. Izlazak je sve nade, čudan način možete reći svjetlo je novi, onako kako dolazi na vas, stidljiv kroz drveće. Da Volim jutra, jer je to još jedna prilika, te dobiti još jedan ubod na to, što god da je. Ništa loše se dogodila zapravo u ranim jutarnjim satima da me zauvijek ožiljak ili bi mi jutra mržnje, još uvijek nije svejedno. Ja obično spavao dobro i spreman sam. Radujem se nadolazećoj dana, a možda i nježno natrag na noć prije. Dan počinje i tu je optimizam koji sam povezati sa sna, pola puna stakla sam predvidjeti i piti prema dolje sve u jednom zalogaju poput svježe iscijeđen sok od naranče s nekim gaziranom vodom pomiješana. AM je citrusni i šampanjac i samo squirted iz voće i to je veličanstveno i čini mi vodu na usta. To je najbolje, otvaranje kredita filma. Ništa se nije dogodilo, ali i ja sam spreman za to. Drago mi je za to. Jedini put to nije istina je kad sam ostao budan cijelu noć, što je rijetkost, mislim, ja mogu brojati puta sam to učinio u mom relativno dugog života, s jedne strane. To je strašno, da ostanu budni cijelu noć, i to nikada nisam učinio bez neke vrste droga, gornja, što vam daje praska dobar osjećaj odmah na početku, a onda vam se investicija vrati loš predosjećaj s kamatama, te pljačku od možda vrijedi radosti i strpljenja i prihvaćanja stvari i mira i razuma i da neimenovane sile koja vas ustane iz kreveta staviti na popravni i oblače u nešto lijepo i slušati glazbu i plesati i pjevati, a mislim da je išta za tjedan dana je moguće i dobar dan dolazi na. Sve što je za oko 15 minuta klimavim blaženstva na početku, ja ne mislim da je fer razmjena. Tu je i osjećaj krivnje i tamo, ako niste bili u krevet, i da se gleda na svakoga tko ima, a vi ih gledati sa svojim zakrvavljenih očiju, kao što su ustajanje i uzimajući svoju kavu i odlaze na posao s velikim bijelim šalicama sa smeđim recikliranog papira prstenova ih čuvati od spaljivanja svoje ruke i njihova odjeća izgledaju samo stavite i oni imaju jutarnju lice koje želite ste imali, onaj koji je stečen u krevet na pristojan sat i sanjao i probudio bezbrižno, a sada je u ispred vas, i razum to je ruganje ludost tvoje. Ulice se sve više i više gužve, a vi osjećate sve više i više na miru i iako ste svibanj biti okružen je poput otoka ili splav je okružen vodom i ne postoji kap piti. Ponekad možete izbrisati taj horor show je cijelu noć s doručkom, prevari se s vrućim crnim medicine jake kave i hrskav, maslac udobnosti tosta, ali to je samo dok jedete, a možda i vrlo, vrlo kratko vrijeme poslije. Ljekovita moć omlet i palačinke i vafla traje samo toliko dugo kao svoj na stolu. Nakon što je u vama to ne čini mnogo dobra. Ja ne ostaju cijelu noć više. Ne mogu to podnijeti. To nije za mene. Volim jutra previše da ga okaljati. to je važno za mene da se osjećaju kao da je novost i zaslužena kazna, a dan da se nije dogodilo, ali da će se dogoditi, a nikad se ne zna, nikad se ne zna. Ja se uzbudim oko ujutro kao da sam štene, skakanje i udaranje moje šape sve uzalud i za nijedan drugi nego sam isao oko Sunca, ali još jednom razloga. Noć je također na isti način, kao što je noć sviće baš kao dan. Sunce odlazi da bi se otkrilo je mjesec sebe i tu je puno užitak kao ona je svijetla, a ponekad i luč, ponekad puna i okrugla, poput mene, mijenja i raste, a smanjuje i drugačija uvijek i svaki oblik njoj ima ime i različita atribute. Noć je često kada je moj radni dan počinje, komičari