#that hates when snowbirds tell all their friends to move down here

[ankles-be-bitten]

i live in florida. pretty much everyone who lives here makes jokes like this--including myself--but most of the time it's just that: a joke. there are so many people up north who believe that all of florida is either the meth-head, backwater swamp hillbillies who have a pet gator in their airstream camper and eat crawdads raw out of the everglades OR the disney obsessed snowbird population who winter here and live in new england the rest of the year.

and the truth is? while these people do *technically* exist, they are by no means the majority. florida is a pretty ordinary state, 99% of the time, and i'm actually getting weary of the "[insert southern state] is hell on earth" rhetoric, a sentiment i've seen spreading pretty quickly amongst gen z, and i think part of the reason is that this presumed horror state we live in is used to invalidate our desire for a better future. don't like your governor because he wants to make it illegal for you to receive the support and healthcare you need? well shit! you live in florida, or you live in texas, no wonder you're miserable!! move to a blue state. so easy. shouldn't have been born in a red state, silly! everyone knows it's homophobic there :)

but my friends are here. up until recently, my whole extended family was here--and the family who don't live here anymore live in tennessee (where i was actually born), which is definitely more volatile than florida. i actually don't know why northerners think this about florida--is it our beautiful, diverse, and ANCIENT wildlife and native flora? is it our bloody, messy, and intricate cultural and social history? is it the anti-lgbtq+ legislature? we live in a region so geographically unique, the southernmost tip of the peninsula is the only place in the world where the alligator and the crocodile coexist naturally in the wild. is that hell on earth?

i used to hate my state. i used to hate where i live. i still fantasize about leaving, moving to some northern, walkable city, with accessible abortion care and a less volatile healthcare system to trans people. but i'm done feeling ashamed of where i live, where i grew up; i grew up in the town zora neale hurston grew up in, and one of my favorite books as a child, the yearling, was written by marjorie kinnan rawlings, who was FROM that rural florida that's apparently full of meth heads and rednecks. yes, it's overly urbanized in many places, including where i currently live; yes, it's incredibly difficult to navigate life here as a queer student; yes, there is a vast class disparity between the richest and poorest amongst us. but everyone i love lives here, and underneath the 5-lane highways is an intricate and valuable and one-of-a-kind ecosystem worth loving and cherishing.

i'm not going to condemn the place i live because it gets hot in the summer, or there's bigoted legislature, or the cities are unwelcoming to pedestrians. i'm not going to condemn my state because of the podunk, buttfuck, inbred hillbilly stereotype that originates from classism and the demonization of those who live in poverty or rural areas. remember: drugs are only morally reprehensible if it's a poor person making, distributing, or using them. when rich people do drugs, it's cool. so yeah, maybe putnam county is "full of meth heads," but have you considered why that is?

i love florida at it's worst, and i want to see it get better. i won't characterize the midwest as one-dimensional and barren; i won't call northerners self-absorbed, self-obsessed, and self-interested. please don't tell southerners that we live in "hell on earth." doing so erases all our history, natural and cultural, and boils us down to only the most classist of the stereotypes that apply to us.

the funniest thing to me is that florida is hardly even a "southern" state, technically it's a northern transplant. we're a whole lot more like you than you think--and you know what? so is everyone else.

[did-i-fucking-stutter]

Florida: The perspective of not a retiree living a comfortable life Part 1: The environment

*cracks knuckles* Let's begin.

Florida: Known worldwide for its sunny beaches, fun places to vacation, wonderful tropical climate, beautiful wildlife and other things. The lightning capital of the world, the “Sunshine State” and honestly a paradise to some.

Before anyone throws a limestone rock or a ball made of sandspurs at me- let me tell you about myself briefly:

I am a girl born into a Hispanic-American family who lived in North Fort Myers for 18 years. Born and raised. My mother moved here from South America and my father from Michigan in the early 1980s. They both graduated from a local high school, the same one I went to, at a time when the area was starting to grow-  there were small businesses all over. Not the safest place, but we managed. This state is the only home I have ever known and I love it dearly- but man... some people have really ruined a beautiful state home to some really beautiful wildlife.

Like the goodest water mooer - Manatee

In Fort Myers every winter, these adorable chubbubbles gather near the water treatment plant right off of the Caloosahatchee River to get some warm water and nom on some good grass nearby.

The biggest swamp kitten - Florida Panther

These precious pouncers have been around for a long time and if you ever visit the Everglades, you might get to see one.

The big ol’ snapsnap - American Crocodile

These smiley jumbo snappers can be found all throughout Florida and it is really cute to see them laying in the sun napping to sun themselves. Swimmy lizard boy can also go pretty fast on land ‘ww’

And even some plants too:

like the fuzzy minty flower - Conradina Glabra (Shinners)

and their droopy spotty cousin the Conradina Brevifola (False Rosemary)

But here’s the thing: All the species listed above are endangered and, thankfully, under federal protection since the passing of the Endangered Species Act of 1973 with the help of the US Fish and Wildlife Service and NOAA (the people who everyone remembers during hurricanes).

The reason these species are endangered includes a long history of land acquisition that boomed during the early 1900s. In other words: people saw that land in Florida was cheap and they could use it to start their businesses, so they started buying it all up.

Over time this had a major impact on the natural wildlife and messed with the delicate balance of the Everglades. Why don’t people shut up about the Everglades? Well not only is it a pretty neat place to visit, but its survival revolves around brackish water - a delicate combination of both fresh and salt water. The Everglades used to extend much farther up the state, but because of aforementioned reasons, it now rests in the tiny little area below Southwest Florida.

By the way, that first bump where that little blue line runs through? That is the Caloosahatchee River. The river that divides Fort Myers into the part that people care about (Fort Myers), and the part that nobody really cares about except its residents. My home town, North Fort Myers- but I’ll save that rant for another time

(Side note: If you search for SWFL in the Urban Dictionary, you will find the most accurate description of us I have ever heard)

Now let’s talk about the thing that everyone loves about Florida: The beaches

This topic hurts my heart to be honest.

So I know I provided information that is absolutely credible earlier- but for this section you will have to trust me and my narrative which I know is hard to do these days and you shouldn’t trust what people say on the internet unless its a credible source.

I used to go to Fort Myers Beach pretty often when I was little aka: the early 2000s. It was a pretty beautiful place and kinda like how everyone describes. We would go there for a bit, build some sand castles and grab some ice cream on the way home at, frankly, the -best- ice cream place in town- Love Boat. Quick intermission, if you are ever near Fort Myers Beach on San Carlos Blvd, check out Love Boat’s homemade ice cream! They’re a great local business you can support on your drive through!

Over the course of a few years, as people started to move to Fort Myers and go there for vacation more frequently as Miami started to grow its nasty reputation. So, like any popular beach- it started to become littered with trash and we couldn’t stay too long because of the strange and shady people that started to roam there after dark, so we migrated to Naples beach until it started to get littered and shady over there too. Sure enough, over the years, stories started to pour in of crime and environmental damage to the beach:

2018 News alone:

83 y/o man murders woman and then commits suicide in FMB

A woman kills a friend in FMB after murdering her husband in Minnesota

Fatal two-car hit and run in FMB

don’t even get me started with the drug busts

Polluted runoff from storm drains is increasing

The longest wave of Red Tide began in October and is now causing the death of hundreds of animals along the coast of SWFL

Granted, these days the counties have arranged annual beach cleanups and smaller organizations including school clubs, scout troops, and nonprofit organizations are doing events like this throughout the year. I haven’t been to either beach in a few years and can’t vouch for what they look like now, but that doesn’t mean that it’s “good enough”. We, the citizens of Southwest Florida and you, the tourists from other places need to keep up after yourselves and others around you because let’s be honest there will always be those people who won’t and help protect and restore our lovely local beaches.

- Fort Myers Beach

-Naples Beach

-Captiva Island

-Cayo Costa State Park

As one last note, I can safely bet that a lot of people don’t know about Lake Okeechobee. Yes, that big blue spot in the middle of Florida. Our biggest lake from where all of South Florida’s water flows.

