Snivel Kit (2 1/2 sleeps)

It's the middle of the night and I'm awake making lists in my head. My bag is packed - 19 kg - and it's down to last laundry, last cleaning and have I forgotten to pass on any important information. There was the last minute glitch in plans for what we will be doing come next January, which already has a fix in the works.

Draft one of packing my bag.

My oldest son explained to me the highly technical military term "Snivel Kit" some years ago. In the Canadian infantry (and no doubt in any military group), there is a very specific and structured packing list for your gear. Everybody carries the same things packed in the same place in their pack so that in an emergency, you know where to find something in buddy's pack as well as yours. That pack carries everything you need for the day, or the week, or the mission. Of course, after learning this in basic training, you then learned to upgrade some items. For example, replacing the standard issue leather boots with waterproof, insulated, better fitting Gortex boots from MEC.

When you were out in the field and were cold (or too hot), and wet, and tired and miserable, what made all the difference was what you had in your snivel kit. Something small, not regulation, not really essential, even, that gave you a bit of a sense of luxury. One of the people with my son always carried a small set of spices to liven up the freeze dried meals. I read about someone else who had a system of making sure that he always had a pair of clean socks even after weeks in the field in the same clothes. I unexpectedly contributed to my son's snivel kit when I made a high tech fleece jacket (upgrade to regulation by being warmer, softer and with a windproof layer) and for a laugh tossed in a funny pair of mitts out of the left over material. No, he explained, these were not going to be tossed aside. They were "Gucci Snivel", because when you were on guard at -40 degrees in the middle of the night and everybody else was tucked into their sleeping bags, it was absolute luxury to have fuzzy kid mitts that you could pack a hand warmer into.

I've been thinking the last week about what is in my snivel kit for this trip. Nothing that is on the list of what we are to bring. So books, music, camera and sunscreen are basic issue. Something small enough to fit in a very limited size bag. The one bit of luxury that will lift the spirits when I am feeling homesick or otherwise snivelly. Mine is a small package (about the size of a good hardcover book) of sewing gear as I plan to quilt my way through this year of travel. And Cal is carrying our coffee making gear - our one addiction is a good hot cup of real coffee first thing in the morning. When we want it, not when the restaurant opens. Not instant or espresso or latte. Not tea ( although I will be delighted to share a cuppa later in the day).



I started my year of travel quilt last summer. Sun dyed the fabric on the only hot sunny day we had. The leaves which have left their mark are from the plants in our yard. I have a plan to create a similar, but different, piece of fabric for the back when we are in Perth in November.

What will be in your snivel kit, my friends that I am about to meet and journey with for the next six months? 2 1/2 more sleeps until we start our journey. And a little over a week until the Odyssey begins.

Thoughts of Christmas

Here's a wee quilt I just finished. The final push of details before we leave on our year of travel are around the corner, so I've spent the last few days playing with an Advent calendarish Christmas tree that I hope to pack and take with me.

It's been a time for reflection, because the family traditions we've built will NOT be happening next year.  Not a bad thing, but it starts you thinking about what other changes will happen for 2015.

The White house (ours) is decorated in a mixture of old and new.  There are "rules" about what goes where and when.  I still remember smiling when Kati explained the lengths she had to go to when she was living in residence to get her ornaments on the Advent Calendar put up "right" because everybody was getting into the process.  Or Kyle's first Christmas away where there was a debate of what should be counted down - to Christmas or to first day of leave.

I remember making this Advent Calendar in 1984.  Through out December, I was actually finishing the ornaments in time to put them up that night.  It's been fixed on numerous occasions and is much the worse for wear.  I remember that the three children took turns putting up the ornaments - so Kier put up Santa on December 1 (to watch for who was naughty and who was nice) and Kyle put up the star on December 24.  It took a few years for me to understand that the reason why Kati insisted on putting the ornaments away was so she could make sure that she got the Angel.  The mouse at the top is also part of the tradition.

The tree skirt is actually older.  I started it one Christmas and it sat out all year getting sequins attached to be ready for the next.  Left over sequins were used in the Advent Calendar and many other projects over the years.

Here's the snowmen that decorate our front lawn from Advent one (another rule) to New Year's day.