i glazbenici i konobari i barmena i kuhara i hitnoj pomoći liječnicima i medicinskim sestrama i dilera droge, pa čak i policiju i vatrogasce i sve nas na groblju smjene koji je osigurala hranu i njegu i zaštitu, fizičko a inače, za većinu radnih ljudi koji čine svijet pretvoriti iz dana u dan. Osjećam se sigurno u baršunastom krinkom noći, a ja ožive kad idem na posao i vidim svoje prijatelje i igrati u klubovima i uvijek je bilo uzbudljivo pozdraviti sumrak i obrede večeru i piće koje idu zajedno s njim i da je trenutak kada je možete pustiti dana, zaustavi bijeli knuckling popodne i znam da je sve će biti u redu, pa čak i ako to nije uskoro će sve biti gotovo i krevet je ukusna obećanje koje je uvijek zadržao (osim ako dogoditi da to one loše droge). Noć je dobro za mene i dobro za mene, a ja se osjećam sigurno i opasno odjednom. Ja sam osoba koja noć i jutro osoba, a zatim da napusti popodne što je problem. 14:00 je Strašni srednje sam se bore sa. Ja sam jaka plivač, nakon što je bio na plivati timova kao dijete, uvijek mirisna malo klora, sa suhim uske kožne i naletima pletenice koje sušenih u tvrde gel valova. Tu je i pitanje plijesni u ormarić. Moj Postojanje je uglavnom mokri i onda miješati da s tamno, dobivate kalup. To je činjenica. Ne mogu reći da sam voljela plivati, ali sam to učinio jer je bio prava stvar u to vrijeme i sam bio prilično dobar u tome i tu je jednostavna vrsta nagrade su uključeni, jer sam odrastao u hladne klime i vode Bazen je često bio nešto topliji od zraka, iako se činilo kao da će biti hladnije i da ne želi ići u početku kao prijetnju da će biti hladnije i dalje je gotovo previše za podnijeti, ali ako zaista to učinio i odmah se bacio na i hrabro se na zdravom šok leda u svom životu, u trenutku kada bi bilo u redu i toplo i plivanje i strah će se rastopiti s hladno i da ćeš biti u redu. Sam plivao za tu malu pobjedu, kao i drugih manjih pobjeda kao da imate mjesto za izlazak u važnom pomalo rastreseno žuri odmah poslije škole. "Ja ne mogu. Imam praksu. Da mi je, ne mogu. "Koja mi vrsta značio:" Ja pripadam negdje. Ja pripadam nečemu. Ja pripadam. Sjećam se da je Culture Club video gdje lijepo Boy George pjeva i penje ljestvama iz bazena, a ja mislio da su on i ja smo bili isti i da je pjesma igrao u glavi od početka do kraja dok sam plivao i u trenutku kad on će doći iz bazena bih došao iz bazena poticati našu istost. Sam morao zaustaviti odlazak na bazen, kada se moje tijelo počelo mijenjati, a odrasli u plitkom kraju bi me tko gleda, a zatim više. Jedan starac, koji je predavao jedan maleni djevojka plivati, ona je možda 4 ili 5, samo beba stvarno i premlad da bi u velikom bazenu odraslih s ozbiljnim i sportski debelim crnim crtama slikano na dnu kako voditi lice dolje leptir moždani udar kupače u svojim stazama i konopca i plutajućih stiropora granica koje su trebali držati svi ne na plivačkom timu out - prešli u ilegalnom bazen teritoriju i zapravo me uhvatio među nogama kao što sam uvukao moje kontinuiranih krugova da je moja odanost na kupanje Tim je tvrdio kako je njegova posljedica i podigao me cijeli iz bore vode i flopping, govoreći: "Ja uhvatio ribu! Ja uhvatio ribu! "I malo novi plivač smijali i pljeskali kao čovjek bezobrazno i besramno gurnuo prste u meni. Ako je to učinio za mene, mali stranac, ne želim razmišljati o tome što je učinio za tu malu djevojčicu. Ne želim razmišljati o tome. Sam