Swimming, an Art Story

Once in a while I mix up words. Usually when I am tired, but of course, at my age, you can never be sure what it means. I have found that I use the word “swimming” for “painting” and vice versa from time to time, and it leads me to wonder what might be the same about the two experiences.

I love swimming. I especially love it when the water is about lukewarm, so that it both cools and warms you in turn, as you lift your arms out into the sky. I have had a couple of favorites swimming experiences. One was when I visited Thailand. The pool was just steps from the ocean, and beautifully shaded by teak trees. Nested into the branches of the trees the staff had tucked orchids. My love of orchids predated my visit to Thailand, but had I not known them, I would have become a lover of orchids after the trip.

The ocean water that I glimpsed beyond the pool was too warm and too un-contained. I’ve never stepped foot in such warm natural water. The temperature of the air was mid 80’s, so it was the pool that was unbelievably refreshing. I swam the length of the pool, back and forth, meditatively, several times a day. I was in heaven.

Another transcendent swimming experience happened when my sister took me to a fancy hotel in Boston. The pool was on a very high floor, surrounded by large windows looking out on the city. It was night, so the city had that anonymous beauty of lights and shadowy shapes. We had the good fortune to have the pool to ourselves. The water was cool, but there was a hot tub to alternate with. Back and forth we went, from hot to cold and from cold to hot again. Washing off the sticky tiredness of a long day. I could have stayed forever, it seemed.

When I think of these swimming experiences, words like timeless, spacious, and weightlessness come to mind. Do those words describe painting? I think they do- in the rare moments of the flow state. I paint and watch the mystery of something from nothing emerging on the canvas. I loose any sense that it is “I” who paints. Instead it is more like painting happens. Those are the timeless times; the dive into warm cool water, the immersion into color and stroke that seem to come from nowhere. It is swimming; swimming in the movement to be; the becoming of the image, or imageless-ness of being. I think at it’s best, painting is birth, but only the same birth that happens every moment of every life revealed to the one who can see it. Who or what is that one?

Is it the sound of

one hand clapping?

Namaste,

Leslie

~ grateful as always to subscribers with a special note of thanks to my paid subscribers.