The Wilder Gifts of the Spirit

After all he is no more an oddity, a sexual freak, than I am: up here on the Ice each of us is singular, isolate, I as cut off from those like me, from my society and its rules, as he from his. There is no world full of other Gethenians here to explain and support my existence. We are equals at last, equal, alien, alone. He did not laugh, of course. Rather he spoke with a gentleness that I did not know was in him. After a while he too came to speak of isolation, of loneliness.

Light is the left hand of darkness and darkness the right hand of light. Two are one, life and death, lying together like lovers in kemmer, like hands joined together, like the end and the way. My voice shook as I said the lines, for I remembered as I said them that in the letter my brother wrote me before his death he had quoted the same words. From The Left Hand of Darkness Ursula LeGuin

Today, I did some tutoring, and then hit the shops to buy some much needed clothes. I picked up three t-shirts, one with what I thought to be a very arrogant and commanding slogan. I wouldn't say arrogant slogans were me, but I ended up with a Game of Thrones t shirt which reads, 'I will do what queens do, I will rule,' a nice line from the mother of dragons. So really I picked three t shirts, two of which were variations of ones I have wore before, and one I thought totally out of character for me, and ended up with the latter...  interesting... Along side my new hair cut which is ultra short, someone thought I was undergoing re emergence into a brand new version of me...with dragons. If I am honest I identify more with ice than fire, and probably should have gotten a Stark wolf t shirt, or something about Jon Snow. But then you don't get cooler than the Mother of Dragons...    

"Song Of The Sea"  [Gaelic:] Idir ann is idir as Idir thuaidh is idir theas Idir thiar is idir thoir Idir am is idir áit Casann sí dhom Amhrán na farraige Suaimhneach nó ciúin Ag cuardú go damanta Mo ghrá Idir gaoth is idir tonn Idir tuilleadh is idir gann Casann sí dhom Amhrán na Farraige Suaimhneach nó ciúin Ag cuardú go damanta Idir cósta, idir cléibh Idir mé is idir mé féin Tá mé i dtiúin  [English:] Between the here, between the now Between the north, between the south Between the west, between the east Between the time, between the place From the shell A song of the sea Neither quiet nor calm Searching for love again Mo ghrá (My love)  Between the winds, between the waves Between the sands, between the shore From the shell A song of the sea Neither quiet nor calm Searching for love again Between the stones, between the storm Between belief, between the sea Tá mé i dtiúin (I am in tune)

It wasn't a day of the greatest lesson known to humanity, but strangely this child pops up to me and thrusts this gift into my hand, before I can say anything. I do not know what I did to deserve it, but I must have done something right somewhere along the line...I was so touched I had to capture the moment slightly after it happened with a photo. What a lovely student. Summer school is nearly at an end. I thought it would go on forever, but apparently it ends next week. I have survive summer school 2017, which if I am honest was a lot less intense than summer school 2016 (40 hours of contact week after week and month after month, and a mind in need of TLC), and minus any mystical experiences. It was certainly a much less demanding and quieter, more enjoyable summer this year. 

So it has been a while since I have properly blogged anything. Keeping up with my life offline has been taking most my energy. What prompted the post on swimming? I was looking at the first YALP moodle activity, and thinking to myself how things have changed since the course, and realised that I felt like I was losing some of the peace and silence I had. I have been listening to more music (can you not tell), and but not nearly as much as I did before my time in Woodbrooke. When I got fed up of life on Tuesday and decided the only thing I could do with myself was to swim, I regained that silence within myself, and felt more or less alright for an hour or two. I went back to the calm centre, and heard my inner voice. Swimming over fairly long periods of time is good for this kind of internal communication, I think this is well known. And I feel alright now. I don't think I really had an issue with my music consumption. A large part of my life is about the music, so I guess if...

When I don't like life, I discovered, one hour of swimming is my one hour escape. Today I clocked up 62 lengths in just under an hour. I can distance swim it seems, perhaps because pacing up and down a swimming pool, is something I did as a child. Running probably isn't my thing, partly because I have one leg out of alignment slightly, but with swimming, that kind of doesn't altogether matter. I am pretty sure footed in the water, and I was on a great high, when my legs cramped up completely. The life guard looked worried at me like I might be drowning, and started asking if I was fine. I somehow dragged my cramping legs that I could no longer move, over to the side. So much for doing 62 lengths in under an hour! It might hurt tonight, suddenly, in my dreams, or I will wake up with dead legs. After my confidence, losing the use of my legs was humbling. Apart from the ending, 62 lengths was pretty good going!