“We are pulled to the paradox of water as a source of life and death, and we have figured out myriad ways to conduct ourselves in it. Not everybody is a swimmer, but everyone has a swimming story to tell.”¹
I dove, completely at ease, into a book² that promised to be like a neighborhood swimming pool, but which, breath by breath, took me on a journey around the world to the very ends of history, of exceptional bodies and minds, plunging me into the depths of the psyche and the exhilaration of the open sea. And it’s all true. I asked the swimmers in my life and discovered that they, too, carry, in the most natural way, the same joy of encountering water.
¹ Bonnie Tsui, Wild swimming is booming in the pandemic: ‘It is a lifelong education in facing down fear’, The Guardian, 2020
² „De ce înotăm” by Bonnie Tsui, translated to Romanian by Cosmin Nare, Editura Pilot Books, 2021
The piece WHY YOU SWIM is part of the opening exhibition for a library of environmental books curated by Cristian Neagoe and Cătălin Rulea at the Center for Visual Studies, as part of the project „În câteva cuvinte” (In a few words), 2023. Sound artists and musicians were invited to open books as a multitude of windows onto nature and our relationship with the world.
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Anamaria Pravicencu is an artist and producer of sound and radio works for the SEMI SILENT platform. Her pieces are built around a reflection on space, acoustics, and the moments of life that are imprinted in places and in sound memories, using field recordings, voice, and writing as tools that describe a musicality hidden in the cadence of time. Her work was commissioned and/or presented by CNDB, MARe, Rezidența Scena9, Antistatic, the Water Museum (Timișoara), Fabrik, tranzit.ro, the Institute of the Present, and the festivals Rien à voir, Longueur d’ondes, Simultan și Orizont Sonor.
Written, recorded and composed by Anamaria Pravicencu for „În câteva cuvinte”, 2023. A fragment was presented by SONIC SPORTS in 2024.
Voices: Suzana, Andrei, Robert, Adina, Matei, Anamaria
Mixing and mastering: Mihai Balabaș
Illustration: Eleni Dafini Bacula
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Translated to English (transcript from Romanian audio with Vatis, translation from Romanian with Deepl)
SUZANA
I have experienced moments of plenitude and fantastic joy when there is that moment of the day that starts to slowly turn into evening, when the water and the sky are the same colour and when there are no waves, and you feel you are there.
ANDREI
I think it was only after 30 years of diving that I first saw dolphins in the water. We were in Egypt, it was the first dive of that trip, three dolphins appeared, and they started to come around us, to get among us, extremely curious, to scream at us with their sonar to see what we had on us, what we were made of and I think I spent 40min just watching and listening to them…
SUZANA
I experienced moments of incredible joy swimming out to sea a lot and being in a sea that was very, very clear. This basically allowed me to see the sea floor and the plants and the fish and everything and I felt the same joy that I felt when I flew the balloon. It’s a float, it’s a wonderful thing. And I have moments of great joy at the pool, when the light… see, it’s normal, I’m a visual animal… when the sun rays get into the pool water and you’re happy that those rays get into your lane and you see… you see your hands, you see light and it’s so beautiful and it’s a great, great joy. So, it’s some of these very, very simple experiences, but it just gives you, so a, yes, a great, a great reconciliation.
ROBERT
The first moment of absolute happiness was when I managed to go forward in the water, when I learned a little bit about how it works, how to keep myself afloat and to go forward. And that was so, very relieving, because it basically overcame a barrier built in my brain, that I’ll never be able to do that, that there are all kinds of weevils that came from the outside: do you know how to swim or do you swim, be careful not to drown, man, mom… and all that nonsense until come on, it’s not that hard… and up to… it’s pretty hard, because I didn’t overcome something in me and I think that was my first- my first moment of absolute happiness, was when I managed to overcome this blockage.
