Just. Keep. Swimming

Just Keep Swimming

Just Keep Swimming.

It's what Dory tells Marlin when he is overwhelmed by the obstacles he has to overcome to find his son Fabio (Nemo) Nemo. Yes, it seems overwhelming. Just Keep Swimming. All Marlin can do is swim and then his next Pixar scheduled set piece will arrive (in the form of one of those terrifying light monster bottom feeders.) And Marlin follows that advice and learns to let go just a little and just keep swimming until the next thing came for him. And that way he was reunited with his son Elmo (Nemo) Nemo.

Just Keep Swimming

I don't really swim that often, as a side effect of living in Manhattan where everything is gross anyway so why would you also want to add the element of wet. But I do bike. Last week I biked 36 miles with a ton of elevation in the second half. One thing your mind does when you are biking is looks ahead to see what is coming and whatever is coming always looks impossible. There are hills I looked at as I rode up towards them that my body saw and just said:

But what I have learned from biking is that the hills are never as bad as they look from 90 yards away. Stop looking and just do what you came here to do. Adjust your gears and pedal. Pedal another few feet forward and then pedal a few feet more after that. That is all you can do. You cannot know how the next mountain will feel or if it is as steep as it looks. You have ten feet in front of you, pedal through that. Then pedal a little more. Just keep swimming. Just keep swimming. Just keep swimming.

Just Keep Swimming

I date. I date and I date and I date and I work on myself and on my issues and I buy expensive anti acne medicine that makes me pee and sweaters that make me look more yeshivish and sweaters that say I'm a social liberal and I listen to the classes and I watch children fresh out of high school walk down the aisle and wonder why my mountain is so steep. Why my ocean is so vast and where is my next Pixar set piece that will cause mild terror but also teach me a hilarious but poignant message that will make everyone cry. So I swim and I look for the team of sober sharks or sea turtles but life's challenges aren't that easy or easily recognized. My health suffers. My career suffers. None of these are talking sharks or pelicans. But they get in the way of me just trying to swim. I look ahead. The ocean is too wide. It's endless. That's the thing about oceans is when you are in one it seems like it will never end but when you are far away from one, in Cleveland or Kansas City, you don't even remember that there was an ocean. How do I keep swimming when I can't see what is to come? And why aren't the set pieces of my life fun and available for purchase on disney.com?

I'm not trying to find Nemo I'm trying to find...Fabio?

Or I'm not looking for anyone at all. I am just swimming. And in my movie maybe the mountain never evens out and the ocean stays endless, but I am there. And that's everything.

I cannot control the circumstances around me. I know that trying -trying to look at the next mountain and preemptively shift my gears-isn't helpful. I do know that I can pedal. And I know that I can swim. I can tilt my chin down until I can only see what's just ahead. Then I I peddle. Then I swim. And I hear the voice in my head telling me to look up and prepapre, control, manage.

But I can't hear that voice cause Dory is here and she's figured out how to say "Just Keep Swimming" in whale.

Mwongaaaaa aahhhhguaana taaaloooooo.