A faint whiff of chlorine

I have written so much about swimming, because our family has been completely consumed by it. If you think that I go on and on about it here on the blog, you should see my journal. God must be sick to death of the subject. 

One  minute you're thinking to yourself that it might be a good idea to get your little girls some swimming lessons, and the next minute the eldest is swimming ten hours a week and the youngest three and you find yourself turning up twice a week as well. And then there's the inordinate number of hours spent on the poolside or up in the viewing gallery plus galas that go on for so long you lose the will to live and kit that requires a second mortgage. Surely all you need is a swimsuit and a towel? Maybe one of those little rubber hats? 

You'd be surprised. And I haven't even mentioned the horror of the 5.30am training session. Least said about that the better, I think.

Sucked in, imperceptibly, bit by bit, then swallowed whole. That's us. 

In the past twelve months there have been many challenges as a result of the dramatically increased commitment to the swimming club. These challenges have been on several levels - logistical and financial, problems with timing and traveling, interpersonal stuff in the water and out of it. Tears have been shed and sleep lost. Energy and exhaustion both in the pool and out of it. Triumph and disaster. 

But last night, as we were getting ready for yet another practice, something else struck me. 

It was my younger daughter, Katy's turn. She's moved up to a new squad and although she's still learning technique, her lessons have taken on more of the nature of a training session in recent weeks. She's determined to follow in her older sister's footsteps and nothing is going to stop her. Her teachers have all commented on how hard she works, and how carefully she listens and follows instructions. 

Last night she was collecting her kit together and dancing about in her swimsuit. She'd put in on hours in advance so that she would be ready and she was discussing with Elizabeth what the night's lesson would be. They would be working on tumble turns (in the US it's known as a flip-turn, I believe - the way they do a somersault just before they get to the wall and push off with their feet all underwater). Katy was describing a problem she has with tumble turns and Elizabeth was demonstrating the correct procedure. They were having an earnest and grown up conversation right until it dissolved into hilarity when Lizzie fell off the sofa while trying to replicate the manoeuvre without the benefit of water. 

A jumble of thoughts went through my mind (once I'd established that she hadn't broken any bones). 

• Katy was hanging on her big sister's every word because Lizzie is a great little swimmer and Katy so wants to be like her.
• Lizzie was loving her sister's attention and admiration and was trying hard to share her knowledge.
• Katy was jumping up and down in anticipation of her lesson; couldn't wait to set off.
• Lizzie has gained so much confidence in the last year. It might be fragile at times, but her mastery of something difficult has boosted her enormously.
• Katy too, in the last six months, has grown so much as she's made such good progress up through the stages in her swimming. 

I watch them swimming (for hours) and sometimes I see Lizzie in one of her training sets and she'll suddenly somersault in the middle of the lane before carrying on, hardly breaking stroke, just for the joy of being in the water.

Katy, too, will bounce up and down while listening to instructions in the pool, or spin round and round while treading water just because she can. I have a photo that was taken as Lizzie climbed on the blocks just before an event at a gala. She has a shy smile on her face. I love it. She looks so happy, so relaxed. 

They're enjoying it. Now, obviously, we wouldn't be doing this if they weren't, but I have to say that sometimes the happy part of it all gets lost in all the hard work, and the hamster-wheel of training sessions and rinsing swimsuits and washing hair. 

We know that they love swimming - as do I, believe it or not - but it can get very serious indeed and before you know it you've lost sight of the reason you're doing it at all. 

First of all, we got the children swimming lessons because we wanted them to be safe around water. To enjoy swimming pools and the sea and have a chance of knowing what to do if they ever fell into a canal or a river. That kind of thing. Then there was the opportunity to move from the lessons into the swimming club, and I was naive enough to think, 'Oh, that's a good idea. Lizzie can enter the odd swimming race. It'll be a bit of fun.' I had no earthly idea of what we were starting. 

But... before I once again get sucked into dwelling on the difficulties and negatives let's look at the good things that swimming has done for us: 

• Both my girls are in great shape, physically. Lizzie particularly, as she swims so much and so hard, but Katy is catching up fast. Lizzie's little body is a lesson in anatomy and she is strong, fast and flexible. Her cardiovascular system allows her to swim hard for almost two hours and then produce a personal best in a freestyle sprint. Then come home and do cartwheels round the garden. 