plivao možda jedan ili dva ili tri puta nakon toga, ali sam na kraju napustio momčad, jer nikada nije osjetio pravo na povratak u bazenu. Osjećao sam se strašno i ružno i počeo sam se jako primjetiti kada će ljudi pljuvati u porculanskom ruba na obodu plave pločice i vidjeti paukolike ugrušaka kose kako bi prikupiti u filtrima i na mokrom tlu i odjednom sam se zasitili s klorom i sluzi drugih i atletskog stopala i zlostavljača djece da su sve ove neugodne stvari predstavljao i odbio sam ići i uzeo cigarete, umjesto. No, prije svega toga, bio sam jaka plivač, kao što je naš trener je znao reći, zviždati i štoperica visi oko vrata, gleda dolje na mene. Zaboravio sam njegovo ime, što ja ne mogu vjerovati sada, jer je to bilo tako važno onda. U dobi od 8 do 12, moja školska torba uvijek sadržavala veliku plastičnu ziplock sadrži hladan i vlažan atletski narančasta kupaći kostim i stari gumeni poklopac koji stisnutu moje hramove u cjeloživotnom tendencijom migrene, kada je bio na meni, i zaglavi na sebi i zaudarao nerazumno kada je bio isključen. Ja plivati dobro za dugo vremena, ali onda sam se umorno, neočekivano i instant, nosio dolje osjećaj da je neizbježna kao voda i to se obično događa kad sam u pravu u sredini bazena, gdje sam okružena nosio dolje i vode i jedina stvar lijevo učiniti je utopiti. To je ono što 14:00 osjeća kao mi. To nije početak. To nije ni blizu kraja. Što mogu učiniti? Sunčeva svjetlost koja se činilo očarala i uplifting u satima prije nego što se sada čini obična i nemilosrdan. Vrijeme proteže se ispred mene i iza mene, a ja ne mogu shvatiti to i pitam se što mogu učiniti dok se ne padne noć da bi me cijeli opet. Nema se proteže od sredine dana. Usred bijela dana ne nudi bijeg. Ne možete početi piti ili se upušta u bilo što onda, jer onda bi to značilo da imate problem i da će učiniti sve kako bi se izbjeglo da se problem tako da sam samo pate sredinom dana kao da je moj križ nositi. Čekam da će uskrsnuti i to se uvijek događa, a to nije briga, to je čekanje da mi smeta. To je čekanje da je okrutnost raspeća. Potrebno je tako prokleto dugo umrijeti. Imam najgore vrijeme ovog podnevnog bolest u hotelskim sobama, kao i obično, ako ja radim negdje na putu, moj dan je daleko praznije, čak i više nego da sam kod kuće. Hotelske sobe su loši mjesta u mom mišljenju, kao i većina mojih prijatelja koji su do sada umrli su to učinili u tim privremenim prostorima koja su namijenjena za nas sadržavati samo za dan ili dva. Nakon ispitivanja u hotelima i nikad odjavio i da se čini kao najgora stvar za mene, da se moraju umrijeti i biti tamo ostati zauvijek. To je pakao. U 14:00 u hotelskoj sobi sam izgubila, a ja ne znam što da radim ili što da radim. Sat me tlači i nema bijega od nje. Jedini izlaz je kroz i kroz sredstva minuta, a zatim sate i nebo ne može zatamniti uskoro dovoljno da me spasi. Nisam pronašao rješenje za to, osim da se žale i dopustiti egzistencijalni strah me i pad preplaviti preko mene kao val, a ponekad i ja mogu pisati i eventualno opisuju pustoš i očaj osjećam što pomaže, jer kad sam stavio riječi u stvari, to mi pomaže posjedovati stvar i razumjeti stvar. To je kao da jedem stvar ili kako vodi ljubav na stvar, ostavljajući stvar u meni i imaju svoj put i postala dio mene. U 14:00, možda bih trebao ići u kupanju. Većina hotela imaju bazene. Ne mislim da je to samo slučajnost. Mislim da su bazeni moraju biti tu za mene.