Of Stiff Necks, Swimming Pools, and Striped Squill
This morning I woke up with soreness in my neck and shoulders. Nothing unbearable, but I knew that if I didn’t act, I’d be stuck with the unpleasant sensation all day. So: I checked the pool schedule and saw that there was still time to make it for a morning swim if I hurried over - the Bellwoods pool is just a seven-minute walk from where I live.
Beyond the excellent exercise that swimming is - gentle on the joints, good for the heart and the lungs - I find it deeply quenching for the soul. Especially when it comes to lane swims at a public pool. There is something so dear and humble and democratizing about the vulnerability of being in your swimsuits with your neighbours, strangers, and sharing a lane with consideration for the Other who may be more fast or more slow. I love the geekiness of goggles and swim caps, the earnestness of the flipper-footed older folks, the patience of the teenage lifeguards, the sense of peace and community under it all.
Is it strange to say that I am smitten with the aesthetics of the public pool? Its air of innocence and purity, its promise of refreshment, its irreligious offer of renewal via self-baptism. I think always of Tereza diving into the pool in The Unbearable Lightness of Being, of her juvenile rapture, her sensual thrill.
And if there’s a flower that, in its stripy blueness, captures the same feeling as the public pool, it’s clearly got to be Puschkinia libanotica, commonly known as the striped squill. We look for them each spring in Bellwoods, and as of this weekend they’re in full bloom! Coming just after snowdrops, along with pussy willows, and slightly in advance of forsythia, these candy-smelling sweeties are here to assure us that the worst of spring cold is over, that blue skies are in order and the sun here to stay.
If you were wondering if the striped squill’s Latin name is in reference to the Russian Romantic poet, it is in fact not. It was named after the Count Apollo Mussin-Pushkin, a chemist and plant collector who died in 1805 when the author of Eugene Onegin was a gap-toothed six-year-old dreamer. Here, for the fun of it, and because it fits with today’s theme, is Alexander Pushkin’s poem “The Roussalka”:
A LEGEND OF THE WATER-SPRITE
In forest depths, beside a mere,
A monk once made his habitation ;
Absorbed in penances severe,
In fast and prayer he sought salvation.
Already by his own poor spade
His grave was hollowed to receive him,
And every day the good saint prayed
That Heaven from earth would soon relieve him.
One summer's eve, the hermit poor,
At prayer within his narrow room,
Looked out beyond his humble door
And saw the forest wrapped in gloom ;
Night-mists were rising from the mere,
Between the clouds the moon 'gan peep;
The monk unto the pool drew near
And gazed into its waters deep.
He saw himself—drew back perturbed
By fears he ne'er had known before ;
For, lo, the waters were disturbed,
Then suddenly grew calm once more ;
"While fitful as a twilight shade,
Than virgin snow more purely white,
From out the pool appeared a maid
Approaching in the silver light.
She shook the bright drops from her hair
And gazed upon the anchorite ;
To look upon her form so fair
The good monk trembled with affright.
And he beheld her from afar
With head and hand strange signals make,
Then swifter than a shooting star
Dive back into the silent lake.
All night the hermit could not sleep,
All day in agony he prayed ;
But still he could not choose but keep
The image of that wondrous maid
Before him. So, when day did wane,
And overhead the moon was bright,
He watched, and saw her come again
In all her beauty, dazzling white.
She beckoned to him where he stood,
And gave him greeting glad and free.
She played and splashed about the flood,
She laughed and danced in childish glee,
As softly to the monk she cried :
"Come hither, monk, and join me here!"
Then suddenly she dipped to hide
Her beauty in the darkling mere.
The third day came—grown mad with love,
The hermit sought th' enchanted shore
Ere yet night's veil was drawn above,
And waited for the maid once more.
Dawn broke—the monk had disappeared . . .
And now the frightened children say
He haunts the pool: and lo! his beard
Floats on the water night and day.
