Swim

Anyone who knows me knows that I have an Ipod filled not with music, but with audio books. I don't listen to music much (though I do have a habit of bursting into song), but every once in a while I encounter a song or an album that intrigues me. It's rarely about the music for me, it's almost always about the lyrics, the words. Eddie Vedder's sound track to "Into the Wild," especially "Society," anything by the Doors, "End of My Journey" by Harry Stewart, "It's Hard Our Here for a Pimp" (had to throw that in to see if you are still with me), the sort of song that has a lesson to give. Last night I heard such a song on the Daily Show and it brought to mind something I had already been thinking I would write about.

Saturday morning we took my daughter swimming. She is fearless in general and jumps in with the full trust that either someone will lift her up or that she will find her way up to the surface somehow or another. When she dives under water she kicks and paddles not in fear, but with a determination that she will swim. There are all sorts of life lessons here about trust, conquering fears, making your own fun on a Saturday morning and every one of them points for me to a sort of self reliant determination.

The song, "Swim" by Jack's Mannequin uses swimming as its metaphor for not just keeping your head above water (though the song ends with this), but for continuing to paddle even if it feels you are going against the stream. It's when you feel you might be drowning, when you are being pulled away from the things you love that you need to swim harder. There is a social commentary in the song about swimming "for the lost politicians who don't see their greed as a flaw," and "swimming through wars without a cause." It's always interesting what you can read into someone else's words, but I hear the song pushing for the determination to "swim through the hurt" and to keep on working for good and positive things despite what world leaders might do, and maybe even "for them" so they can find a way past all the things that get in the way of positive change.

The song and my daughter's determination are personal. Like I said they speak to me of self-reliant determination, but the song brings it into the world beyond self too. It is easy to feel overwhelmed by the torrent of life going on around you, but even when faced with the flood waters, we need to jump in and swim harder. We need to conquer our fears, we need to trust that somehow, someway we will rise above, we need to have fun on Saturday mornings and we need to be determined.