Good old Lake O.

“What about this lake is so important that you had to include it”, you may ask. Remember the map from earlier? The one that showed how the water used to flow into the Gulf?

This is one of the dams that regulates the flow of water to south Florida. It’s one of the prettier pictures that tends to obscure an ugly truth:

Lake Okeechobee has been polluted for years by chemical runoff from agricultural crops and it hasn’t stopped. In 2016 it got to the point where an algae bloom was so bad that it killed of hundreds of creatures living in the Lake.

In fact, there is a dead zone that has formed in the lake and it kinda works like this:

What frustrates me is that in order for change to happen, political figures must get involved, which I will rant about next time because recently our government discussed setting aside $10.5 million to help restore the lake and repair a rotting dike over the next 20 years- but due to politicians not agreeing, this portion of the budget has slowly disappeared from discussions in the Florida legislature.

Read more about this frustrating situation here in a report by the Weather Channel.

Next time on Rant by a Florida-Grown Teen who is fed up With a lot of Things and can’t Sleep: We will tackle the mess that is the Florida Government, and specifically the trainwreck that makes every idiot jealous: Lee County.

[thismightbeaterribleidea]

Accidental Snowbirding

So I went to Florida and accidentally became a snowbird. I drove south in September with no real timeframe for anything in mind, and I ended up staying on the Gulf coast north of Tampa (Pasco County) for almost three months, minus a couple of weeks I was in Georgia.

Some friends have asked me how the new, nomadic life is going, and I tell them that it hasn’t really felt that nomadic. I’ve enjoyed being close to my friend Ron — I had a regular rotation of several campgrounds, none of them more than half an hour from his place. It reminded me of the decade-plus ago when we both lived in Denver, in old, cheap apartments within walking distance of each other. A friend calls and says “do you want to come over?” and you just go over. It’s lovely. We both got into paddleboarding (more on that later) and explored some rivers. We even took an airbnb trip to the Smokies and northern Alabama before the pandemic escalated. So it’s been interesting and good, if different from the types of images that motivated me to buy this big-ass van (wilderness, solitude, aspen groves, desert mesas).

Here’s what I remember from the last few months:

A cotton-candy-pink bird forages on a shoreline and it is so quiet that you can hear its three-clawed feet pattering in the mud. Ninety minutes later we are scarfing down fried chicken in the car in a crowded parking lot.

In the trailer park, people drive golf carts around in loops: maybe this passes for exercise, or maybe they are hoping to run into someone to talk to.

Until November, I sweat and sweat and sweat, and then it cools off enough for me to run in the morning and it’s glorious. 

During the day, there is constant traffic and the lights are always red. There are a lot of billboards, all promising different things, but the one that makes us angry is the one that says “Jesus promises stability.”

I spend the night at a trailer park and the ladies in the office are sweet and efficient and wearing masks. But the spot I’m assigned is across from a mobile home with one of those flags that is half the U.S. flag and half the Confederate flag, and although my privilege probably keeps me safe here, I keep running through the equations with slightly different variables: who would be safe in this spot, in this trailer park/this county/this state/this country, and under what circumstances? What could make all of us safer? And the people who chose to pay for and display that absurdity of a flag, why is that flag the story they tell themselves? And what is the topography of the shared responsibility for all of this bullshit?

We paddle the Hillsborough River and see no other boaters but two alligators. One is basking on a log, and when I turn my head for a second it drops into the water with a massive splash: one moment there was a six-foot alligator; the next moment there was nothing but ripples. It was that fast. My friend decides he will not paddle here alone.

I see live oaks that have Spanish moss hanging from their branches, sure — but they’re also covered in lichens, and on the horizontal branches there are carpets of multiple kinds of moss and clusters of foot-tall ferns. It’s a whole ecosystem in one tree.

I’m driving “home” (most frequent campground) late one night and I am alone on a very dark road. In my headlights, I see a human figure in the middle of my lane, facing directly at me. I think: goblin! But it is a human person. I swerve into the other lane in case he moves. But he doesn’t move a muscle. He is in a half-crouch with his hands on his knees. I catch a glimpse of him in profile as I pass: his face is set in a rictus, jaw clenched. He is still staring straight ahead, unblinking, as if he hasn’t even seen me.

I call Ron just to reassure myself that I haven’t slipped out of the real human world and into someplace else.

“Oh my God,” he says. “But no, you’re still in the real world. There’s a lot of meth around here. He’s not a demon or anything. It’s just Florida.” He is wearing a dark sweatshirt and standing in the dark on a dark road; what if he gets hit? I call the police and I hate that to this day I still wonder if that was the right decision.

We get into paddleboarding. Ron already has an inflatable paddleboard, and I buy one with money I should be saving for things like van insulation or the loose crown on my lower left molar that is already living on borrowed time. But the paddleboard is amazing. Previously, I hadn’t gotten it: why stand when you could sit? I’m lazy and I have crappy feet; I hate standing. But this isn’t regular standing. It’s walking-on-water standing. In our favorite river, the Weeki Wachee, you can see all kinds of things from a paddleboard that it’s harder to see in a kayak, just because of the angle. On a paddleboard, you look straight down and there’s a fish striped like a zebra, an old pine log submerged ten feet down in the clear water, a scurrying blue crab, a bed of rippled sand.

We start at the public park and paddle up against a stiff current. Twice, we get to the three-mile mark and there is the same black-and-white cormorant in the same tree both times. We are familiar with the fact that if you time it right, so that you get back to the park as late as possible without actually paddling in the dark, and the crowds taper off so you have the river to yourself, the deepest pools are turquoise on our way upriver and viridian on our way down.

There are sometimes manatees on the river. In this part of the world, manatees are THE charismatic megafauna. And they are charismatic as hell. Once we are out late, a couple miles up the river with no one else around, and we see a mother and baby grazing on eelgrass in shallow water. We watch for minutes, mesmerized. The baby is tiny for a manatee: about the size of a Corgi. It must be very, very new. There is another manatee that I’m pretty sure I see several times on different days: it is very plump, with three pink slash marks across its back. We get to the point where, if there is a throng of other boaters stopped near where manatees are feeding, we don’t try to stop and see the manatees. We’ve seen them before, and we’ll see them again, when we don’t have to worry about the people and their kayaks and canoes in the current.

The last time I went to the Weeki Wachee, I went alone. The leaves were turning, because the calendar’s close-to-Christmas is Florida’s fall. I hadn’t ever planned on seeing a blazing orange maple next to tropical blue water, but it happened. Close-knit formations of big, soft gray, doe-eyed fish darted under my feet, and at the appointed time the water started turning dark green. In one of the final bends just upriver from the park, there is a deep spot called Hospital Hole. As I paddled down towards it, I saw one manatee, then another break the surface to breathe. I drifted over the hole, away from the manatees near the surface, and I saw the outline of another one eight or ten feet down against the very dark blue of very deep water.

The Weeki Wachee is a very narrow river, usually not more than thirty feet across and often only twenty. It’s also shallow, four or five feet on average, twelve where the current has carved a deep groove or pocket. Hospital Hole is at one of the river’s widest points, I’d guess maybe 150 feet from bank to bank. The hole itself — technically a sinkhole, but with a couple of small springs feeding into it — is only about 30 or 40 feet wide, but 140 feet deep. It goes down so far that there are different layers of water: freshwater, saltwater, a layer that is anoxic, another layer that is so full of hydrogen sulfide that divers can smell the rotten-egg odor even though they’re breathing compressed air. I read online that the manatees often go to Hospital Hole to sleep at night. The sinkhole-spring, like a big deep pocket, gives them space to stay together and still spread out. They can sink down below where they have to worry about boat engines or curious paddle boarders or whatever else manatees worry about. Every so often, they come up to breathe, then sink down again. Respire, rest, repeat.

It’s 7:17 p.m. as I am writing this, so they’re probably there right now.

***

So that’s Florida! Other, more nuts-and-bolts things that have happened include...