ADINA
I’ll never forget the moment I managed to swim, that’s saying a lot, from the wall to the first cord, which you know what that means, it’s nothing. I mean you just reach out and grab it. In that moment I felt like I could do absolutely anything. I actually felt like I won. Maybe that’s an exaggeration, but I felt that I had somehow conquered my fear of death, that I had a tool with which I could defend myself against whatever happened in that moment. And it’s 1m, meaning you don’t even need to swim to grab that cord. But when I first let go of the wall and actually dove for that cord, I felt like I was actually jumping into one of my big fears, I don’t know, I don’t know how else to explain it. I was… The Tokyo Olympics was small child compared to how I felt. So if I took gold in Tokyo it didn’t mean anything compared to that moment when I jumped and caught that cord and nothing happened. That was joy. Yeah, that was joy… And I didn’t understand why the people around me weren’t rejoicing, clapping their hands, applauding this great accomplishment that I had at that moment.
MATEI
Memory is a machine that works on sensations and emotions. That’s what we record in our memory and the moment you sync with yourself, you sync with the water and the environment, and that perfect sync somehow becomes effortless, it produces such a big burst of endorphins, of satisfaction in you, that you feel, that’s what you record, that burst, that point. That stays with you long after you’re out of the water and wakes you up like that, smiling like a fool, on the street, at people: if I only knew how beautiful I swam today…. how I could feel…
ANAMARIA
I’ve been swimming for a few years now, I hope, getting better and better, because I like it more and more. Excited to read Bonnie Tsui’s “Why We Swim”, I invited my friends to talk about their enjoyment, their beginnings and motivation, and what it’s like to swim.
Suzana is the woman of the mountain, a former triathlete, an old friend. Andrei is a scuba diver and diving teacher. Adina, new swimmer neighbour, fellow diver. Robert, neighbour, an old acquaintance. Matei, master level swimming teacher and a bit my teacher, is my neighbour and friend.
ADINA
The first time I started to learn to swim like that at national level, because I wanted to learn to swim, but that wasn’t the reason… In my former relationship there was a moment where there was a stalemate and I felt we needed to find something, to do together, to bring us closer, to find a common thing that neither of us had experience in and to somehow be from scratch both in this thing.
SUZANA
I started swimming again because I felt the need to forget.
ADINA
Initially we went to study, to write down. It was just a matter of let’s learn, let’s note, until we manage to stay in the water and that’s it. And then maybe that will become our thing, on weekends we’ll run away from the city and go together… Somehow there was a need to rediscover intimacy by finding something common. We got into the water, of course it became more and more… I mean yes, it had to do with us too, but I found very much that it had to do with me, because something happened that had never happened to me before in my life, and that was when I went into the water, my thoughts stopped. I had tried forms of meditation before, breathing, to stop this flow of thoughts in my mind and I couldn’t. I mean I didn’t get it, man, I’d go to yoga, I’d sit down, everyone seemed so, peaceful and my mind was jumping to all the possible crap. I mean I was thinking about all the shit, nothing interesting. When I got in the water it all stopped. I wasn’t thinking about anything.
ANDREI
Swimming mainly for diving. I’ve been diving since I was 12 and without swimming you can’t… you can’t go diving. I’ve become a diving instructor in the meantime, so it’s been a passion for over 30 years. In the water everything is much calmer.
ROBERT
Besides the fact that it’s invigorating and it also transforms your body, I mean in the last 3.5 years, almost 4 years since I actually learned to swim, when I was an axe in the water, a boulder, and so far now, it’s totally changed the layout of the body and besides this thing is something very similar to the tunnel I go into when I draw. Me being a visual artist, the moment you get into that creative process, when you know as all sorts of interesting guys, smarter than us, have said, that it’s harder to get into the state of creating than it is to actually get there. When you get there, it’s already an inertia, you get lost in it, it’s very immersive, and it’s the same with swimming, I mean it’s me and the water, me and the water and there are no more thoughts, anxieties, there are no more all the problems that come from outside… There’s another very interesting thing, I feel like I’m in another world, there’s no time, there’s no space, I’m like in my mother’s belly, it feels very nice, very safe. It’s a panacea for the mind as well, it’s a great resort for the body and that’s why swimming: because it’s good for you, because it’s refreshing on so many levels and it works so many things in me and transforms them in a positive way… I don’t think you need any more than that. Bottom line: it’s good.
