I grew up in Phoenix which was hot as blazes in the summer, and there wasn’t much else to do back then but go to the swimming pool. As soon as I was old enough, I took myself and the dime it cost, to go to the public swimming pool every single summer day to roast myself, baby-oiled, all day long in the sun and to jump in the freezing cold water just before death-by-heat-prostration several times a day. I loved to swim — crawl, breast stroke, side stroke, back stroke, or dog paddle. I especially loved to swim as far as I could go under water. Later on, by the time I was ten or eleven, I loved to dive off the low board. I had my basic repertoire. Swan dive. Jack-knife. Half twist. and Back dive. It’s the best I could come up with, untrained as I was. But I aimed for perfection. And got as good as unrelenting practice and unending hours of repetition would let me. I also spent those long, lonely summer poolside days contemplating life, because there I was, without distractions. I was an early on meditator and philosopher by necessity.
Here’s a poem I wrote recently that was apparently born in those solitude-laden, long hot summers.
xo,
Gayle
Gayle Markow: As I am... 
Love it. I envy you your swimming. I barely managed a back float. My neighborhoood was not conducive to swimming pools. Good for you Gayle.
Love,
Ellen S.
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Thank you, Ellen. Necessity being the mother of invention, a big public pool was all Phoenix had to offer me as an on-my-own summertime kid. xo, g
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My new favorite poem.
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thank you, Cathy. xo, g.
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This is really lovely. Bravo!
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This is really lovely. Bravo!
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Thank you, Ter. xo, g.
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Gayle
Beautifully written as always.
Love your writings. Such a gift
Thank you for sharing.
Isn’t it sad that we have this virus and we all have to be quarantined and Trump who knows so little about anything is our President.
Tonight on the news they said he moved the person who is really watching for a discovery of a vaccine out of his position because he said something against the drug that Trump has been pushing. It’s so sad that as President he can do that. It is so highly illegal and against everything.
Keep up your beautiful writings.
Love Sandy 💕🙏🌈 Sent from my iPad
>
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‘……….Like a child showing off a cannonball jump”
Summs it up for me.
Thanks Gayle!!!!
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lovely poem, Gayle. Thank you!
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thank you, Eileen! xo, g
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Like a child…cannon ball WONDERFUL!!! Per Usual, I feel tremendous affinity with your described experiences and words. How is this?? Summers were full of swimming for me as well, diving too, and the underwater as long as I could, which at one point gave my grandma and her two sisters apoplexy cause I’d stayed down under so long! I emerged to see the 3 white haired ladies pacing the lake front, and having gone for help. It…their fears…embarrassed me. Reined me in. Of course later I could put it in some perspective as my older cousin had recently drowned. But at the moment the freedom I felt in that quiet deep water world seemed curtailed. I LOVE YOUR WRITING GAYLE. Unique and fully your own voice, you tap into what others have experienced, feel, think and you articulate a great deal of the universal experience of our lives. Intimate, specific to your life AND universal. THAT’S GOOD WRITING MY LOVE!! Carry on.
xo Melo
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Dear Melody, thank you so much for this lovely supportive comment! Yes to summers in swimming pools! They were so important to me, and interesting that we shared a passion for underwater swimming as far as we could and diving. I had two near drowning experiences.. they were of me. One I don’t remember… I was less than two years old, and the other I remember really well, in detail. I was ten. My father thought I was kidding around and sat at the poolside watching me almost drown, before I totally went under he realized what he was seeing and dove in the pool and saved me, choking and sputtering and desperate. I love that you and I continue to share our lives. You are such a wonderful writer too! much love!
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