I installed lights and outlets. This was a big project and a big deal, since it means that I can have things like a fan (to keep me from sweating to death in the summer), an electric cooler (a.k.a. mini-mini-fridge) for things like vegetables and hummus and cheese and cold boozy beverages, and, well, lights at night that aren’t a harsh blue-white solar lantern, which is what I was using before October, when I made these improvements. Anything electrical is always a little scary; I’m nervous every time I have to go into the breaker box and always surprised when I’m able to touch it without shocking myself. I also had an extremely minimal understanding of how to splice wires together and how to connect all these lights to each other, to the dimmer switch, and to the breaker box. This involved a lot of googling, and even though the DIY van blogs seemed to say that installing lights would take half a day, it took me the better part of two days. But it’s done, and I’m very happy with it. Fiat lux, motherf***er!

My new favorite public agency is the Southwest Florida Water Management District. Occasionally, if I’d had a few drinks at Ron’s house, I spent the night parked in his driveway. Sometimes I stayed in private RV parks. (This was mostly driven by the need to empty the van’s port-a-pot once a week or so — public dump stations are not easy to find in this area of Florida; the closest was about an hour away.) But mostly, I stayed at campground operated by the SWFWMD. These campgrounds are in big tracts of forested, marshy, watery land, and they are great primitive campgrounds that cost $0. There’s no water, no showers, no other fancy campground amenities, but there is usually one outhouse, and each campsite has a picnic table and a fire pit. They’re basic and beautiful.

My favorite campground is called the Serenova Tract. It’s about 15 minutes from Ron’s house, and the campground is in a bunch of pines and live oaks. Horses are allowed, and on one of the last weekends I spent there, several people with horses stayed overnight and hung up Christmas lights. The next morning, they were joined by a dozen other horses and riders who all went for a morning trail ride through the woods. I was insanely jealous.

The other SWFWMD campground I stayed at was called Cypress Creek. It’s a little farther from Ron’s place than Serenova, so it was my second choice when Serenova was full but my van’s shitter wasn’t. It’s a beautiful spot, with tons of big pines. But right now I’m a little wary of it because the last time I stayed there I woke up from a dead sleep at 4:51 a.m. when I heard someone singing and talking to themselves. (The campground had been totally empty when I got there and still was as far as I could see.) It was probably just someone who had come in on foot and was drinking because it was cold (40 degrees) outside, but it was still a bit unnerving. 

I also have a favorite RV park. I was thinking that my relationship with these places would be strictly utilitarian, and it still mostly is. But out of the three RV parks that I’ve stayed at, there’s one small one called Suncoast that I actually kind of enjoyed: even though I only went there occasionally, the three staff people remembered me when I called or came in, and they often gave me a discount on their regular rates because I don’t use any electricity. They (both staff and most guests) also seem to be taking pretty good pandemic precautions. (I actually saw someone get kicked out of the office when they tried to come in without a mask, something that I’ve never seen in any other business since March!) The place has nice big pine trees, and by the office there’s a table where people put free food that they aren’t using, or occasionally two-day-old bread that someone got from Publix for free. The last time I was there, some people had decorated their campers and RVs with lights and it was kind of charming. I still heavily prefer to be out in the woods by myself and not spending any money, but I’m glad I found someplace pleasant for my once-a-week-or-so sewer/water needs.

I figured out how to stay warm while sleeping. This is a bigger deal than it sounds because a) I haven’t insulated the van yet, so at night, it’s only a few degrees warmer than whatever the temperature is outside, and b) I’m a very cold sleeper. Florida is SUPER WARM compared to any other place I’ve ever lived, but in December, it started getting a little chilly at night: down into the fifties, then the forties, then, a few nights ago, 30 degrees. I’ve camped in near-freezing or slightly-below-freezing temperatures before, but sometimes it wasn’t very comfortable — even with good long underwear and socks and a hat and a zero-degree-rated sleeping bag. But I’ve figured out a system for my bed that uses four blankets, layered like a licorice allsort: a quilt, a heavy wool blanket, another quilt, and a faux-wool blanket. If it gets below 40, I can add my zero-degree down sleeping bag and be not just comfortable but actively toasty, like a baking croissant.

Unrelatedly, I’ve been having a hard time getting out of bed in the morning.

I’ve found that my life in a van is basically like my life has been anywhere else. I work. I sleep. I stay up late reading things on the internet when I should be sleeping. Sometimes I go running or do yoga (while trying not to bump into the cabinet or kick the front console or hit the ceiling). Sometimes I do fun things, like paddleboarding or talking to friends. I make goals and plans and don’t follow through on them, except when very very occasionally I do. But when I’m looking up van stuff online, I often run across photos of people who are #selfemployed #vanlife and the photos of them working are:

A woman is seated propped up on pillows in the bed in the back of her van. The doors are open, framing a view of the cerulean sea, so that you can practically smell the gentle breeze blowing over the dunes. She has a laptop on her lap and is looking thoughtfully out to sea while a cup of tea steeps on a tray that is on the white coverlet of her bed.

Or

A man is seated at the dinette in the back of his van. He has a laptop, a French press, a mug of coffee, and a plate with two scones on it on the table. The table, and in fact the whole dinette with its two upholstered benches, would be at home on a small luxury yacht, and it’s the kind of dinette that you make into a bed at night. The astute, intent expression on the man’s face give the viewer to understand that he is competent and disciplined and never stays up two hours past his bedtime because he’s too lazy to lower the dinette table and rearrange the cushions and put on all his sheets and blankets. We are also given to understand that the electrical system in his van would have no problems handling the power drain of a bean grinder, even though he is clearly parked in the high Rockies — again, with the back doors open, the better to take in the late spring air and see the fresh green of the aspen trees — and it’s often cloudy. Lastly, we are given to understand that he baked those scones himself, because when he’s not working, hiking, lumberjacking, or otherwise living his best life, he enjoys unwinding by baking bread and pastries. (Not in the van; don’t be silly! He bakes outside, over a wood fire.)

(A tangent: Why do so many people have their van doors open in photos I see online? Do they only stay in places with no bugs? If I tried that in Florida, or even Maryland or Colorado half the year, I’d be awake half the night swatting at mosquitoes and/or flies.)

In contrast, a photo of me being self-employed in a van would look like:

A woman is sprawled in an ungainly fashion on her narrow bunk. Her laptop is braced by her lower ribs and propped up with a pillow placed over her gut. The pillow has a cat on it. The windows of the van are covered in silver bubble-wrap, so very little light gets in. Absolutely no doors are open, because the van is parked behind a Dunkin Donuts so the woman can get free wifi and not burn through all the data on her phone plan. She takes a break to heat up a can of Campbell’s soup on an alcohol stove, adding a handful of dehydrated mixed vegetables, to be healthy. As she stirs the soup, she gazes contemplatively out the windshield towards the adjacent parking lot, where there is an IHOP. #vanlife

Or

A woman is sitting in the passenger seat of her van with her feet on the dashboard and her laptop on her lap. Beside her in the cupholder is a steaming Hydroflask full of the cheapest tea she could buy at Publix. The van is parked in a grove of live oaks. Spanish moss sways gently in the morning breeze. Behind the woman, in the dark recesses of the van, sets of clothes are hanging: leggings and a shirt, still sweaty, by the side doors, a bathing suit over the sink, a t-shirt and shorts for sleeping in by the rear cabinet. Several kitchen towels are draped on the driver’s seat and on the dashboard because the cab leaks above the sun visors when it rains, and even though she’s tried caulking it three times, she still can’t get it to stop. #vanlife

The good thing, though, is that I’m still getting work and making a living. I can do it someplace that’s safe, without having to risk my life to do it. And I’m getting paid a fair hourly wage. But then the very terrible thing is that everyone should be able to say what I just said, but so many people can’t: they’re not making a real living through their work, they have to risk their lives to do it, and they’re not getting paid a fair wage.

(Brief interlude as I stare at the ceiling angrily.)