SUZANA
And now I swim because there’s a good feeling I get when I swim and after I swim and the thought of getting in contact with the water. It’s a great joy.
ADINA
When I get in the water, there’s no… no job, no… no bills to pay, no relationships, no… nothing. It’s just you and the water, and that’s it. I think that’s why I swim.
MATEI
A form of personal liberation from the constraints of the body, the constraints of the mind, the constraints of the environment. It’s a totally isolated space where you are encapsulated in a foreign environment that at the same time welcomes you completely but wants to kill you completely. It wants to extinguish you.
ANAMARIA
The dimension absent from the book “Why We Swim”, sound and sonorities are very present and part of the swimming experience for my swimming friends.
SUZANA
It’s incredible because… yeah, pure therapy. That sound is healing.
ANDREI
Lots and lots of sounds heard from very, very far away. You can hear everything from tiny crustaceans eating – you can hear this very well in Greece, for example, there’s a continuous buzzing underwater, an almost non-stop nibbling – to boat noises, to buoys or chains of buoys clinking and all this background sound is periodically interrupted by the noise of bubbles covering almost everything. It’s much more pleasant than the noise on the boat before and after dives when everyone is running around after equipment and shouting.
ADINA
I was really shocked by your question the first time, when I was in the locker room and you asked me that question for the first time, because I realized that I’ve been swimming for 2 years and something and I never thought about the sound in the water. Then, at that training, I focused a lot on that, somehow you made me aware that there is a certain sound in the water. Until then there was no such thing. And somehow your question made me more connected to the environment in which all my mechanical movement is taking place. If until then I was very anchored in my body and felt my body, thanks to your question I was able to situate my body in a certain environment and connect them. That’s when I first listened to the sound of the pelvis and I was surprised because it’s a whirl, it’s actually a whirl. People have the impression that everything is very calm in the water. It’s not. It’s a constant roar. It’s somehow, I don’t know, it’s like the thoughts in your head sound different than when you’re on land. Probably also the movements of the people around you swimming and making waves. There’s a roar, there’s a roar, there’s nothing quiet about that noise in the water.
ANDREI
It’s your bubbles, it’s the bubbles of those around you… It’s a constant din. Because of this, some divers, for example, choose to use silent rebreathers, rebreathers that produce almost no bubbles and are much luckier, especially when it comes to those who go for aquatic life, they can approach fish at much shorter distances than self-contained divers. But I don’t mind fish leaving.
SUZANA
There’s a filter, there’s another filter and another filter… But it’s like a dream, actually, the sound you hear in the water. I don’t know, if I were to think about which sound gives me the most pleasure and joy, I think the sound of the sea is the most expressive for me, I mean this feeling of isolation.
ROBERT
The sound itself, for me, is… I mean we have a special relationship somehow, and since I was a little kid that’s been happening, and the sound in the water is even more special, because it doesn’t involve all that outside baggage, the stuff I was taught, the stuff I picked up, I took for granted… It’s totally different. It feels like it’s in another world, that I’m in amniotic fluid and I’m lost…. in a different kind of a space and I think that’s… kind of a “spacey” thing. It’s a bit of a super-realistic experience, because it cuts off everything coming from outside almost and I hear the water and feel the water which also has information. I’m made of water, I understand this thing, the relationship that we have, and it’s very interesting that it generates a kind of introspection and with a very strong emotional component.
SUZANA
From the first pool to the last I swim at the same speed. I think the last pool I want it a bit harder, but it’s like a lazy celebration that “you’re done, you’re done”. But at the beginning, in the first pool, it’s like this, zen, and that means I breathe very neatly and I love to swim silently and I detest pool mates who swim noisily and with splashes and that’s why I really, really like it if I have the great good fortune to get in the pool and it’s me and myself or three other stragglers…. It’s a perfect moment when you feel like you’re stepping into that vast expanse of untouched sheen and you’re the first to flflflf… It’s wonderful! And when I hit the water… I’d love it if I could swim like the samurai. I somehow enter into a very beautiful bond with the water and it’s, like, a love… Yes, we go together, beautiful, that’s perfect.
