I think it was the summer after sixth grade -- 1959. I was twelve years old. We belonged to Penbrook Pool, one of the first neighborhood swim clubs in the area. I made it a goal that summer to jump off the high dive. Maybe that was the last summer I was unselfconcious about my body in a bathing suit. I had one that was white with flowers, little blue and green flowers. There might have been pictures of me in that bathing suit but I can't find any. I do not now own a bathing suit and I have no plans to acquire one, even if I should wake up tomorrow weighing 120 pounds. There will never again be pictures of me in a bathing suit. 

Jumping off the high board was a bold and daring thing for me to do. You can only prepare for it mentally -- you can't do it half way, except maybe by jumping off the low board. (Jumping, never diving -- I never mastered diving, nor even really attempted it. I wonder why.) You couldn't stand in line, climb the ladder, walk out along the board, and then change your mind. You had to be ready to go all the way.

I remember sitting on the grass, looking up at the board, watching others, mentally preparing. I thought about it all summer. I finally did it on Labor Day, the last day of the season, the day before school started.

I set a goal that year and I accomplished it.

I'm still circling the edge of falling back into creative work. I also circle the edge of a dozen other desires, including the desire to lose weight. It will be all that you do, I hear myself say. There will be nothing else. But if you don't commit to it all the way you don't get results. Half-way commitment doesn't get you half-way results, it gets you only one-tenth results.

In my morning writing session of April 30 I wrote "Goals for May" about one third of the way down page sixty-six of my paper journal, and then I left the rest of page blank. This morning I turned the page and wrote most of what I've put here.

Still circling the edge.