This is wonderful for a mum like me who has struggled with her weight and size all her life. It is my prayer for my girls that they find a way of getting regular exercise that they enjoy, that doesn't feel like a chore. They're learning to look after their bodies in a way I never did. Lizzie learns about rest and nutrition and when to push herself and when to ease off. It's amazing and encouraging to hear them talk about healthy choices, even if they do then go on to snaffle too much pizza. 

I hope that establishing a pattern whereby sport is incorporated into their lifestyle might mean they avoid the problems I've had, physical and emotional.

• They sleep well. 
• They've made some good friends in the swimming club. It's widened their social circle from simply the kids at school and given them a different perspective. They spend such a lot of time with these children (and their little brothers and sisters) that they get to know each other well. 
• They're learning about supporting each other when things go right and also when they go badly.
• They learn about teamwork and co-operation - when you watch a relay team in action you realise how hard they have practiced working together. When someone is in a race, the others often form little groups at the end of lanes and cheer them on, and a personal best time is celebrated as much as a medal. 
• Swimming is teaching them about keeping going when things are tough. About doing the hard thing, and not giving up. We're still in the  middle of this, to be honest, with Lizzie's early morning training. It is indeed very hard, and we haven't cracked it yet, but I live in hope. 
• They're learning how to win and how to lose with grace. (On the other hand, they're only young, and they sometimes need a bit of help here...don't we all?) 
• They're learning about listening, taking instructions, respect for authority, behaving well, trying your best, persevering, coping with disappointment and being kind and generous.

These are big lessons. I have difficulty with them myself; I think some of them are things that we have to learn over and over throughout our lives. Let's face it, some people never do get it, do they? I want more than that for my girls. 

Lizzie is almost ten, and she's growing up fast. Among the youngest in her year at school, she seems lately to have a new maturity, and I can't help thinking that it's partly because of her swimming and the things that she's experienced. She has friends at the club whose ages range from 7 to 16, rather than just her own age, and I think that is good for her. We have had some terrible times as well as some top-of-the-world moments, but I think she is growing up beautifully and I am very proud of her. 

As for Katy, her determination is so impressive and we've been so proud of how bravely she's responded to challenges. She has made up her mind that she will not be left behind and she is working so, so hard to improve her strength and stamina and technique. It won't be long before she gets a chance to race too. Can my heart stand it?

So it looks as if our total immersion (haha) in the swimming club won't be changing for a while yet. With both daughters enthusiastic and determined, the radiators and airer are constantly festooned with swimsuits and towels, and the basin full of damp kit. We are constantly searching for a way to keep goggles from misting up and we get through more shampoo than you can imagine. The man in the cafe at the sports centre knows how I like my coffee. When I walk through the front door, when I get in the car, when I kiss my girls goodnight I can often detect a faint whiff of chlorine.

It's life at the moment. It's hard work, unrelenting. Sometimes I just want a week or two off. 

Then, I look at my daughters enthusiastically stuffing kickboards and pull buoys and hand paddles and snorkels and flippers into their kit bags and squabbling over water bottles and oohing over the latest racing swimsuits and comparing notes on trackstart dives and whether your ears pop when you dive down to the bottom at 12'6" and I realise that they're healthy and happy. 

We'll keep going. 

Blessed be your glorious name

Afternoon, Lord God.

I'm feeling smiley. It's been a good day. Actually, a succession of good days. I found when I was a teenager and I kept a diary daily for years and years that when I had a bad day, I wrote pages and pages reporting what had happened, analysing it from every angle and moaning excessively, yet when I had a good day, I would write. 'Had a good day.'

Why the need to wallow in misery and negative emotions, but to gloss over good ones? Does picking apart the scab make something heal quickly, and by the same token examining happiness diminish it somehow? 

Maybe I'm just a pessimist at heart. Perhaps I just notice the duff things and not so much the things to celebrate. 

Well, no more. 

My good day(s) have been full of children, laughter, family, food, wine-and-sofa-time, gardening, countryside, smiles and time to relax. 

Lizzie laughing

Take yesterday. My sister in law and a couple of nephews were visiting and the children were so excited to see their cousins. The boys were so lovely; playing with my girls despite being much older and they were patience personified. Elizabeth and Katy were enraptured by this big grown up boy who lifted them high, acted silly and let them teach him their playground games with incomprehensible rules - and then let them win. At one point they were tearing round and all I could hear was laughter.  Elizabeth was laughing so hard I thought she might be sick, and the big boy cousins were laughing too. It made me laugh.