ROBERT
The twirl, those modulations are very interesting, and I think that actually puts you in a trance, because it’s unlike anything you’ve heard since you were a kid and up until that moment of going into the water… You don’t hear the birds, you don’t hear the thunder, you don’t hear the car horn, or the leather rustling or whatever… and it’s all wobbly sounding and super immersive. And I think that’s what really gets me. I think that’s where the quietness comes from, that’s where I get this need to literally and figuratively immerse myself there. It’s very special that sound, I can’t describe it because it’s personal. That’s where I go into therapy and I like to sit there and modulate… I’m the little fish, the tadpole, that little light that flickers through the universe… That’s how I imagine it happens after the shell cracks and we „out-of-the body” into this form of energy. I don’t think life or consciousness actually ends, but we turn into some kind of energy flickering somewhere in the universe. We are the stars somehow. And that feeling, that familiarity and stillness that you get, a feeling of freedom from absolutely anything that involves the need for carcass. It’s just you, pure consciousness, you don’t need anything else, you don’t pay rent, you don’t have to feed yourself, you don’t have to do that, you don’t have to do that, you just explore. You just dive into that thing forever.
ANDREI
Ears start to hurt if they’re not equalized. The space behind the eardrum is an air-filled space and the moment you dive, that space compresses and the eardrum membrane deforms inwards. At half a metre you start to feel it, a stuffy ear sensation. At 1m it starts to nag. At 2m it hurts pretty bad. At 3m you definitely can’t stand the pain… but it’s extremely easy to equalize that space.
ADINA
The sounds that you hear in the water… but I don’t know how to explain it, because it’s not about the sound, it’s about the pressure of the sound, the intensity of the sound. It’s not what you hear, it’s how you hear it. It’s very hard for me to explain it in words… That gives you an indication of whether or not you’re good at what you’re doing, because in theory, when I feel like I’m swimming well, it’s a constant sound, from one end of the pool to the other, no matter how many other people are swimming around you, no matter what different styles, that in the butterfly it sounds different to the crawl and so on. But it’s a constant thing, it doesn’t change, because that means you keep a constant rhythm, you keep a constant pressure, the water is in tune with you. The moment you hear… there’s a higher pressure, there are different sounds along the length of the pool, it means you’re not constant in what you’re doing, your body is not constant, you’re challenging the water differently. Our coach has a saying: you have to develop your water sense. But I don’t think it’s just that, because it’s really a tactile thing as well, it’s about how to feel the water in your palm when you pull it. But at the same time, it’s also about training your ear to hear the sound of water. It’s not just about feeling it, feeling the water, but hearing the water. Because it gives you feedback about what you’re doing.
MATEI
I like very much to hear my breath, my explosive breath… There are many ways to breathe with water and under water, to exhale… And depending on the thing, you manifest energy differently. Breath is the metronome of activity. I also really like to hear myself exhale continuously, bubble by bubble. I also really like to see it come out like a bomb and roar… That’s a really cool Japanese exercise, screaming underwater, releasing energy, inner tension from the bottom of the soul into the water. And that doesn’t necessarily have to do with swimming, but it has to do with being in the water, which actually makes the whole experience extremely cool. I work with sound because that’s how I know how I’m effective or I don’t know how I’m tuned or to be tuned, every arm, every leg makes noise, that noise is my indicator. It’s like I have a dashboard and I have a lot of indicators, they’re all sound, related to where my limbs are, what I’m doing if I’m doing well, if I’m doing in sync or out of sync with the others…. Listening and correlating what you’re hearing with the pressure you’re feeling are two completely distinct languages in which you’re reading this alien environment, which are not in the aerial environment, they’re not in our terrestrial environment normally. The correlation between pressure and sound is very, very distinct and interesting in water. And if you sensitize your skin and the pressure receptors in your skin, and it gets sensitized with exercise, with lots of swimming, with working with water… you start to feel the water like a musician feels music or a score… you can play it, you can play with it, you can modulate it… it’s absolute freedom to play and create, only with movement. It’s like a dance. To me it’s like a dance.
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