***

Here’s what I’m doing next: I left Pasco County on the 16th. I’ll be in what I think of as “traveling quarantine” until the 30th, staying in a national forest near Jacksonville. (With a couple of stops at state parks to refill water, empty the port-a-pot, and maybe take a real shower.) I’ll be in Maryland on New Year’s Eve and will stay at my parents’ while I insulate the van, build interior walls, and do a bunch of other stuff so that I can call it (mostly) finished. Then I’m thinking of going to New Mexico and spending late winter/early spring there… parked on top of a mesa… sipping a cup of French-press coffee on my white coverlet while I thoughtfully gaze out the open doors of my van… (I really would like to park on top of a mesa though.)

[shards-of-the-stars]

Chapter 2

Lightpaw walked forward, fur lying flat as she entered the clearing where Shadowclan made its home. The camp was filled with cats. Their breaths all puffed out in little fogs of smoke, and their combined body head warmed their home.

Lightpaw caught site of Grassheart sitting next to Stonewing. The pale brown tabby flicked Stonewings nose with her tail. Stonewing swatted it away with a grin, and then Grassheart leaned in and mewed something in a tone to low for Lightpaw to pick up on.

Lightpaw grinned at them. They were one of the few romances in Shadowclan. They were less focused on finding love than other clans. The main bonding that Shadowclan experienced was when they bonded together as a clan. They weren’t a sentimental clan, but they did find odd partnerships. Snowbird and Scorchfur both liked yelling, and since they were both strong cats they had decided to have kits together. That was the basis for most relationships in Shadowclan.

That was part of the thing that made her parents relationship so different. They had actively made the clan weaker with their love. She knew she shouldn’t blame her parents, but whenever the clan looked at her oddly, she thought of them. She was still half-clan no matter what her father did.

Lightpaw’s gaze turned to Dovewing. she was walking across the clan, eyes fixed on Grassheart. The two had grown to be fast friends. Dovewing had many friends in Shadowclan. It was almost like she was a Shadowclan cat.

Lightpaws gaze softened. Pouncepaw was the one with the scathing commentary on everything. Sometimes when Lightpaw thought about how she was scorned because of her parent's mistakes she wanted to snarl at them. She never did, however. She loved her mother to pieces.

Lightpaw padded over to her mother, giving Snowbird a nod in farewell. Dovewings eyes lit up as she caught sight of her daughter, and she threw herself at her. Dovewing pressed against her, only coming up to her shoulder.

Her mother was apparently attractive by Thunderclan standards, but Shadowclan had a different system of measurement. They found the largest and most battle-hardened cats to be the most deserving of having kits.

“How was your hunt” Dovewing mewed, her turquoise eyes meeting Lightpaws.

“It was great!” Lightpaw lied, looking down her mother side. Dovewing looked a bit skinnier than normal. Lightpaw got the urge to tell her mother to eat something but resisted it. Dovewing might be smaller, but she was fierce. Lightpaw didn’t underestimate her mothers capacity to stuff prey down Lightpaw's throat if the conversation turned to food. “It's not too long until your going to be a warrior” Dovewing mewed, her voice laced with pride.

Lightpaw blinked. She must have been talking to Tigerstar. He would want his kits to be warriors as soon as possible. Lightpaw didn’t know what to think about that. She just felt tired at the moment.

“I’ll talk to you soon,” Lightpaw said, shuffling around her mother. The moon was rising high in the sky. Though Shadowclan a lot of stuff done at night, Lightpaw had been out all day hunting, and she needed to sleep.

“Alright.” Dovewing mewed.

Lightpaw walked heavy pawed to the apprentice den, barely able to keep her eyes open. There were a lot of apprentices in Shadowclan since no cat had yet died of the cold. She had heard that Thunderclan had lost a lot of warriors, but Shadowclan was still strong.

Lightwing tried to push into the den, but something blocked her path. She opened her eyes to see an indignant apprentice in front of her. the white spot on her chest seemed to glow in the darkness.

“Watch where you're going, Half-clanner.” A voice sniffed. Lightpaw narrowed her amber eyes. “Sunpaw” she said, trying to put all the coldness of the night air into the word. Sunpaw didn’t seem to be affected. She burned with the conviction of her hatred.

“Did you manage to catch anything this time.” She hissed, rearing up as high as she could get so she could get in Lightpaw's face. “I guess now that we aren’t focusing on battle training you aren’t doing that well.”

Lightpaw smiled, remembering their first battle practice. Her and Sunpaw had been made apprentices near the same time. They had been really close as kits and had been excited to train together. They started with battle training, and Lightpaw had been great at it. She had already been stronger than the other kits and she had soundly trounced Sunpaw in their fight. She had basked in the praise of the surrounding mentors. Tigerstar had shown up and praised her well she pinned Sunpaw to the ground.

Lightpaws smile faded. That had been when Sunpaw had started to hate her.

“Maybe I’m not,” Lightpaw said. “What's it to you.” She pushed herself a little bit further into the apprentice den, but the golden brown tabby hissed at her.

“What is it too me. I don’t want giant cats hogging all the prey! You should go to Thunderclan and see if you’ll be useful there.”

Lightpaws fur fluffed up in indignation. “I would never go to Thunderclan! They are our enemies!”

“Maybe they are..” Sunpaw started, her voice cruel. Lightpaw cut her off.

“Why are you even talking to me? Where are you even going?” She demanded, looking down on the smaller cat.

“I’m going hunting before the gathering,” Sunpaw said, her voice quavering a little.

“There's a gathering tonight?” Lightpaw asked, feeling stupid as soon as she said it.

“Yes, there's a gathering,” Sunpaw said scornfully. Her fur brushed against Lightpaws as she pushed her way out of the apprentice den. “Might as well use my Shadowclan skills to hunt in the dark.” She mewed, her eyes flashing. Part of Lightpaw wanted to laugh off Sunpaws criticisms and demand to go hunting with her. She would show Sunpaw how useless she was then.

It might have just been Lightpaws imagination, but it almost looked like Sunpaw wanted her to go with her too.

Lightpaw felt a tail on her back and she nearly jumped. She turned to see her sister Pouncepaw behind her.

“Come on and sleep. We have a bit of time before we are both going to the gathering.” Pouncepaw mewed. Lightpaw gave Sunpaw one more glare before following her sister.

“Are you sure you even want to go in here now that Blazeflight has moved to the warrior's den? Lightpaw asked. She was delighted when her sister's ear tips flushed a pale pink. “You don’t know what you are talking about!” She said sharply, settling down in her nest.

Lightpaw settled down. She definitely did know what she was talking about. Pouncepaw had had a crush un Blazeflight since they were both made apprentices, and the tom obviously liked her back. Tigerstar would be overjoyed. He loved the kit who had followed them to to the clans from the twolegplace almost as much as his own kin.

Lightpaw remembered the days before the clans well enough. She had been born outside the clans and had only been brought to the lake after her kithood. She had spent the first 5 moons of her life as a rouge. Sunpaw often scorned her about it, but she had been there as well. Shadowclan had fallen apart for a time, and Lightpaw clearly remembered playing with Sunpaw in a hollow outside the territory.

Lightpaw sighed as she squirmed closer to her sister for warmth, tucking her tail under her nose. Shadowclan was strong, even if they were all freezing. Shadowclan would always be strong in Lightpaws mind. 

Pouncepaw snuggled closer and they both fell asleep to the sound of each other breathing.

[creativitytoexplore]

Swim by Christopher K. Miller https://ift.tt/3757ycN Christopher K. Miller's character is tired of ageing and called by the sea.

