Leander, Lord Byron, and Me: Swimming the Hellespont

PHOTOS | ERIC JOHN TRIMBLE

“I’m an adult. I’m capable of making mature, adult decisions. What am I doing here?”

Curtis said that to me as we stood in a mass on a little ledge on the European side of the Hellespont just before the gun went off telling it was time to swim across to Asia.

Exactly, I thought to myself. 

“Life Itself” – A New Direction for the Blog

Steve James’s documentary about Roger Ebert, Life Itself (2014), stirred up some feelings in me. It played on memories and sharpened regrets. Sitting next to a young man who ordered a little bottle of Jack Daniels every time the drinks cart came by on a flight from Istanbul to New York, wrapped in the post-production letdown of Swimming with Byron, I watched the movie critic I’d only ever known on television, and liked him the more I saw of him.  My father, a journalist from Ebert’s era, came to mind. So did my own 10-year career on newspapers, along with my own hopes for this blog when I started it.

The short story: I haven’t kept at it the way I meant to. I watched Ebert, unable to speak, jaw hanging off the bottom of his face as he fought throat cancer, blogging away, and admired his spirit, while blaming myself for my own lack of output.

This sort of thing leads to resolutions.   

Mountain living

I’ve covered a lot of miles in the past few months. They don’t all get marked down here, but it’s been intense. England, France, England again, Denmark, Germany, Switzerland, France again, Switzerland again …

And in just a few days, Italy.

I’ve made it into the heart of the exiled Romantic. It’s utterly beautiful. It’s been three months, and I’m ready for the big, final three weeks. But I’m also ready for Texas in September after that.

I walked, straight up (almost), from Chamonix, where Victor Frankenstein went to escape his demons, and met his monster. I spent nights looking across to Mont Blanc and the Sea of Ice where he grappled with his monster.

Now, it’s up in mountains, down in valleys, through Switzerland.

The rest of the film crew gets here in just four days. It’ll be good to stop filming myself.

Lately, I set up the camera on a tripod, then run around in front of it and talk, then run back and turn it off. Then I walk for a while before repeating the process. This can’t be how Spielberg does it.

I found an Olympic-sized pool in Martigny and got in a couple of workouts. It felt slow and heavy. I think the water’s heavier at atmosphere, but studies are inconclusive.

Now I’m taking what the French call a “pause” and what we call a “break” for a couple of days. I have to write some syllabi and assignments before classes start.

Then, the film gets going again.

The Simplon Pass, Venice, the bay of La Spezia, Rome, then finally, the Hellespont.

Byron in Missolonghi 2

Some days the writing flows. Some other days the mind gets busy preparing classes, grading papers, integrating little aspects of life with the Big Capital Life. At some points, all of these work at once.

I find myself in such a fecund season. It’s a happy, even ecstatic time, but it’s overwhelming.

On top of everything, I’ve been fighting a cold. Tonight I realized that triple sec is the answer. There’s orange, vitamin C in there, and I’m not coughing anymore. So I’m going to to bed, but first I’m taking a few more sandaled steps into Greece. I’m kidding. I never wore a pair of sandals in Greece. But my traveling companion did, because women have many more footwear options. But that’s not the point. Let’s focus.