Then there's the assorted scenes that have their place around the living room.

Nativity scene I found in Manning
 (with a few added visitors to see Baby Jesus)

Log cabin school house from Fort Vermilion (1976) and cabin,
complete with outhouse and assorted residents

Santa and Rudolf hang from the mantel with care

Then there's the tree.  It has to be real and almost always it is cut at the gravel pit.  I can't imagine getting all the ornaments on a store bought tree.  It's great fun sitting and checking out the ornaments and remembering their stories.

 

This beautiful porcelain angel is from our first Christmas.  Bought on sale a few days before with a damaged box.  This year she stood straight and tall at the top of the tree, although often there is no room and she surveys the Nativity Scene instead.

The first year Kier helped with decorating the tree, he spent ages carefully putting all these little guys on the same branch while his older siblings worked to decorate the rest of the tree.  I make a point of repeating this every year.

 Santa is riding in just about every known type of vehicle on our tree.  Including a tricycle and an ice cream truck.

 This was for Stout.  I didn't realize until Kier read the card this year, how punful this is.

 A gold plated maple leaf gives a bit of elegance to the tree.  Many of our ornaments came from Jasper in November trips.

 One of our newest (the hand made laufbraud from Iceland) and our oldest ornament.

 Hockey players, figure skaters, basketball players, a turtle, some dogs and a cat.

The spirit of the tree tucks into the branches and watches over us.

 This Fair Isle sweater is egg cozy size and makes a perfect tree ornament.  It came from a knitting shop in Lerwick (Shetland Island)

And our newest ornamants.  Elk?  or reindeer? You can also see the donkeys from Mexico, and a pack of Root Bears.

 Our tree outside the front door on New Year's day, still looking quite festive.

 I started out this post with a picture of next year's tree/quilt/advent calendar that marks the end of this Christmas season.  So, here's the quilt I made to start the season off.  It's title is "Holy Mackerel" and I love puffins.  It was totally a fun time creating it earlier this year.

A wee quilty pleasure

It's been mostly fixing things for kids the last couple of weeks. Creating a huge tshirt quilt to use up 30 or so tshirts and a couple of pairs of jeans way past wearable. Then putting a well loved afghan back together. I learned how to mend knitted holes for that project. And, still in the works, repairing a vintage backpack.

It was fun to play with some scraps and create this little quilt just because. Ok, it is going to cover a lovely wooden table in the living room that badly needs refinishing not just covering.

The front is a block from Elizabeth Hartman that I loved the first time I saw it. As I was sewing the binding on tonight, I realize that I had actually used left over pieces from the tshirt quilt! Clearly it's time to clean up and put away before the next project.

Looking back, planning ahead

I’ve started a couple of long range quilting projects and a workshop I took with Debbie Bates in July is tying together the past to these very future oriented projects.

Travel

I’d been saving this delightful vintage photo with a saying that really spoke to me waiting for the right project.  That project was a four page fabric book we created in our first class.  It’s created entirely of fabric and embellishments that have travelled with me (I still can’t believe that I actually thought I’d spend my evenings in Australia crazy quilting) or that I found on my travels.  Finally a place to combine shells, rocks, pearls, paua, ribbons….  The original photo came from Queenisms.com.

And here’s a spectacular bit of sun dying that I did on the one gloriously hot and sunny day we had this summer.  June 30 and plus 33.  Compared to the fabric painting I did this winter, I can’t believe what happens when sun and heat speeds up the drying.  The leaf shapes around the edge are all from our yard and the texture in the center comes from sprinkling pickling salt on the wet freshly painted fabric.  It’s been stitched to some flannelette with a grid of six inch squares.

My vision is that this will come with me on our year of travel and each week’s square will get a bit of stitching or autographing or appliquéing of fabric from the trip.  Perhaps some spice stained fabric from a bazaar, or some felted wool from along the silk road.  A sort of a fabric journal is what I’m thinking of.  I even have a wild idea of where and how I’m going to create the backing for this quilt, but it’s a secret til it actually happens.

Career/Retirement

It’s become a tradition at the Health Unit to make an autographed quilt when someone retires so they have something personal to remember us by.  In 2012, we were talking about this as we were planning the latest retirement party and someone asked, jokingly, who was going to make my retirement quilt.  Thinking about it, I realized that I was very much looking forward to making my own quilt, with the help of my friends and colleagues.  It’s going to be a flower garden much like this picture. 