Every February, for the past nine years, you and your second husband, Jack, drive down from Ottawa to Anna Maria Island. Official snowbirds now. Always stay at the same rental semi on the beach: a well-appointed cabin, really, with cable TV and high-speed internet. Central heat and air - most days you need both. Shared cedar deck with a big gas barbecue, saltwater pool, and hot tub, too, of course. Mornings you drink coffee with whipped cream and watch pelicans dive-bomb for fish. Last year, a woman you met on an island boat tour said she'd heard they eventually go blind from all those eyes-wide-open impacts, and starve. So no pelican ever dies of old age. Afternoons, it's burgers and beer at Skinny's. A snack shack with a bar. Close enough to walk. Decorated totally with dollar bills. Thousands of them. Like the owner tacked up the first one he made, but then couldn't stop. Then, after a nap, dinner someplace nice. Evenings, unless it's cloudy, you watch the big orange blob of a sun sink into the Gulf. Drink pink Zinfandel you buy at the local Publix for twelve dollars a gallon. Lean on the railing. Talk to the couple next door. Last year, dairy farmers from Wisconsin. From the moment the sun's orb touches the horizon until it's completely gone takes only a few minutes. You can stare without hurting your eyes. Second time you watched, you took a cell phone video and posted it on YouTube. You don't want to die of old age, either. You've given this some thought. Every day on the road is one less day in Florida. Plus you and Jack both hate motels. Always seem to have this musty smell, even the non-smoking units. Noisy heaters mounted beneath dirty windows overlooking parking lots. Crappy TVs, usually bolted onto something. Flimsy doors that either stick or refuse to latch. Shallow tubs with gritty anti-slip tread strips. Leaky toilets. A waste of time and money. So you just drive straight through. Easy in the Caddy. GPS. Cruise. OnStar. Jack, who used to work for QNX, says it's just a matter of time until the car'll drive itself. Still, it's a long haul. Twenty, maybe twenty-two, hours speeding down I-79. Depends on pit stops. Between Jack's prostate and Sheetz's bottled cappuccinos, you take almost as many exits as you pass. The first Waffle House is in Philadelphia: Welcome to Waffle House! Tim Hortons as far south as Georgia now. Not as busy as the Canadian franchises, though. Last year, driving back through Summersville, West Virginia, you thought your headlights weren't working. It was raining and, between the slick and the glare, you couldn't see the center line. Jack does all the driving now. Says he doesn't mind a bit. The trick's to not eat too much. And pacing the caffeine. This year's neighbor's a financial planner, also from Ontario. Works for one of the big banks. Maybe CIBC... or could be the Royal. Hands Jack his card. Tells him he oughta consider moving some of those GICs when they mature into oil and precious metals, maybe even cash out early if that's an option, pay the penalty. The mighty "petrodollar" is gonna crash soon. He uses his fingers to indicate quotes. Like didja see where Germany wants its gold "repatriated." Again with the fingers. But The Fed don't have it. Can't produce it. Prolly sold it to the Asians. No wonder they refused the Germans' request for an audit. Been wallpapering the Globex with naked shorts, unredeemable gold warrants, since Christ knows when, trying to drive the price down. Quash interest rates. Desperate to sweep Obama's latest QE clusterfuck under the rug. To mask inflation. Prop up the nation's credit rating. His wife, who looks maybe half his age, hasn't said a word. Probably heard it all a million times. Appears stoned in some asocial way, or maybe just super bored, as she watches the sun set, dusk fade. No breeze. The ocean looks coated in orange plastic. Like a giant sheet of Canadian fifties. You've heard that a good way to die is to swim out as far as you can. At first, you'd turn on the car's defrost. Then you blamed cataracts for the fog. Jack had them a few years back. Half your friends already, too. Really, nowadays, almost everyone gets them. Even babies. Jack thinks it has to do with all the cell towers and microwave radiation around. A million texts a minute zapping through your body. Fortunately, an easy fix. You researched it on Wikipedia. How they used to slice open the eye. Replace the lens. Stitch it shut. How you'd spend three days flat on your back in a halo hoping your retina didn't detach. Now it's a topical anesthetic. In-and-out with a needle. A simple ten-minute procedure. OHIP's rates lag the technology. A good ophthalmologist can do thirty a day, make three million a year easy. After dark the neighbors join you in the hot tub. Dip their toes in. Ask if you mind. She's fit enough for a two-piece. But he's too big for a speedo. How is it men are oblivious to their fat? The water rises with his entry. There's a restaurant/bar with an outdoor patio maybe half a kilometer down the beach. Semi-live music. Just a guy singing karaoke, really. Maybe a guitar. Everly Brothers. Simon & Garfunkel. Beach Boys for the younger set. Drowned out when Jack turns on the jets. He and the financial planner are working on a happy drunk. A loving drunk. Guy's explaining derivatives trading. How today, thanks to computers, that's where ninety-eight percent of the market is, and how a wise money manager uses 'em to hedge, not leverage. His foot keeps touching yours. The stars look out of focus. The moon's full and low, but murky. As if shrouded in smog. You point to where you think a city-sized cruise ship's lights decorate the horizon. But no one confirms. Jack says the stock market's always frightened him the way casinos should compulsive gamblers. Even after RIM bought QNX and handed out call options like Halloween candy and made him and everyone he worked with rich, he never cared for it. You wonder if he's playing footsie, too. Surprised that you don't care. What at first you think's a falling star turns out to be either a satellite or some high-altitude plane. Or maybe the space station. Even looking at it out of the corner of your eye, where objects are at their clearest, it's impossible to tell. Might just be something floating across your cornea. You were a pretty decent swimmer back in high school. Swam men's varsity your freshman year, only girl on the team. Still remember your times. Fifty yard freestyle: twenty-three seconds flat. Two-oh-nine-seven once in the two-hundred individual medley. Coach Burton's face in yours every time you breathed: Swim! Last year, at your eye appointment, you wondered if all the chlorine might've caused your condition. Dr. Hopfner, the optometrist, thought not. Anything's possible. But AMD's a genetic thing. More common in women, eh? Your mom died in a car crash when you were sixteen. On her way home from a Christmas party. Drunk. But you remember her mother as seeming kind of blind, always trying to see you better, always pulling you a little too close but never looking straight at you. Back then you figured it was just an old person thing. Like wrinkles. Like bad hair and teeth. Dr. Hopfner advised you not lose hope. Leafy green vegetables. Intravitreal injections. An SSRI if necessary. Though you were right about the cataracts. Just not mature enough to be operative yet. Better to take a wait-see approach. Weigh the risks down the road. The financial planner's wife steps into the pool. Says she needs to cool down. Her breasts are too big for the rest of her. Her swimming looks like some combination of doggie paddle and sidestroke. And drowning. The way she rolls and gulps. Appendages flailing. All working against each other. You almost want to rescue her. Takes forever to swim two laps. You can tell she's proud of her aquatic prowess, though. The way she leans over the shallow end's gutter drawing deep, even breaths. Like hyperventilating. Like she's just crossed the English Channel. Jack asks the financial planner why he thinks it is the US still hasn't gone with plastic money or chip cards, and why you gotta pay cash in advance at the pumps, which is a total pain the ass. This causes the guy to launch into a diatribe about the US economy being so bust now that it actually relies on a certain "manageable" level of forgery and identity theft. He puts his drink down to do the quotes. No one could even begin to counterfeit a fraction of what The Fed does each and every day. Not even close. So who cares, right? And did you know they get most of their oil from us? So how come gas is so much cheaper here? He advises Jack terminate any exposure his portfolio might have to US currency. Not just cash, but any mutual funds containing US bonds or equities he might have kicking around in RSPs and whatnot, too. He places his hand on Jack's shoulder. Giving free advice seems to evoke in him a sense of largesse. The ocean is black and smooth. Like an oil slick. Swells and ripples instead of waves. You wonder if dolphins sleep at night. Sometimes, in the morning, a pod will swim by, surfacing and diving. Up and down, up and down. Like swimming the butterfly. As if stitching invisible seams. You used to rush out to see. Peer through the binoculars. Though not anymore. It's funny how the amazing blurs into the commonplace. How you can become inured to anything. Like