Another Topstone Visit

We visited Topstone again.

Swimming in the pond is, by far, my favorite pastime now.

It is simply transcendent.

The pond tastes, smells, feels, sounds, and looks so beautiful.

As I swim forward and look around me, the light reflects off the water and I think of those lines in The Weight of Glory that talk about beauty.

“We do not want merely to see beauty, though, God knows, even that is bounty enough. We want something else which can hardly be put into words — to be united with the beauty we see, to pass into it, to receive it into ourselves, to bathe in it, to become part of it.”

Swimming in the pond is like being in Perelandra.

I like to do laps back and forth across the deeper swimming area while the girls play in the shallower water.

I'll also work with the girls, so that they swim better and better each time.

I showed Norah the breast stroke today and she was brave enough to try it.

Also today, Adele came out into the deep water where Norah and I could touch, but she could not, and she practiced swimming across the surface of the water back and forth to us without putting her head under or having any chance of putting her feet down.

She also practiced floating then swimming then floating again.

They all improve quickly and so my comfort-level increases every time we visit and I can relax and enjoy myself more then.

We also threw diving toys and played Marco Polo and laughed till we were breathless.

I'm incredibly good at Marco Polo at this point in life, probably because I no longer fear looking like a fool.

Being forty and fairly fit, I will just throw myself forward and attack the water where I heard someone say, "Polo."

And I confess, I get carried away and I do show the girls how to cheat in various ways.

Today, I stood behind them and shouted "Polo," so the person who was "it" was bound to come right at them.

I also grabbed them and threw them towards the person shouting "Marco" a few times, so that they were definitely caught.

They laugh, of course, but then they cry also out over the injustice of what I've done. "Mom!" So I will always make myself "it" to pay for the fun I've had.

In my defense, we often enter into fairly intense dialectic discussions about justice as I teach them rhetoric in our homeschool, so showing them the nuances of justice at work in sporting feels like striking a balance or bringing a fullness to those lessons.

I thoroughly enjoy sharing my life with my daughters.  

The pond is magical and we are enchanted more every time we visit.