Thursday, February 12, 2009

Counting Laps

02/10/09

As a young swimmer at Butzel Pool in Detroit, I remember mentally counting laps during workouts. At first, I counted whole laps, each lap being back and forth. Then I counted lengths. As the years progressed so did my arithmetic counting using fractions, tenths, hundredths, logarithms, octal, and then binary. No matter what counting method I used, the stopwatch during swim meets never got faster.

Counting has replaced a watch in my life. I seem to count everything, weeds pulled, each peanut picked, sit-ups, the number of spider solitaire games on my laptop, and the striking of church bells. Counting is my substitute for conversation. No one with whom to talk, no problem, count something. The rate of time doesn’t change, just that the void doesn’t seem so empty.

1 comment:

Wanderingfamilies said...

I don't know you, but I want you to know that your blog has made my heart ache for Samoa. I taught school in 1997 at CCWS (as it was called back them) and absolutely fell in love with Samoa and her people. Thank you for a beautiful blog about your experiences. I've found myself nodding my head while reading many of your posts and thinking, "ahh, so Fa'aSamoa!" 'tai lava!