the sun. The good life. The whole universe. But probably not blindness, despite Jack's theories about its leading to enhanced spatial and eidetic memory, better hearing, and probably better sex. At first you thought they were sharks. You climb out of the hot tub's fever-temperatured water. Say you think you'll try a swim, too. But in the ocean. The financial planner seems actually impressed. Are you nuts? What about undertows? What about sharks? You tell him there's no such thing as an "undertow." Only rip currents. They'll drag you out, but never down. And that you're more afraid of jellyfish. Jack brags you're an unbelievable swimmer. A regular fucking dolphin. Sounds a little inebriated. Glances at the woman, again floundering in the pool. Looks a little worried. What about cramps, though? You take off your ring. Wouldn't want to lose it. Four flawless carats. Wouldn't want to attract barracuda, either. Jack's glad to hang onto it till you get back. No worries. Your muscles are limber. You haven't eaten in hours. Your fingers graze his palm. A kiss might seem too final. There's a gate, then a path leading down to the sand. Scrub grass on either side. You close it behind you. South on the beach, the entertainer's singing an old Lou Christie hit. Faraway voices blend with the nearby lapping of water. Two Faces Have I, but not quite Christie's keening falsetto. High tide. Probably headed out soon. The ocean's cool, but not much cooler than the air. You're still hot from the tub. The sand's soft and smooth. Early every morning a grader truck rakes up all the stones and shells. Someone said they use them on driveways. It seems to take forever until the water reaches your knees. The moon is almost straight ahead. You recall reading somewhere that its orbital period and women's menstrual cycles are identical in length. When the ocean tickles your thighs, you dive, and swim for it. But after only a dozen strokes your hands grab sandbar. Standing makes you feel heavy. Unwieldy. Removing your suit helps. You surrender it to the tide. Now the air seems cooler than the water. After the sandbar, the bottom drops away quickly. As if on the edge of a steep underwater hill. Or cliff. You raise your arms up over your head and perform a standing surface dive. The deep water's colder. But your feet don't touch bottom. So you kick back up. Swim for the moon. Effortlessly. Like flying in a dream. You wonder if you should pace yourself. And, if so, how? For the mile? Your personal best was 17:59. But that was in a twenty-five yard pool. A long time ago. Sixty-five flip-turns. Coach Burton screaming himself hoarse the entire final hundred yards. Bringing you home. Every breath to poolside, screaming in your face: Swim! Both Jack's sons are visiting next week with their daughters. No wives, though. Separated. The three girls call you Gamma. Like the radiation. Your step-sons call you Jeanne. Always have. You're glad they don't call you Mom. Even though you've known them since they were little. Kissed their owies. Helped with their homework. And, later, their finances. Even though you love them, and you're pretty sure they love you, you suspect it's not the same. Sometimes you wish you'd had children of your own. Though not right now. Stroke stroke stroke, breathe. Steady flutter-kick. Goddamn your feet are big. First thing Coach Burton ever said to you. Regular flippers. Mermaid feet. Huge smile on his face. Stroke stroke stroke. Your armpit forms an air pocket. Breathe. Stroke stroke stroke. You skip a breath, laughing. Never paced yourself for maximum distance. Stroke stroke stroke, breathe. Guessing eighty-second hundreds. Pulse maybe picking up a little. Sixty-eight or so. More from exhilaration than effort. The current seems to carry you. Even when you stop and tread water. Your longest competitive open-water swim was five kilometers. Organized by Swim Ontario. Then there were boats and buoys and other swimmers to guide you. You seem to have drifted south a little. Toward the open Atlantic. Toward the restaurant, which is almost directly behind you now. The singer sounds tinny. Lost in the tide. Strings of red, white and blue bulbs outlining the patio look like violet webbing. To the north, past your rental, past your husband and the financial planner bonding in the hot tub, a hotel's pool lights leer aquamarine. Ahead, the moon seems to have drifted to your left. Surely an unreliable guide. You've never heard of sailors navigating by it. Only the stars. Fuzzy and faraway. You wonder if it's really true that if all the stars visible to the naked eye were grains of salt, they'd only fill a teaspoon, whereas all the stars you can't see would fill a lake. The sun's amber glow still lingers on the horizon. Like a tease. You swim for it. Coach Burton always thought you had a shot at Lake Ontario. Would've gladly helped you train. You wonder if he's still alive. He was about the age you are now. So how old would that make him? Probably too old. It occurs to you, and for the first time, that maybe it wasn't all about mentorship. Maybe his will to your athletic success was mired in something more. Stroke stroke stroke, breathe. Of course. He had a crush on you. You with your big feet, flat chest and pimples. He just wanted to be with you. Even if it meant sitting for days in a small boat, gripping a sputtering outboard's steering arm. Tossed about. Hour after hour. Occasionally vomiting into Lake Ontario's rough, cold water. Just to watch you swim. He also taught Health Ed. Breathe. Stroke, stroke. Breathe. Only to the left now. One reason you never took on Lake Ontario was all its lamprey eel. Maybe the ugliest creatures on earth. Long, slimy suction cups with needles for teeth. Love to attach to swimmers. But the real reason, the main reason, was those who'd gone before. You wouldn't have been the first, the youngest or the fastest. Though now, it occurs to you, you could be the oldest. Something slick and firm bumps, really more like nudges, you on the thigh. As if to remind you that you're not alone. Maybe a manatee. You pause for a rest. Look around. Pee. That last glass of Zinfandel. The air's much cooler than the water now, which is cooler than your body. Your urine. You relax. Float. Easy. Seawater's buoyant. You settle into it, only your nose and mouth exposed to the chill air. Feel the ocean's rise and fall. As if breathing. As if in a deep sleep. You listen for the eerie howling moan of whale song. Hear only the drone of some faraway ship's engines. Then surface. Look around. Ears and cheeks cooling. All horizon now. Everywhere you look. You wonder if it's true that sailing ships of old always carried swine. That a pig, thrown overboard, will always swim for the nearest land. You feel a little dizzy. A mild vertigo. Disoriented. Faraway lights could be a ship, or a pier. Or an illusion. But the moon seems real. And about where you remember it. You've always had a good sense of direction. You consult your inner swine. Then do the opposite. Swim for the farthest shore. You're in the Gulf. So somewhere on the coast of Mexico. Or Texas. Or even Louisiana. Cuba, if you're way off course, would be much closer. But still far enough. Switching to backstroke works a different set of muscles. Gazing up into the night sky is not unlike gazing down into the deep. Both are unfathomable in their way. You imagine Jack has lost interest in matters of national economic import by now. Whatever buzz he's managed to tie on, you've probably killed. But surely the other couple hasn't gone to bed. Left him standing alone on the beach. You wonder how long he'll shout your name before he breaks down. Calls 911. The coast guard. No. It'll be someone else who does. Maybe someone from the restaurant. Americans are way friendlier than Canadians. Especially in the South. What's the problem, buddy? What? How long did you say? Oh man! Jack might even argue a little. A few hours in the water ain't diddly. Not for you. Hell, there've been Lake Ontario crossings took over forty. Some who've swum across and back. Even after the call is made, he'll keep trying to find you. Run up and down the beach all night. Screaming like Coach Burton. Like you're not the one who's lost. You stay on your back, but switch to a frog kick, with a lazy underwater double-arm sweep. Not a competitive stroke. Well maybe in synchronized swimming. Super easy. Have to be careful not to kick too hard, though. Don't need a calf cramp. But you have to keep moving. You've heard sharks have to swim to breathe. If you stop swimming, you could freeze. Seems funny someone could freeze to death at room temperature. Because that's what the water is. There's a kind of tension, a clenching, that precedes shivering. The air seems colder now. You push a little harder. Just enough to get warm. You don't want to sweat. You don't want to cry, either. The ocean is big enough. So you stop thinking about Jack and the kids. Roll over. Get back to some serious swimming. Count your strokes. In a pool it's about fifteen hundred per mile. In open water, usually more. Depends on waves and current. There are no waves out here. Not the breaking kind. Only swells. You rise and fall. Rise and fall. It's made you a little queasy. You also have a niggling headache. Like someone's squeezing your eyeballs. Dr. Hopfner mentioned glaucoma. Not to worry. You