I got to spend some time in the greenhouse potting up a big tray of baby begonias and watching the children as I bedded the seedlings down into small pots to grow a bit bigger before I fill the troughs by the front door. It was warm and sunny and everything felt happy. You were there too - I know you were smiling. You must have been sitting on a bench at the bottom of the garden and watching; feeling the sun on your face, legs stretched out in front of you watching the joy of your children. Listening to the happy sounds. I felt content deep down. 

My tiny begonias could have sighed with pleasure as I planted them with more room to spread out their roots and I love seeing them in their little rows of pots on the bench in the warmth. You know each seedling. You made it. From the tiny, brown seed, through the first pair of leaves to the flourishing of a sturdy little flowering plant that soldiers on all summer long, none of it happens without your breath of life. 

You are all around me.

Michael Card writes this:

'A young Chinese woman told me of the spiritual struggle of growing up in the shadow of communism, where official doctrine dictated against any belief in god. She said that ever since she was a little girl, her heart had resonated with the beauty of nature. First a sunset caused a deep stirring in her soul that she could not put into words. Then the beauty of the flowers in her mother's garden spoke to her of a simplicity for which her heart yearned. By observing the beauty in nature she became convinced of the existence of not simply a benign god, but a loving, caring Father.
With tender, moist eyes and a brilliant smile she said, 'Imagine the joy I experienced when I learned that he had a name and it was Jesus.' 

(Michael Card, iPhone app: 'Joy in the Journey through the year'.

I know your name. I know you. I don't always notice you, but you're always there. I have days when my eyes seem to see and days when they seem to be out of focus, but that's me, not you. 

Baby begonias.
Destined for great things

You are there in my tiny green seedlings and you are there in the sun warm on my shoulders. You are there in the companionship of my husband and his sister, and in the kindness of a nineteen year old youth for his small, adoring nieces. You are there in the joy of their laughter and in way that the sunlight made Elizabeth's long hair into spun gold. You are there in the ladybirds and in the huge, beautiful bumble bees that seem to abound this year. You are there in the grace of the neighbours cats, and in the variety of birds that visit our bird table. Though it has to be said that the presence of all of us in the garden yesterday afternoon meant that most wildlife wisely made itself scarce. 

You are there in the countless resurrections that remind me of you at this time of year: things that seemed dead and twig-like a few weeks ago are bursting into life in bright greens and yellows. You are there in the Spring rain that sends us dashing for the washing and yet is over before we've collected it in. You're there in breeze that blows the clothes dry (again) and you're there in the bolts that hold the swing safe to the crossbeam so that my little girls can close their eyes and swing up the sky in safety. 

You are in my heart. You have opened my eyes, and keep doing so even though I close them. You are endlessly patient, forgiving, full of humour and love. 

Yesterday the children were playing some sort of game that involved dashing around and the girls were squealing and shouting. Suddenly something made me look up from my seedlings and it was my Katy, singing. She was singing:

'Blessed be the name of the Lord! Blessed be your name!
Blessed be the name of the Lord! Blessed be your glorious name!'

My heart was so full that I thought it might just rupture. I glanced at the other grown ups but I don't know if they heard, they were deep in conversation. I'm not sure what their reaction might have been. The children were running around and Katy kept singing, 'Blessed be the name of the Lord!'

The angels must have been smiling, weren't they, Lord? From your vantage point (for I know that you miss nothing) you must have blown a kiss in her direction, did you?  Blessed be your glorious name, Lord God, and bless her heart.

Father, I am so blessed as well.  I am blessed that like that lady from China who knew who you were before she knew your name; I am privileged to know you. To see you in the sunset, in nature, in the song of a five year old who was happy and that happiness burst forth in unconscious praise of you. Or maybe it was conscious; I don't know what she was thinking (you do) but I do know that you would have accepted that bit of worship with joy. Honest, open, uncomplicated, unpretentious, uninhibited praise. I can only aspire to that. 

Later that day Bryan and I sat with our feet up on the coffee table and a glass of wine each and we watched a film on the television after the small girls had crashed out into bed after their exciting and energetic day. I think you were there as well. I reflected on how much I like sitting with my husband and feeling relaxed and at ease. You were there in the wine and in the good humour and in the bond that we have. 

You are the best of me.

'The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands.'

Psalm 19:1

And so does the earth. So does the greenhouse. So does my living room when all is right with our family.

I want to as well. I want to declare the glory of you.  

I go on so much about the times when things are not right. I bemoan my lack of patience and my troubles and my worries and I come running to you when someone hurts me. I wallow in my guilt and my shortcomings and that of other people, but there are snapshots of my life when the sun is out and the birds are singing and those times need remarking on as well. At length.