I soon realized that I wanted my garden of memories to include as many of my former colleagues as I could find and persuade to autograph one of the flowers.  I’m excited to spend the next few years hunting people down.  As I’ve been doing this, it’s been a great trip down memory lane.

Who’s going to make my retirement quilt?

I will she said, excitedly.

(To be completed in 2020 or so)

The second class I took with Debbie Bates was to start to create an altered book – something I’ve enjoyed looking at in magazines but never had an idea of what or how to do it.  The first step was to find a book that I was prepared to take pages out of and add things to, which was surprisingly hard for a passionate reader.  After days of browsing books that I have stashed all over the house, I found the perfect one and read it cover to cover for one last time.  It’s a classic nursing text from the early 1980s that I knew I had but had forgotten what exactly it was about.  Actually, I hadn’t forgotten because I realize that how I have worked with clients and lived my life over the last thirty years I would have first read about in this book.  More memories, and a fun way to journal important bits from the past.  Here’s pictures of the front and back – and as I get some of the middle in a more finished way I’ll share them too. 

  I think that this will be a never ending project.  The book?  Novice to Expert by Patricia Benner.  I think I would have heard about it from Maureen Leahy when I was taking a post basic mental health nursing certificate.

Memories of Scotland

Clò Mòr I

Ambheil cuimhne agad air?

If I haven’t mangled the Scots Gaelic too badly, the title of this quilt is “Grand Cloth (Harris Tweed) – do you remember it?”

When we were planning our trip to Scotland in 2011, our guide to the Western Isles, Chris Ryan, mentioned we could visit a local croft where Harris Tweed was being made (at least, that is what I thought he said).  Instead, we started our day at Harris Tweed and Knitwear at Tarbert (the port) where there was a lovely shop with things Harris.  And a huge storage building with floor to ceiling shelves filled with bolts of Harris Tweed – traditional colours and patterns as well as the bright new colours.  Two or so glorious hours later, I had touched every bolt, decided what I wanted and emerged with a huge smile on my face with a beginning of a plan for a series of small quilts with a background of Harris Tweed crazy quilt to remember our trip by.  Chris and Cal had bonded over the trials and tribulations of women and retail therapy.

We did see some hand looms and how Harris Tweed used to be made.  It’s now made in two factories on Lewis.  To be genuine Harris Tweed, it needs to be wool from Scotland (it comes from the mainland because the sheep that can survive on the Western Isles have wool better suited to carpets) that has been processed on the islands of Lewis or Harris.  Completely opposite from North Ronaldsay or Shetland sheep products – where the sheep are raised , but the wool is processed on the Scottish mainland.  Don’t get me started on sheep J

The found items on this quilt include ceramic buttons from the Harray Potter on the Orkney Mainland and a lovely earring from a gallery somewhere on our travels on Lewis between one Neolithic set of stones and another.  The silver spoon and the other buttons came from “The Handspinner Having Fun” at Broadford, Isle of Skye where I also picked up some handdyed Corriedale wool.  Checking the website, the owners close up shop in the winter and go travelling – the spoon was actually created in Peru! The pewter broach is from the West Highland Way – ordered online because I didn’t buy it at the beginning and there were none available at the end.  And the Celtic Red Deer came from the shop at Jarlshof on our last day before heading to Glasgow then home.  The shells are from an afternoon of beachcombing on Eigg, where we were also treated to the official island piper, Donna, playing Happy Birthday as one of the boats left port.

Clò Mòr II

Flùr na h-Alba

(Flower(s) of Scotland)

When we visited Scotland in 2111, all the flowers were in glorious bloom.  Everywhere the hills were purple with heather and the perfume was almost overwhelming.  This is my interpretation of a bouquet of wildflowers, pinned up with some North Ronaldsay wool which I found on the Orkney Mainland.