don't have it. But your IOP's at the high end of normal. Both eyes. Could complicate things down the road. Something to keep on top of. Did you know swimming goggles have been shown to raise intraocular pressure? Do you still swim? Goodness! No wonder you're so trim! You start over every thousand strokes. But was it nine or ten? Your arms are heavy. Burning. And, at the same time, a little numb. Breaststroke's just as hard on your lats, but easier on your shoulders, and better for looking around. Not a lot to see, though. Water. Sky. Stars. The spoonful that are visible, anyway. Tough on the knees. For about a hundred strokes, whenever you pull up to breathe, you think you hear a helicopter. Far away. And getting farther. Till it's just your heart thumping in your ears. Seems a waste of energy to try to shake or knock the water out of them. Should've worn earplugs. Sustained, breaststroke's hard on the neck. It's made your headache worse. Rolling to your back turns your stomach. Turns your queasiness into full blown nausea. Thinking about Skinny's onion rings doesn't help. What goes in a veggie burger? Do meats ever masquerade as vegetables? You need to shit. On the road, you're at the mercy of public washrooms. Restaurants, gas stations and service centers. You can usually hold out longer than Jack. But you get less warning. Still, you both try to sync washroom breaks with refueling. If you don't need gas, you buy an Almond Joy and something to drink. You feel like you should pay something. You wonder if whales ever hold it in, either as an exercise or out of some sort of marine etiquette. But you're just visiting. No holding back for you. You push. Sync it with your whip kicks. No wiping after. Nice thing about being naked in the middle of the ocean. Cleans you right up. Like a giant bidet. It helped. You feel less nauseated. Less bloated. But your head still hurts. All the way down your neck and back, really. Whoever said swimming out into the ocean as far as you can was a good way to die probably never tried it. Or wasn't a very good swimmer. Think about something else. You don't believe Coach Burton had a wife. A family. You remember how obsessively he bit his nails. Probably from being responsible for things over which he had no control. Like your times. Gnawed them till they bled. Right down to the quick. Right into the meat even. Had to have hurt. Probably be prescribed an anticompulsive today. Except when screaming, always had a finger in his mouth. Angry scabs oozing yellow pus. Especially his thumbs. You wonder if they ever got infected. Seemed to infect his breath a little. Your own, too, when blown back into your face. Bile rises up into your throat so, instead of air, you inhale that. And cough. And cough. Makes your head pound. Once, at the YWCA, you took a lifesaving class. Got your certificate. What you're doing now is called a jellyfish float. Tucked into the fetal position, curled like a question mark, you cough into the ocean. Gulp your own saliva and stomach acids. And seawater. Brackish and warm. Like blood. Like urine. Underwater, you vomit. Heave. Bits of veggie burger and deep fried onion and whatever it was you had for dinner... spinach salad and blackened ahi tuna... it all spews from your mouth and nose. Swirls around you. Like chum. But again, you feel better. Cleansed. Lighter. And thirsty. In lake crossings there's juice and pop. In country crossings there's bottled waters. Sweetened teas. Flavored coffees. Whatever you want. Everywhere you stop. But here there's only your saliva. You swallow. Roll to your back. The stars are gone now. The moon, too. You forge ahead, nonetheless. Feel for the farthest shore. Trust your inner pig. Ignore your thirst. The ache in your shoulders and back. Think about something else. Maybe Coach Burton's eating his fingertips was just his way of sharing your pain. How can you expect to push others to maximum endurance if you aren't willing to suffer yourself? Bleed yourself? That reminds you. He had a scalp condition, too. Maybe eczema. A wreath of scratches and pricks. Always a few tiny flakes of skin sprinkled on his glasses. Thick bifocals that made his eyes look as if they were floating in water. Try sidestroke. A lifesaving stroke. But, unless you're carrying someone, an inefficient stroke. Asymmetric and slow. Or maybe you just never practiced it enough. Butterfly is almost as fast as the crawl. But more demanding. A woman did once swim Lake Ontario using it, though. Land mammals all instinctively swim doggie paddle. But you wouldn't. Not if your life depended on it. Switch back to breaststroke. Then freestyle crawl some more. Then just lie on your back and kick those big feet without using your arms. Your mouth is dry. A kickboard would be nice. All the salt you've gulped. You feel weak in a way that transcends mere muscle fatigue. Drained at the core. Your headache is back. But you're almost there. Once, in a psychology class you took back in university, they showed a video of an experiment some psychologists had performed to determine how long rats would tread water before drowning. Some lasted as long as ninety-six hours. Four days. How this knowledge could possibly ever benefit anyone was a complete mystery to you then. You stop. Tread water. Ahead in the distance, you think you see the lights of that city-sized cruise ship again. But then it's gone. The sky and the ocean are black. But with different textures. Seem to reflect one another. Each distorting the other's image. Again and again. Over and over. Like floating between two vast funhouse mirrors. An assistant coach, whose name you forget, once told you Coach Burton had swum for the University of Michigan. On scholarship. Even qualified for Olympic trials. Made it all the way to the finals despite a very tough field that year. Then missed the two-hundred meter freestyle cut by less than a tenth of a second. Tragic in a way. The relay team took gold that year. All that hard, hard work. You think high school workouts are tough? You have no clue what tough is. Heat after heat, with only a few breaths to recoup. Then, after all that hardship and pain, to lose by a fraction of a second. Difference between a six-figure Wheaties endorsement and coaching high school. So maybe Coach Burton just wanted for you what he couldn't give himself. You wonder if he chewed his nails off to keep from scratching his head. Funny how a man can come into focus after so many years. Be seen clearer at a distance. You always wondered why you never saw him in the pool. Never saw him swim. Maybe the chemicals. You try a few more strokes. But, no. Nothing left. And so here you are. Finished. You made it. As far as you can go. So thirsty now. You look up at the starless sky. Feel like you should say goodbye or something. But instead say, Help. Not loud. Not to attract attention. Not even as a prayer. You don't pray. Wouldn't to save your life. You say it only as a kind of joke. Between yourself and the universe: Help. Still you can laugh. A hissing sweeps across the water. You hear the rain before you feel it. Then splashing all around you. Mottling the ocean's smooth surface. At first you think it's a bad thing. Just more water. You feel hope sink. Yourself, too. From below the surface, the rain sounds like it's shushing you. Telling you to listen. Then you realize: it's a gift. And rise up as from the dead. As if reborn. Lie on your back. Feel it pelt your eyes and face. Open your mouth and drink. And drink. Drink until all is quiet. Until the stars return. Again you try to swim. To forge ahead with your plan. Again your limbs refuse to obey. Your arms are numb. Legs, too. Only your lungs still burn. Only your heart still aches. Everything else feels like rubber. So this is it. This really is as far as you can go. Behind you, as if to agree, and to confirm the correctness of your course, dawn shimmers on the horizon. Offering guidance. Promising warmth. In a few minutes the entire sun will peer up over the edge of the world. Rising as it fell. You wonder when humans stopped worshiping it, and why. You feel a warm gust of wind in your face. Like Coach Burton's breath. Feeling has returned, accompanied by a prickling in your extremities. Still, you cannot swim any farther. Not another stroke. Not ahead. And so there you are. Two directions remaining. Down into the unfathomable. The inevitable. Or back into the morning's light. And whatever else awaits. All or nothing, now. Nothing, or all... And so you pirouette. Turn. Reverse course. Breathe. Stroke. Roll. Breathe. You probably look like the financial planner's wife. The way she does her laps. Stroke. Roll. Breathe. Still, progress is progress. Pain a blessing. Endurance unfathomable. This you have learned. This he has taught you well. Crab-walking along beside you. With that awkward crouching stride that must've killed his knees. At times, stooped almost as in prayer. Keeping pace. Bringing you home. Just as you remember. Bent down with that thorny crown. Those drowning eyes. Leaning right out over the water. One hand on the deck for support, and, in the other, holding forth, clenched in bloody fingers - not for you to read, but only to emphasize the importance of time remaining - his silver stopwatch. Screaming, blowing your breath back into your face. Every time you breathe: Swim goddammit! Swim!