You are beautiful and glorious and you allow us to be part of that. You gave Bryan and I a part to play in the creation and nurturing of our wonderful girls. You let me plant out those tiny seedlings so that they'll fulfil their potential. You give me words and the ability to express myself. You give me so very much. 

You give me beauty in the darkest corners if only I look.

Thankyou Father God. 

You are good. 

It won't always be dark at six

So how is my Lent going?

Is that you asking, Lord?  Why would you ask if you already know?

I am sort of blurred at the moment. 

Can't concentrate on anything. 

Including you. 

Going to stop writing in staccato sentences now.

I'm not feeling well. My cold has turned into a cough which has turned into a chest infection which saw me trudge up to the doctor this morning in defeat; with a following wind I should be on the mend tomorrow thanks to some little green pills. Part of me wants to assure you that my Lent will go better when I'm better.

But I'm thinking that this time last year you allowed me to be slowed to a stop as well. (You sat down next to me) Last year I stabbed myself in the eye with a document wallet (I know, I know, it still makes you smile) and the week was going to be so busy... I learned then that the world keeps turning without me and then again, this week, I've had to get off for a while again and strangely enough, life goes on. I can't help thinking that the one-eyed me this time a year ago might have made better of the hiatus in the speed of life than the coughing and complaining me this time around. 

But everything has been cancelled. I haven't even shopped so the meals are getting a little bit eccentric and freezer driven. Or they would be if it were not for my Mum, who once again (and again, and again) has been wonderful. I am sure that I'm more trouble to my mother now, as a forty-one year old with husband and children than ever I was as a teenager when I was supposed to be a hassle. 

I have read two and a half books and I have slept a lot. I have cried with self-pity and I have coughed until my ribs feel as if they've been run over (hence the self-pity). Have I spent more time with you in all this time when I couldn't do anything else? Well...

It's been unseasonably mild outside.

I think I just changed the subject.

Yesterday I went out in the garden for ten minutes and I saw three purple crocuses. A host of snowdrops. The weather has been mild and sunny and for a little while there I started thinking about when to clean out the greenhouse, what I would plant and where. I walked around and noticed which plants have (so far) survived the winter and which I never got around to pruning last autumn. The children came and went crazy in the sun for a little while. They got muddy and they swung on the swings and they kicked around a football. I sat with a couple of fleeces on huddled round a mug of tea and it was lovely. 

Spring isn't here yet but I can see it coming. I'm waiting for the daffodils. I love daffodils. When the daffs come I know that Spring is here. Soon, please. 

Of course, it's February and this is the England and so the chances are we'll have four feet of snow in the next week. Indeed, a frost is forecast for tonight. Good job I didn't take the fleece off the yucca.

Today I read a story about being happy. About choosing happiness. About not waiting for happiness to happen but to decide to be happy. It lifted my spirits momentarily until something happened to squash them again. I need to seize those moments and bury my nose in them. Close my eyes and ears to everything else that is going on around and immerse myself in a moment that is purely of you. I'm finding that it's hard to do right now.

The doctor told me today that the antibiotics will start to make a difference in about 24-48 hours but I might not be better for a couple of weeks. He told me to give myself time to get over the chest infection; to be gentle with myself. I think I am already too gentle with myself - I let myself off too many hooks. Things that are difficult I tend to shy away from. 

Like choosing happiness. Just for a moment there I pick happiness up and then something crashes into me and knocks me off balance and instead of clinging tight to the happiness in my hand it my fingers open reflexively and I drop it. And it's gone.

Too often I take the line of least resistance.

Sigh.

I'm feeling a bit rough and not thinking straight. I'm finding my promise to find the positive in every day a bit of a challenge at the moment. 

• My little girls gave me cuddles today.
• My Mum changed an appointment so that she can take Katy to her swimming lesson tomorrow so I don't have to get up early.
• My husband brought me a mug of tea in bed. 
• Every day this week I've had a text message from a friend asking how I am and saying that she's thinking about me.
• My Mum bought me freesia. My favourite flowers.

Thankyou for all those things and doctors and chemists and comfy beds and sleep. Thankyou that I'm not seriously ill and that you are a God of second chances.

Thankyou that the nights are getting lighter. As my Mum says, 'It won't always be dark at six'.

I'm holding onto that at the moment.

It won't always be dark at six.

There's always someone having a worse day than me

I want to tell you something, God.