Flower of Scotland is a song written by Roy Williamson of the Corries in 1967 to commemorate the victory of the Scots led by Robert the Bruce over England’s Edward II at the battle of Bannockburn in 1314.  It’s become the anthem for the Scottish Rugby team and many Scots would like it to be their National Anthem.  The classic video is of the 1990’s 5 Nations Rugby Cup match where Scotland (the underdogs) went on to defeat England 13 – 7.  Rivals a New Zealand All Blacks Hakka for power.

Thanks to Trac (the regional Alberta library consortium) for enabling me to borrow the many books on creating 3 dimensional flowers from fabric – some of the flowers are from patterns from the 1990s as well as more recent books.  The buttons for flower centers are some more of the Harray Potters (he would like to remind everybody that he had his name first).  Fabric was all handpainted with a class at Seams Easy.

The Flower of Scotland

O flower of Scotland
When will we see
Your like again
That fought and died for
Your wee bit hill and glen
And stood against him
Proud Edward's army
And sent him homeward
Tae think again
The hills are bare now
And autumn leaves lie thick and still
O'er land that is lost now
Which those so dearly held
And stood against him
Proud Edward's army
And sent him homeward
Tae think again
Those days are passed now
And in the past they must remain
But we can still rise now
And be the nation again
And stood against him
Proud Edward's army
And sent him homeward
Tae think again

Words and music: Roy Williamson. (c) The Corries (Music) Ltd.
Website: http://www.corries.com/

The Flower of Scotland (Gaelic translation)

O Fhlùir na h-Albann,
cuin a chì sinn
an seòrsa laoich
a sheas gu bàs 'son
am bileag feòir is fraoich,
a sheas an aghaidh
feachd uailleil Iomhair
's a ruaig e dhachaidh
air chaochladh smaoin?
Na cnuic tha lomnochd
's tha duilleach Foghair
mar bhrat air làr,
am fearann caillte
dan tug na seòid ud gràdh,
a sheas an aghaidh
feachd uailleil Iomhair
's a ruaig e dhachaigh
air chaochladh smaoin.
Tha 'n eachdraidh dùinte
ach air dìochuimhne
chan fheum i bhith,
is faodaidh sinn èirigh
gu bhith nar Rìoghachd a-rìs a sheas an aghaidh
feachd uailleil Iomhair
's a ruaig e dhachaidh
air chaochladh smaoin.

(translation by John Angus Macleod)

After listening to a number of versions of this song, I then moved over and read Jack Whyte's The Renegade (early years of Robert the Bruce) and I see that the next book in the series is now available.  The Scots take their history very seriously, even if it happened centuries ago.

Stay tuned for the final Clò Mòr - Standing Stones will be the theme and I'll include some of our pictures, too.

Sew I travel (Outback Water)

I started this quilt in a workshop in Peace River with Susan Purney Mark. It was a great opportunity to finally use my Aussie fabrics and some of the hundreds of pictures we took in Australia in 2009.

Here's the legend for the quilt. And what they help me remember.

Outback Water
(Memories of Australia)

Pademelon: Kata Juta (Valley of the Winds). After watching the sun rise over Kata Juta , we hiked through the valley of the winds. It was early spring and over 30 degrees as the sun was rising. We were at the front of the group and surprised two little wallabies at breakfast. These ones are called Pademelons.

Lizard: Willie Gordon north of Cooktown, Queensland, taught us the importance of water to all creatures. A few drops of water on a leaf and this little lizard was prepared to come right into our hand to lap at the water.

Rock Wallaby: Walking into Simpson's Gap, west of Alice Springs. We were walking along the dry river bed that had had 6 feet of water rushing down it in the wet. Up in the rocks was one shy rock wallaby watching all the tourists.

Parrot Flower: Macca graciously showed us the delights around Exmouth even though we didn't make it to Ningaloo Reef. Driving along the dirt road, he stopped to show us a parrot flower as well as more Sturt's Desert Roses. We later discovered that just about everybody with a "Mac" in their last name is called Macca :)

Gnarly Trees/Painted Desert: Wayne picked us up from our hotel in Cober Pedy and took us for a full day 4X4 tour to the west. Through huge cattle stations (where every month one of the husbands picks up the wives by plane and flies them to Adelaide for shopping). Fencing not required as the cattle stay pretty close to where the windmills pump water from wells. In Australia, even trees that look dead are just waiting for water to give a rush of leaves before the water disappears again.