[carishio-blog]

Let's Talk About Ships in the RWBY Fandom!

I've been involved in the RWBY Fandom now for almost a year. I hopped on after the end of Volume 3, and it admittedly took me a long time to get into the show and give it the fair shake it deserved. When I finally did, I finished the entire show in a day and fell in love with the adventures of Team RWBY as well as the amazing side characters. There are way too many for me to even possibly list, so I won't get into names in specifics. After watching it, I decided I wanted to get involved with others who loved the show like me, and that served as my introduction to the fandom as a whole. I liked Facebook pages and joined groups, as well as even got into the art of role playing which has become a staple in my life. It's lead to me making great friends that will last a lifetime, and I can't thank the show enough for it. However, as I delved deeper into the fandom as a whole, I began learning about something that I didn't realize was so popular: shipping. When I first heard the term, I was very confused about what it meant and what its purpose was, but I quickly learned thanks to a few people. At first, I only shipped Arkos because it was canon for those three beautiful seconds, and I thought that was the criteria for a ship. I soon learned so much more about it and moved away from Arkos in favor of other stuff that piqued my interest, most notably Snowbird thanks to a very special someone in my life. I loved seeing the art of all these different couples and characters together, since some were just adorable beyond belief for me. I had a blast talking about just about any ship with anyone since everyone seemed so relaxed and calm about it. Then I encounter something that I should've been prepared for, yet young, naive me didn't see coming: toxicity. I soon discovered the ongoing war between Bumblebee (I know it's also Bumbleby, but I prefer the former) and Black Sun. This was when I weighed in with my honest opinions on the characters as a whole and discussed what I liked better. I talked about how I didn't like Yang and found her pretty uninteresting, and how I felt Sun was the better option. Those comments led to a lot of people being very unhappy with me, calling me a homophobe for not liking Bumblebee and a hater because I don't like Yang. Hearing hateful comments like that really discouraged me, especially since I believed this fandom was so much different from other ones I heard about. I was proven wrong and since have tried to limit my opinion on Ships (which hasn't proven very helpful... I can flip flop a lot of the time). However, recently I have read a lot of posts about why Bumblebee will be canon, why it's been foreshadowed along with many other ships, and I wanted to discuss my opinion on something important. Disclaimer: This is NOT a Bumblebee hate post or rant. Just because I do not like the ship doesn't mean I will hate someone for liking it. If you can find something you enjoy about it where I can't, more power to you. I love having reasonable discussions about things like this with friends, but I cannot stand when people try to force their opinions on me by throwing their beliefs at me without even wanting to listen to my reasons. So, with that being said let me get to my main point. When we discuss something that we hold near and dear to our hearts, we get biased about it. I know most likely all of you who read this don't follow professional sports, but for those who do they'll get where I'm coming from. When I talk about my favorite baseball team, the New York Yankees, I will get biased about my team and talk about how great they are, even when they are horrible. However, I also understand that my team has flaws, ones that I cannot fix and hope that the people who are in charge of the team will. Ships and sports teams from this standpoint are one in the same. When we talk about our love for Bumblebee, Snowbird, or whatever we want to ship, we will get biased and defend our opinions on why our couple is the best one. There's nothing wrong with liking a ship and wanting to defend it, but at the same time it does become time to face facts and understand that your world does not revolve around it. The show itself does not revolve around it. Even though we all talk about how we want the writers to do something to make our ship happen, most of us understand that that's impossible because it takes away from the show and ruins the vision of the creators. However, the vocal minority doesn't want this. I say Bumblebee is the biggest offender of this only because that's the ship I've seen it the most with. That doesn't mean other ships aren't guilty of this, because we all are. I'm simply going on experiences I've had. I've seen people basically get to the point where they make it out to seem that Blake and Yang's entire lives revolve around each other and their actions are all because of the other person, and that is something I simply cannot stand. Romantic subplots are fine, but they do need to be done right under good circumstances. Let me describe it with one of my favorite pieces of animation: Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood (Which I will refer to as FMA or Brotherhood from here on out). The love between Ed and Winry is very apparent throughout the entire show, and is even blatantly mentioned by Winry multiple times: once when she's leaving Amestris to go back to Rush Valley and again while at Fort Briggs repairing Ed's automail. The romantic subplot is there clearly, but never does it overshadow the plot. Ed's mission stays the same throughout the show, and only a few minor detours are made because of these feelings. However, never do his motives and character completely change because of his love for Winry. He still wants to get Al his body back and stop the Homonculi after uncovering their schemes. The same can be said for the RWBY Fandom, and it's something we need to understand as shippers. The plot does not and should not revolve around your OTP. We all have different reasons for starting to watch RWBY in the first place, but I think one fact we can all agree on is that the plot is damn good most of the time. The show has an engaging story that is pretty simple to follow (even though there are some plot holes revolving around the science of the world), and the characters mesh into the story nicely. I know I enjoyed Weiss' arc in Volume 4 a great deal because of how much we learned about her as a person as well as her family. We can tell that the rest of the Schnee's will play a major role in the plot for the rest of the series after that, whether it be through Weiss' personal story or even something bigger down the line. We simply do not know yet, and that excites me. I love being left to wonder what people are really up to and trying to understand them by studying their actions. I also very much enjoyed learning more about Salem and her men, as Tyrian, Watts and Hazel all seem like very promising and great additions to the show and their actions. I'm truly excited about learning about Lionheart to see what Watts has planned with him. With that being said, they're the main focus. Team RWBY are the main characters (with Ruby really being protag kun even if she doesn't act like it), and Salem and her team are the antagonistic force. Anything else, including Weiss' family and Adam vs Blake is secondary and side stuff for each of those characters to face. To say that a romantic development between two characters should be front and center or that their actions are all happening because of the other is not fair. Characters have their own goals and aspirations that do not revolve around their "lover". This is a problem that I see a a majority of the time. People make it look like their ship is taking the spotlight of the character, and it should clearly be seen that a romantic relationship is growing because of it. That is not the case at all. That should never be the case, because then you are left with a very weak character with nothing remotely relatable about them or even likable in most cases. Personal feelings aside for Yang and Blake (since I prefer one a lot more than the other), both do have goals that drive them: Yang wants to find her mother and be a good sister for Ruby, while Blake wants to stop Adam and take back the White Fang. These goals are what these characters stand for and want to accomplish, and anything else is really secondary. Love is not in their foreseeable futures in my opinion, just like basically the entire rest of the cast. A show that revolves around romance (unless it is a romance genre theme) is not interesting unless there is good plot behind it. Shows like FMA, Samurai Jack, Hunter X Hunter and Avatar represent this very well. While there are some romantic themes if any at all that show up in it, they never overshadow the plot and character growth, and never does the romance cause a character to change completely and help them grow. That should never be the case in shows like this, since at least for me that's a cop out and a weak excuse for character development. We watch RWBY for great story telling and interesting characters, not romance. A ship is nice, but it shouldn't be your main focus. Your life will not end because your OTP didn't become canon. The show will not be ruined for you either, and if it is I can say you weren't truly a fan of the show. A real fan wouldn't let something so meaningless ruin something so great for them. No matter what you ship, I will respect your opinion and not discourage you from liking it. I want everyone to have an enjoyable and fun experience in the fandom like I have had for almost a year now. However, I also want people to be educated and understand that we cannot let a ship ruin a show for someone or let it dictate how we view characters. We as a whole need to understand that our OTPs aren't what dictate the show. Don't let your personal bias cloud your mind and make you think irrationally. Understand that everyone has different views, and just because you throw up a chart or long passage about why your OTP makes the most sense and while it will be canon no matter what you say, it doesn't mean everyone will agree with you. We as humans do not accept definitive answers, and what I am saying here is not a definitive answer to shipping wars in the fandom. I simply just want people to see that we need to be educated and appreciate the show instead of fighting over a ship or making people see how your way is best. For those that took the time to read this post, thank you. I hope you learned something from this and can move on more knowledgeable than when you started. I love you guys as a fandom and hate seeing people ruining it for others as well as trying to ruin it for me because they want to make their opinion the only right one. I understand this is the internet and nobody can agree on it, but I just wanted to voice my opinion on the matter and make us all view Ships in a different light. They're fun to think about, but don't let it dictate your love for the show. I love you RWBY Fandom, and let's keep moving forward and always strive to improve and help each other out. -Carishio