Diane explains the importance of trying night swimming to find peace in a chaotic world.

Translations/summaries are available below in both Spanish and English. These are designed as resources for working with the text in ASL. They are not intended to represent a definitive way to translate the text.

Visual Description

Light skinned woman wearing colored dye short-sleeve shirt that has Newport printed on it and is shown from the waist up. She is standing in front of a dark-grey screen. A white CATIE Center logo is in the lower right corner of the screen. The woman narrates the entire video in American Sign Language.

GTC Resource Library

La importancia de saber nadar

Todas las personas deben nadar de noche por lo menos una vez en su vida, ya sea en una piscina, playa, lago o cualquier cuerpo de agua.

Recientemente me mudé y por primera vez tengo una piscina en mi casa. Una noche estuve flotando de espaldas y me asusté porque todas las luces estaban completamente apagadas, solo podía ver las estrellas y vi lo hermosas que son. Aproveché para pensar y aclarar mi mente. Me puse a pensar acerca de la naturaleza, la vida, el universo, dónde me encontraba. Puedes pensar en cualquiera cosa, ahí solo, tú y tu mente, en verdad tu mente se aclara.  

Cualquier persona puede hacer eso porque hoy en día todos estamos muy atareados y no nos damos tiempo para uno mismo. Cuando nadas es tu tiempo, en la noche, en silencio, mirando las estrellas puedes pensar y analizar dónde te encuentras, recordar quién eres. Al estar en el agua y las estrellas, estás en el mundo, estás vivo, estás aquí en medio de todo. Piensa en tu alrededor, los problemas que tienes son microscópicos a comparación del universo entero, ¡piénsalo! Es increíble.

No lo sé, me deja sin palabras, es tan profundo, pero si lo haces me entenderás. Ahí, acuéstate boca arriba, piensa y mira las estrellas.

Go night swimming

I’ve got to tell you, I truly believe that everyone should go night swimming at least once in their life. It doesn’t matter the kind of body of water, the point is that you submerge yourself in it. I recently moved to a house with a pool which was a first for me. One night I got in and looked up. I didn’t have any surrounding lights on because I was worried people would see me, and the vast amount of stars were breathtakingly beautiful. It’s a wonderful way to clear your mind or be alone with your thoughts. To just lay and think anything that comes up for you about your life, your place in the universe, where we are, anything that comes up for you while you’re laying any thinking will really help clear your mind. And I really think that everyone should do this!

The world now a days is so chaotic and stressful. We lose out on having time for ourselves. So, peaceful time away that you can take for yourself in the water, to look to the stars, to look to yourself, to remember where you are, gives you perspective. You are in the world. You are alive. When you think about what is all around you and consider the vastness of the universe, our problems become miniscule in the grand scheme of things. That realization is truly remarkable and quite profound, but if you’re able to, just do it. Lay back and look at the stars.