Fifi: On our Alice Springs/Uluru tour, we stopped at Wallace Rock Hole for our last night. The morning started with a tour by Nigel and his faithful tiny white terrier, Fifi. He admitted that she was an inside dog - either the aboriginal dog/dingos or the King Brown snakes would have made a meal of her. As Nigel was explaining the rock paintings– which we were encouraged to touch - Fifi was doing her bit to show off bones and things from the waterhole.

Pinacles: Closeup of rocks on our hike around the Pinacles just outside of Perth. Definitely outback, but not Red Center.

Emu Family/On the Road: A bit of quilty playing. The road is actually the main highway from Uluru heading west and north toward King's Canyon. The soil in the Red Center turns rock hard when you apply water (one reason why irrigation isn't an option), so roads are created with a grader and then smoothed out every three to six months. We had been driving for a couple of hours seeing nothing but the occasional vehicle when Migs stopped for a break. To the left was an elevated outhouse (spotlessly maintained by someone) and on the right were a few bushes of Sturt's Desert Roses. These seemingly delicate flowers grow just about anywhere and are the Territorial Flower. The emu family were actually hanging out at our hotel in Exmouth for the water from the garden hoses.

Cober Pedy: This is a close up of the wall of our hotel, the Desert Cave. Many of the homes and businesses are underground, dug with mining equipment used to mine opals. The texture is from the drills that are used. In the early days, miners lived underground because it was cooler (steady 20 degrees even when it is 40 or hotter above ground) and because there was no money to build a house. The aboriginal people refuse to live underground and Cober Pedy is translated as "white man's holes".

Aboriginal Fabric/ Flower Motifs: The designs on the aboriginal fabric are all dot designs typical of the red center. The idea of creating designs is a new one for aboriginal peoples. The flower design is from the Northern Territory Flag - Sturt's Desert Rose adapted to seven petals to represent the six states plus the northern territory.

Other fabric: With one exception, the other fabrics are from Reece Scannell, an Australian photographer and fabric/clothing designer. He had a booth at the outdoor market held every Saturday at the Rocks in Sydney. The only non Australian fabric is the teal and ochre borders - from the Stonehenge collection but just the right colours.

Sew I swim (2) on becoming a swimmer

In July of 2005, I officiated at the World Masters Games in Edmonton - over 1600 swimmers age 25 to 98 from all over the world. I went home pumped because the next games were in Sydney Australia, top of my wish list for places to visit. I had the perfect plan - I would officiate in swimming, my husband would compete in running, and we would spend as much time as possible exploring Australia and New Zealand. His response was that he would run if I would swim...

It took six months to gather up my nerve, buy a swim suit and pool pass and actually get in the water. 1 February 2006 (7 years ago today) is my anniversary.

Of course I created a quilt to celebrate getting in the water and here too are my thoughts at the time. And yes, I have a penguin tattoo, but that's another story.

On Becoming a Penguin:

Tranquility and Other Thoughts Along the Way

          Last February, I started to swim in the mornings before I go to work.  It’s reached the point where I enjoy getting up early, challenging myself to swim a little more efficiently, and get grumpy when I can’t get to the pool for some reason.  Three days a week for almost an hour, my mind is free to wander.  Because quilting is a passion, most often I’m thinking about a work in progress or some other fabric related subject.  One day, I found myself calculating the size of a quilt (or how many quilts) could be created from the fabric that is wound through the beams above me for soundproofing.  Twenty five meters of two meter wide fabric times five colours would make a lot of quilts!

          My vision of tranquillity is very much an active one and tied to the changes that have come from beginning to see myself as an athlete.  The early mornings, the cool water, the structure and discipline of swimming lengths as well as I can, and even the pervasive eau de chlorine that clings to my skin and hair are all tied to a genuine feeling of wellbeing.

The idea for my Patchwork Cottage Challenge quilt really did come to me in the pool.  I was delighted to discover that the challenge fabric was going to make perfect water.  For about a month, I let the idea simmer as I thought of how to translate the basic idea – water, swimming, penguins – into a project that matched my skills and interests.  It’s been a joy to combine my newly discovered passion as an adult – onset athlete with my passion as a quilter.

