The Anchor Leg: a Substack About Swimming
Step Up to the Blocks
A Bit About Me (and My Body of Work)
I am a water person.
A writer, a parent to two young swimming Padawans, a proud member of the LGBTQ+ community, a Navy special operations (EOD) veteran, a surfer, a diver, a swimmer. These are just fragments; there’s a whole world inside each of us, and I am no exception.
Most of my writing concerns identity, gender, sexuality, love…my life experiences, documented with loads of interiority, an abundance of parenthetical sentences, and what some of my writer peers have told me is an unattractive lack of concrete details (details which could otherwise give readers a chance of following along with the inner-workings of my mind). Coming out and transitioning genders, expressions of anger surrounding the choices I’ve made, and those choices that I felt others made for me. Writing about hope and renewal, about meaning, about purpose. Sometimes I post my publications on my artist’s website (www.jounruh.com), though I haven’t been writing much literary-minded content in the last 15-months that isn’t specifically for my memoir (a years-long process and body of work that I waiver on whether to ever pursue publishing), or for my autobiographical novel.1
All to say, this new writing project, concerning swimming, is not that ^^^. Not my typical style, form, syntax. And not principally about gender or identity, though these topics most certainly inform many of my swimming experiences (and vice versa).
Exempli gratia: maybe someday I’ll post a short nonfiction piece of mine that concerns wanting to be an Olympian, but desperately wanting to no longer live in a male body. Two desires that could not be made true (fulfilled) for me at the same time. I largely buried my desire for the latter in favor of a shot at the former. And by now, I hope you might realize that this italicized paragraph in and of itself is a reflection of my greater body of work, and how swimming might fit in. Swimming, the body (my body), writing. My body of work. My body of water.
… And, hopefully the words that come from this project will include enough concrete detail to satisfy a general audience (though “hope is not a plan,” as they say). Parenthetical sentence and footnote use will also remain aplenty (it’s just who I am).
Core Strength
At its core, “The Anchor Leg” is an attempt to share my love for the sport of swimming with others. Other swim fanatics, such that they might love reading along. Or even swim newbies, who might be falling in love with the sport for the first time. Or past swimmers who might fall in love with the sport all over again, as I began to one year ago, when I returned to regularly swimming as part of a US Master’s team. It’s my attempt to write about things that are *mostly* positive; about the good stuff that has come out of my relationship with water.
My competitive swimming experience began at age four as a Mini-Legend at the Sleepy Hollow Swim and Tennis Club in Orinda, California (the topic of an upcoming post), and ended when I graduated from the US Naval Academy, where I swam for four years on the men’s swimming and diving team (BEAT ARMY!!!), struggling to find success in the water while averaging five hours of sleep a night and balancing the pressures of military and academic obligations. My experiences with water envelop and stretch beyond these mile markers at either end—I started swimming well before I was out of diapers and I plan to keep swimming long after I am back in diapers.
We’ll cover swim clubs big and small, swim parents, the best swim meet meals from the snack shack, the science behind the shave-down, and we’ll provide commentary on Rowdy Gaines’ swimming commentary. We’ll also critique some of the nuanced aspects of the sport, such as navigating body-positivity and gender expression in a sport wherein one’s body is so exposed. And if there’s a swimming or water related topic you’d like me to cover, please send it in. I fully intend for my life experiences with water and swimming to flow into every crevice of “The Anchor Leg.”
Phew. That’s it for my first belly flop. Welcome to the Anchor Leg. I can’t wait to dive into the deep end with you!
Always feel free to get in touch and ask me about any of my writing projects, I’m an open book.