Search This Blog

Tuesday, August 23, 2011

A Late Summer Night's Swim



Turning on the submerged lighting to the swimming pool transforms the lanai into an aquatic dream. I sigh at the sight; it’s as though the Northern Lights have melted, filling my pool with a phosphorescent liquid. I slip beneath the glossy surface, feeling the cool weight of the water as it carries me deeper into itself. Ripples shimmer away from me like lucid sound waves, ebbing into oblivion. Tipping back, I surrender to my aqueous bed, staring up at the black sky and wondering at its vastness. Is there a beginning and an end?

The stars silently glisten, but I imagine if they were to make a sound it would be as whimsical as wind chimes and as holy as an angel’s sigh.

Like a stray leaf, I am floating slowly around the circumference of the pool in a world of my own, a world in-between the luminous serum which buoys me up and the dense soulfulness of the night; drifting like a cloud above my limitations. Time seems suspended as I become one with nothing, cushioned like an embryo in a sultry womb, bathetic and calm.

How is it that I’ve waited so long to enjoy this intimate tryst with myself? Have I forgotten how romantic life can be?
“Ah,” you say, “you need a man to be romantic.”
Oh do I?

Romance is a seductive ritual, reserved not only for couples, but lovers of self. I’ve stirred my infatuation with life; submerged myself in the indigenous, raising girlish goose flesh, as I gently bob without boundaries atop the magical surface of my swimming pool, witnessed only by the jeweled stars, pinned like broaches, to the August sky.








12 comments:

JANU said...

Beautiful....feels like I should learn swimming after reading this.
Agree with you that it is important to romanticize ourselves.I have trysts with myself a lot of time.

Leah Griffith said...

Thank you Janu. Yes, regular "trysts" are a self-indulgent must for staying alive and vital.

Alfandi said...

maybe the word is "relaxing" rather than "romantic" with the pool activity..?

Debbie Maxwell Allen said...

Lovely words, Leah! Looking forward to reading the chapters from your book!

~Debbie

Leah Griffith said...

Thanks so much Debbie. I always enjoy reading your words.

Leah Griffith said...

LOL Alfandi, romantic is the perfect word;)

Cathy said...

You've painted the scene with your words, divine. Romancing the self, the Self...love it! And yet as writers, we are probably the most romantic souls on earth!

Leah Griffith said...

I agree Cathy. Being a writer requires one to look beneath the surface of things and to feel those things deeply. We are painters, using our words instead of color.

Jayne said...

"...it’s as though the Northern Lights have melted..." Breathtaking, Leah. I could hear the luminous liquid moving in the pool, feel the water caress the body, see the jeweled star broaches...

Ah, what romance! Luck you. ;)

Leah Griffith said...

Jayne, So good to see you. We writers are hopeful romantics;) Ah me.

Ms. Faustus said...

Oh, 'lovers of the self'... I love it, and I'm right there with you. It's such a simple concept, but so difficult to explain, unless it be through insight...

Leah Griffith said...

Chris, little by little, inch by agonizing inch...and then I see it, and learn to be it.
;)

Post a Comment