 I actually created the back first.  I’ve been playing with Sashiko and other Japanese designs this year and Kitty Pippen’s Japanese Garden Path was the perfect design for the dark blue lane line I follow as I swim.  The Japanese idea of asymmetry was also appropriate as I swim just to the right of the line to give way for the swimmer coming in the other direction.  The shadow appliqué gave a water-like shimmer.

          One of my secret pleasures over the years has been to read John Bingham’s “The Penguin Chronicles” on the last page of my husband’s Runner’s World.  I’ve had the pattern for the front of the quilt for about a year and it has symbolized for me my strides to become a Penguin (an adult-onset athlete).  The calculations to reduce the bed sized quilt to a wall hanging, the deliberation over choice of fabric and how to introduce the challenge fabric all happened during early morning swims.  Even ideas for quilting the project were auditioned in the pool.

          There are things I would do differently next time, but in the words of John Bingham, “Improvement is defined as being closer to where you want to be than you are right now.”

 

If I had been writing in my journal…

1 February 2006 (On Becoming a Penguin I)

            After thinking about getting back to swimming for six months and REALLY thinking about it for two (I needed to order a suit, buy a swim pass, find the schedule and all those other details), today is my first early bird swim in almost ten years.  I really like swimming, the watching of it that is, but I’m here on a dare.  “Sure, let’s plan to go to Sydney in 2009, as long as you plan to compete, too.”

            I recognize some of the swimmers as I get in the water and I’m not the slowest one in the pool.

1 June 2006 (On Becoming a Penguin II)

            OK, I’ve made the commitment and bought a three month swim pass.  I have a routine – 1500 meters in 45 minutes – which energizes me for the rest of the day.  I’m one of the regulars at the pool and have my lane that I usually swim in.  I’m even making plans for what I need to learn to get better – flip turns, dives, how to get out of the pool more gracefully.  At work, I’ve started to admit that I go swimming regularly, which commits me to do so on days I don’t feel like it.

8 July 2006 (Body Image I)

            Had a great birthday present today and my husband is still shaking his head over the whole experience.  He had bought an outfit for me, after raiding the closet and going to our local ladies clothing store with sizes in hand.  The outfit, black stretchy capris and summer top in my favourite colours, was lovely.  The present, though, was that I needed to exchange them for a size 12, which I haven’t worn for years.

19 July 2006 (On Becoming a Penguin III)

            Against my better judgement, I’m going on a 16 km mountain hike with my husband and friends.  They are athletes, I am not (I’m just swimming three days a week because I enjoy it).  Not only did I get up above the treeline and back down again, but I’m glad I went.

9 September 2006 (Body Image II)

            We are having a “mother daughter bonding” afternoon.  I’ve promised to make my tall athletic newly adult (she’s graduated from university and has her first “real” job) daughter a quilted jacket from fabric she had chosen when we went to Festival of Quilts in Calgary.  Today, we are drawing our body silhouettes on paper and measuring all the areas needed to fit the pattern when she returns home.  It was Kati’s idea to do both of us and then take pictures.

            I’ve been getting hints from people around me, but today I finally get what has been happening to my body over the last year.  The funniest thing is that I’m actually taller than I believed – the story about not being over weight but under tall…  I begin to wonder why, if our body measurements are so similar, she is a size eight and I’m a fourteen?

12 September 2006 (On Becoming a Penguin IV)

            I go to my first Body Sculpt session, a group weightlifting class for ladies.  Impulsively I registered for this when I was at the pool last week, and I tell my friend (who is the instructor – she’s one of those people who work out for the sheer joy of getting sweaty and building muscles) that my goal is to get enough upper body strength to get out of the pool with grace.  I feel horrid, everything aches and I’m so uncoordinated.  My friend promises the class that the first two days are the worst and then it gets better.

18 December 2006 (Tranquility I)

            It’s just after 7:00 on a Monday morning and I am swimming lengths in the pool.  As is more often the case these days, the water is supporting rather than fighting with me, and the instructions from my brain to my muscles – kick, pull, one two three four breathe, reach, turn, count – have faded into the background. I move without thought, my muscles are relaxed and I finish the hour exhilarated and ready for the day. My mind is free to wander from thought to thought and this morning I’m thinking about the Patchwork Cottage challenge that came out in the newsletter over the weekend.

