releasing
Regardless of individual beliefs, if we’re not keeping ourselves open to what is being transmitted through us, then we risk missing the whispers.
- Quincy Jones, 12 Notes On Life and Creativity
I keep so much locked inside, so much energy of rage and exhaustion, disappointment and despair - this tactile, visceral, frustration that constantly threatens to erupt out of me. Many nights, I put on my headphones and I escape to a slice of earth where I can release my rage, unfiltered, unmuted, and too fueled by emotion to care about the perception of those around me.
I imagine releasing a bone shattering cry of rage, at full volume, until my lungs run out of air. Even while I imagine this, I feel my entire body heat from within, as if a wildfire is igniting within my core and viciously spreading throughout my body. And after, always after, I imagine myself walking with force to a nearby pool, striping off all my suffocating clothes in an unrelenting wave of rage, and diving in to the pool for solidarity.
The peaceful stillness of the cool, crisp, water engulfs me. It wraps me in its cool embrace, soothing my fire and bringing me to stillness. Although I know tears are releasing from my eyes, each drop is immediately welcoming into the unity of the water around me, accepting my gifts as its own. A deliciously soft muffle surrounds my ears, easing the overstimulation of sound. Within moments of my wave of fury, I find myself finally at rest, and turn inward.
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Water has always been so soothing to me; clear water, especially, has always felt like home. If I had gills or some other means of breathing underwater, I don’t know if I’d ever come up. That, and a way of keeping warm. Sometimes, I wonder if I incarnated the way I did to prevent me from never leaving the water….but man would I have not made it through my childhood without swimming. Before it became about others, and colleges, and teams (the things I cared least about), it was the only place I could RELEASE. All my rage, all my screams, all the violence within me that had no where else to go came pouring out of me, cutting through the water faster and faster as the soft, welcoming, nature of the pool cooled off my unrelenting anger. I MISS this release, I miss this time in solitude, where I used to push my body to more and more extremes, to exhaust myself of all my energy.
As with anything, I took it too far. I relied on it too much. I pushed myself too hard, beyond my intuition, beyond my body’s health, and my body burnt out. It probably didn’t help that I was also taking diet (Green Tea) pills before practice, or that I wasn’t sleeping because I stayed up late bing-reading books to further escape my reality. Everyone’s got their own shit to deal with growing up, and their own coping mechanisms, but swimming was my safe heaven. My intensity, my competitiveness, and my power were kindred spirits with the ferocity of the ocean. I felt welcomed to release and create waves in a world that was suffocating me. When swimming became only about winning, and time cuts, that’s when my my obsessions intruded and my body eventually gave out… But I always keep a swimsuit, cap, and goggles with me in hopes that one day, I’ll be able to swim again with the childlike competitive fuel I once did. Or, even with the fluid peacefulness of long distance lap swim, where I feel a serene sense of calm listening to the soft splaces of water with each stroke of my arms.
There are so many things about myself that I have lost touch with over the years, either out of choice, survival, or just life changing and moving as it does. But as I write this, it’s clear to me that I need to allow the space for both:
The fighting rage within me to release, uninhibited, in a way I’ve never allowed for it to fully express. (Muay Thai, I’m coming for you, again.)
The meditative, athletic, release and tranquility of being in the water. (Swimming, will you have me once more?)
I never allow myself to go into the water, anymore, because I have so many “rules” around it. But, where have those rules gotten me, really? Where have the iron rules and structures of others every truly benefited me? I have to continue to break free of these self-made prisons I keep finding myself in (or, rather, realizing that I am in). The doors are open, the locks broken…. so what am I waiting for?