Body and Soul

Anonymous I want to go swimming. So bad. Our hotel sits right on the edge of the Mediterranean... you've seen the pictures. Crystal clear, blue and turquoise water... even in the rain it is beautiful. The hotel also has a pool. I would settle for either, but would prefer both. Only one problem: I have not swimsuit. Now, believe me, I've been over all the options. And, luckily, someone found a shop we think sells suits, and hopefully I'll be in there tomorrow buying the first one that fits. Trying on bathing suits is enough to make one tremble, and is not for the faint or finicky of heart, but I am ready to run in there and find something, anything, that looks half-way decent and won't fall off. Otherwise I'm going in fully or not fully clothed. I want in!
Today in class we discussed 4 Maccabees. The author divides people, like Plato, into body and soul. My desire to go swimming can, I think, be traced to both. At the hotel here in Rhodes, we hold class in a room off the lobby with huge, lightly curtained windows that let in the sun, but not the fresh air. Sometimes it becomes so stuffy and humid that every cell in my body wants to plunge myself into the pool and never get out. Everyday I stare at the changing blues of the Mediterranean sea and its very beauty calls to me... Jessica... Jessica... come, swim, jump in! And oh, how I long to. The cool waters call to my soul as well as my body, not only through beauty, but through emotion. I know for the author of 4 Maccabees the soul represents reason, rather than emotion, but for me, the soul represents rather the intangible, which includes emotion. Being in Greece, especially towards the end of our trip, has the potential to fill one with an overload of sensations, thoughts and emotions. There is sometimes too much to take it. And when you feel like bursting, what do you do? According to Zorba, in the movie "Zorba the Greek," you dance. Dancing is the way he expresses and deals with overwhelming emotion. But I am not a dancer. I can, however, swim, and there is nothing like plunging in the water and swimming until your body is exhausted and your soul a little more peaceful. The water, the exercise, the monotony of swimming bring together the body and the soul; through the movement of my body I can respond to the overflow of my soul. Zorba has to dance, I want to swim. I can't swim laps without goggles in the Mediterranean, but I can still jump in and feel the freedom of leaping through the air and moving through the water, of floating and gliding and enjoying a relationship to gravity not experienced otherwise on this earth. Please, swimsuit store, be open, and have something in my size! Otherwise I will be throwing out all reservations and some salt-stained clothes.