JOY IN THE MORNING ~ Swim Time

http://youtu.be/iNIybGJ2XsE

JOY IN THE MORNING ~ Swim Time

- Joy Krauthammer  ©

So, nu, what is the connecting theme between these diverse photos in collage, “Joy In The Morning”?

My summer mornings are filled with joy as I unlock and push open Edith’s sky blue, high, heavy wooden gate, and enter her garden where she invites me to come and play each new day. Visiting is always an adventure, even before I enter the pool’s cool blue water. 

Walking around and greeting the immense garden reminds me of when as a social worker,  I used to be go on ‘medical rounds’ and greet patients. I see the new pretty pear blossom buds on the newly planted tree, about five feet tall. (See the sweet closed buds in the photo collage.) I must be careful walking to the new fruit trees at the far end of garden, because Lola, the large lab, uses the lawn for her daily elimination needs. Lola and I are good pals, and I greet her first thing in the morning when she greets me with her loud barking and wagging tail.

At the end of my swim, my friend Edith invites me to pick some of her ripe, firm, teensy “mini pearl” bright red tomatoes, shaped like tear drops, and smaller than cherry tomatoes.  I go home and wrap my growing basil leaves around each 'pearl' that survived the trip. (See them in the photo collage.) This is the first time in her 88-year young life that Edith purchased and planted growing plants, not seeds.  She says the taste is not the same. I taste the big difference. Her vast tomato fields used to look like a forest while these few plants, no longer abundant, are manageable and controlled as Edith needs gardening assistance.

After my ‘rounds’, it is time to swim.  At the edge of the pool, I begin my personal prayers to the Source of All BlesSings.

Yesterday I discovered for the first time, if I stand on the lowest step in the pool (where I hesitate because the pool water is not warm, even if the day before was hot), and I jiggle my left knee-- that ripples of water happen, and happen and happen. They grow further into the depth of the pool, and my eyes follow this as I am in total delight. Today on the step, I played again. It was pure joy in the morning.

I noticed that I can jiggle my knee for a moment or at length, and I giggle as I see new worlds. The more I jiggle, the more vibrations form wavy lines and swirls and travel in varied distances.  The shapes formed appear to me like amethyst geodes, my favorite stones. If I jiggle long enough, colorful rainbows appear on the reverberations, probably from the sun changing position. It’s as if crystals were catching the light. The water ripples are like dancing gemstones.

When I stop in silence, spaces/rests occur in the distance between ripples. I feel that I am composing a musical score in color and space. In addition, I add my right knee (“put your right knee in“) with a jiggle, although it does not jiggle as easily or quickly as the left knee. Now, the music becomes really exciting and lively, as the notes intersect and flow over each other forming other new organic shapes.

Like a rhythmic drum practice paradiddle in 8 strokes, I give a left jiggle, and a right jiggle, and a double left, and a right and left and double right, and repeat that opposite and with a chorus, and I got a whole score happening.  LRLLRLRR and RLRRLRLL. You should see those reverberations in the water. If I don’t stop jiggling; they keep going and going.  (By this time, the water is warming up, as is the air, and Edith, the life guard, is wondering why I’m not yet swimming in the water as half an hour has passed.) I don’t tell her I just finished practicing for my week’s drum gig.

Jiggling is as if I am drumming on my knees. On knees is no longer a good idea because my knees are not well, and maybe that is why they jiggle so good, especially since I had a bad fall recently, and my knees loosened up even further than the former ruined state they have been in. (That’s why swimming is so good for me and my knees.) I wish I could do a belly dance shimmy as well as I jiggle my knees.

So, to demonstrate to you my jiggles, I photographed the scenario, and made a collage. (Hmm, maybe I should take a video.) I have to get out of the pool to get my camera, each time I think of shooting the shots that are magically appearing.

Another ripples surprise I discovered today, is that my bathing suit material pattern is the same shape and color as the water reverberations. Wow. (Take a look at the collage.)  Amazing. Yup, I photographed myself looking like ripples. Now I’m a human paradiddle ripple riddle.

I think the reverberations are similar to the echo sounds emitted from my Tibetan singing bowls when I play them with my wand, and my breath. If I play sounds more closely together, they reverberate in patterns similar to when I play my knees faster, while I wear my ripple suit. This is Oneness personified. The ripples remind me also of my cymbal sounds, when I perform as percussonist.

I love purple amethyst geodes, and the forms of the water ripples remind me of quartz crystal amethyst clusters. (A month ago, I spent a couple hours savoring the beauty of massive majestic geodes in the Washington, DC Natural History Museum, as I've done also in NY and Boston. I have a small amethyst cluster, which I treasure, that I inherited from my mother, z'l.)

In the collage you’ll see my morning’s joyous favorites from today, the ripples, me photographing, and also the palm trees.  You can see in the swimming pool, the reflection of the group of Edith’s three giant palm trees.

The palm tree’s most amazing unopened two feet long and narrow seed pod fell to the ground from a zillion feet high. Edith knew what it was, and I did not. I carefully peeled away the palm frond’s tightly closed leaves to reveal not yet birthed into the atmosphere, not yet frothy, palm tree seed pod flowers. Wow. I had never before seen this. If you look high in the sky, you can see the fluffy clusters of seed pods resembling cotton in the blue sky and sparkling in the sunlight.

Palm tree seed pods release tiny round black seeds, the size of papaya seeds. Those seeds each contain life for a new palm tree. Lo and behold, there are a zillion baby palm trees growing in the cracks of the cement and bricks by the pool-- and everywhere else in the garden. With Edith’s permission, today I pulled out many of the baby trees because they can damage the property. For your viewing pleasure, in one photo in the collage, in the palm of my hand, you can see two baby palm trees, each with the seed attached to the roots. It is awesome.  With each plant and creature I greet in the garden, I receive great ‘joy in the morning’, and also unexpected pleasures, treasures from The Source of All BlesSings. I am grateful.

Enjoy "Joy In The Morning" photo collage above, and "Water Ripples, Amethyst & Joy" below, 

along with a single shot of "Water Reverberations".

Water Reverberations
Joy Krauthammer ©

Water Ripples, Amethyst & Joy

photos and collage Joy Krauthammer ©

 Water Ripples, Amethyst & Joy

photos and collage Joy Krauthammer ©

Edith's Blooming Garden

photos and collage Joy Krauthammer ©

My "morning rounds" include opening the Blue Gate, seeing the growth of the Red Bartlett Pear buds into blossoms, and watching little yellow birds fly out from the yellow flowers in the cactus garden, and pulling baby palm trees from the brick crevices-- as the Aztec sun shines on us.

To read more about Edith, my dear friend and life guard:
http://joys-inthemorning.blogspot.com/2011/07/edith-my-life-guard.html
http://joys-inthemorning.blogspot.com/2011/07/joy-in-morning-swim-time.html
http://joys-joyousjoy.blogspot.com/2011/03/where-i-swim.html
and
http://myfriendedith.blogspot.com/
with a link included to You Tube and Edith's Persimmons

  

More Joy swim stories

http://lisamyfriend.blogspot.com/2009/04/lisa-in-her-pool.html

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