I was walking down the road the other day and I had my iPod so my music was in my ears, and I was walking along in time to the music, and singing (in my head, I'm not yet that disinhibited) and it was sunny, and I was having a Good Day, and I think I was even smiling.

I was thinking how life is good, and this song makes me happy, and full of the joy of living and being in your family. 

All good.

Then I came to our church, and just at the kerb were a series of funeral cars, and the hearse was there with the pallbearers lifting a coffin onto their shoulders. The vicar was there in his robes leading the mourners up the path into church and people were crying and leaning into each other.  Everyone was in black. Couples were holding hands, clutching tissues and grief was visible on their faces.

I stopped abruptly about fifty yards away. I needed to walk past, but weaving through the throng wasn't on.  I glanced across the road as it crossed my mind to walk on the other pavement for a way but the road was busy and people had stopped on the opposite side out of respect as well. I yanked out my earphones and turned off the music and stood still and watched. It only took a couple of minutes for the crowd to move off into church.

The coffin top was full of flowers; pink and purple and white and lime green foliage. Gerberas and lilies and carnations and roses.  Someone had chosen them with care. They were lovely. I don't suppose the beauty of the flowers made anyone feel any better. I don't suppose it mattered to anyone in their party that it was a bright sunny day and spring seemed to be prematurely in the air. It was very sad.

I carried on where I was going but I didn't put the music back on. The moment had gone.

Life and death, hey.

Funeral processions always remind me that someone is always having a worse day than I'm having.

I'm so used to having that thought about funerals that I had it as I watched the cars pull up in front of our house on the day of my Dad's funeral. 'Someone's having a worse day than me.' Hot on the heels of that thought was another which said, 'Not today they're not.'  I guess that somewhere in the world someone was indeed having a worse day, being tortured or burying their child instead of their Daddy, but you couldn't have said that to me on that day. It wouldn't have been a good idea to suggest it.

And there were those people, so sad because they were saying goodbye to someone they loved. I felt tears behind my eyes just standing a distance away and witnessing it.

I don't know what I'm trying to say, here, Lord. In the midst of life, we are in death, is that it? All I know is that I was thrown into confusion in an instant. Brought up short. Like on a film where there's boisterous music and then something happens and the music stops with an abrupt Zzzzzppp noise. (I know you know what I mean. If you're omnipresent you've certainly seen at least one film where that happens). Anyway.

How fragile are we, Lord?

A friend of mine miscarried this week. Another friend and former colleague is sitting in intensive care right now as I type, not knowing if her Mum will get better after a heart attack. I know of some people precious to me who are nursing a seriously ill friend of theirs who is surely dying. Some family friends called in tonight on their way back down south after attending the funeral of a lifelong friend of theirs.

We're all affected by it, aren't we?  I've cried for my friend whose tiny tiny baby died. I'm worried for my friend that her Mum might die. I'm sad for the people who are watching someone they love inch closer to death. I sympathise with those who said farewell to a friend this afternoon. I had a tear in my eye as I saw the grief of the strangers outside church the other day.

John Donne said:

 'No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend's or of thine own were: any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bells tolls; it tolls for thee.' (Meditation XVII) 

The ripples spread further than we think.


I don't know who that funeral was for, Father, but in death, that person touched me.


How fragile is life, Lord. How short, and how delicate. We look at butterflies and marvel that they only live for such a short time, and we pity them, because we can't see beyond our threescore years and ten, (and another couple of decades, hopefully...) but we are like that to you, aren't we? This life is over in a blink and the longer and more wonderful part is yet to come. I guess we shouldn't lose sight of that.

It's a fine line between enjoying the here and now because you want us to enjoy all the gifts you have for us, and not realising that the here and now will be back there and back then before we even notice that it's gone.

I don't know what else to say. It was a powerful moment that changed my day. Not as much as those of the folks at the funeral, of course.  I went on to where I was going and I still had a Good Day, but there was something profound about that moment when I went from happyhappyhappy, walking along feeling that my life was painted in bright colours, with happy sounds and lots of exclamation marks, and then...whoosh...to a silent, stalled standstill and achingly sad for a group of people that I didn't know.

Thankyou for the happiness I felt as I walked down the road the other sunny morning, for the sun and the music and whatever it was in me that was singing away.  Thankyou for the love that those people at the funeral had for the person they were missing. Thankyou that you care about us whether we are euphoric or at rock bottom, and all the shades in between.

Thankyou that you have promised us something wonderful when we die, Lord, and that the knowledge of that actually changes things in this life, now, today and tomorrow.