            Tranquility, I muse, as I easily glide through the soothing water.  The classic images come to mind – a tropical beach (sunburn and itchy sand), a cool forest (tents, bugs, no indoor plumbing), a snowy mountaintop (I’m terrified of heights and it would be a lot of work to get there) – and I discard each one.

            But of course, my element of tranquility is water and the meditative like simplicity of early morning lengths.  Thoughts of pool water and how I would/could/should depict it lead to penguins – could I create penguins swimming in a pool, will I ever swim like a penguin, could I even learn to get out of the pool like a penguin gets out onto the ice?  How could I create the impression of ghostly penguins waddling out of the mists and becoming real?

January 2007 (On Becoming a Penguin V)

            I signed up for the next session of Body Sculpt.  People are talking about how I’m losing weight, but for me the reason that I’m keeping up with this is that it has improved my swimming.  The problem I’ve had with my neck for years has also disappeared – makes sense that stronger muscles are supporting the degenerating discs.  I’m even getting secretly competitive about how much weight I’m lifting.

            Chatting with people in the change room at the pool has been interesting.  The first time someone commented on my strong swimming, I was taken aback.  In my head, I compare my times to natural (childhood onset) swimmers and place myself in the midpack of first year swimmers!  On the other hand, perhaps they are noticing something I’m not…

            Oh yes, I’ve replaced all my dress pants with a size 12 and my jeans are too big.

2 February 2007 (Tranquility II)

            It’s my first anniversary of getting back to swimming and I’m celebrating with a new suit (purple), silicone swim cap and new goggles.  My element of tranquility has a whole new sound to it.  With my new goggles, I can see the bubbles my hands make as I pull myself through the water.  The cap changes the sounds as I swim – freestyle gives me aquarium bubbles in stereo, first one side then the other as I turn in the water with each stroke.  On my back, I get the gentle waves lapping on a beach as each arm enters the water and my breath is the breeze in the trees.  I consciously work to relax my breathing to gentle the breeze.            My breaststroke reminds me of the theme from Jaws, but that’s at the end of my morning swim anyway.

            Even when I’m away from the pool, I can bring myself to that sense of relaxation and tranquility by imaging that I am swimming.  In my minds eye, I bring myself back to the pool for a five minute break when I’m frustrated or to make the transition back to sleeping at night.

            I AM becoming a Penguin.

 

What's a Penguin?

In the running lexicon, the word "Penguin" has come to mean a person who runs more for the joy of running than for recognition and public rewards. Some of us are perpetual Penguins. We are consumed by the pleasure of movement.

Other Penguins find their joy in the challenge of reaching their own potential, whatever that is. For some it has meant running the Boston Marathon, the only U.S. marathon that has qualifying standards. For others, it has meant finding an independence and freedom in their daily runs that expands their limits.

Can there be such a thing, then, as a Penguin athlete? Or an athletic Penguin? Can people who are fighting to lose thirty or forty pounds be athletes? Of course they can! Can people who have waited until their forties to become physically active be athletes? You bet. Can people who finish last in a race be athletes? Yes, they can. And yes, they are.

Improvement is defined as being closer to where you want to be than you are right now. Remember, I couldn't run for more than a few steps in the beginning. Improvement for me was running farther than my driveway. You'll have to decide what improvement means for you. Is it to walk around your block without stopping? Then work toward that!

For better or worse, you are the only you that you will ever get. What you decide to do with you is up to you. Tomorrow you will still be you. The question is whether you will move closer today to who you want to be.

If you are patient, if you are persistent, if you are consistent, an amazing transformation will begin to occur. Your wonderfully adaptive body will begin to cooperate. It will happen in your own time and at your own pace, to be sure, but the transformation will take place

Movement, which may have seemed so foreign to you, will become more natural. Being active every day will stop being something that you want to end and become something that you can't wait to start. It isn't just a matter of going farther or faster every day. It's knowing that you are in control of your body and, for a few minutes every day, your life.

But, I now see that being a penguin is more about what's inside that out, more about what I feel than what I accomplish, and more about what a can do than what I can't. Being a penguin isn't about what someone does, but about why someone does it.

-John Bingham