Swimming Upstream

Over the years the blog has served many purposes, from actually capturing foreign travel experiences to ruminating on Proust or music to actually serving as a tool for personal reflection. I snapped this picture at my apartment complex pool one day (a very good friend and I were swapping exercise photos). It was also important to capture the image because I now spend and awful amount of time swimming. A couple months ago I began a reconfiguring of my diet and exercise regimen, essentially taking a more intentional approach to both. Yes, I'm not going to go quietly into that good night. Swimming is something I should have taken up years ago and, with the exception of a couple months in Abu Dhabi, I simply haven't. Soon, soon, all too soon the weather will turn here in the #YankeeHellhole and I'll have to move the laps inside to the gym, so at this point I think I'm just working on developing muscles, muscle memory, and stamina. About a week ago I had this surprisingly easy swim where I actually felt an odd sense of joy, so I guess I'm figuring out the swimming thing.

This is me tinkering with the setting on my phone; I'd never tried the black and white setting before. I was shooting for film noir and I think I ended up with post-mortem. I've been thinking about buying a nice camera, so this may all be part of the thought process.