1.6 miles
ywca pool
Finally able to get back to the pool! It felt good to swim, and tiring. My googles kept leaking and I had trouble not stopping to fix them. Now my eyes are sore. Still, always grateful to be able to swim.
Tried a new set: 6 x 200s, continuous / even 200s breathe every 3/4/5/6 by 50, working on kicking out of the flip turn / odd 200s breathe every 3/4/3/4 by 50s, working on taking at least one stroke out of the flip turn before breathing. The odd 200s were difficult; I like to breathe right away after a flip turn. In the summer, there are no flip turns, which I prefer, so I don’t have to worry about when I breathe.
Split a lane with a woman I’ve swam next to before. I think she has the same green and black TYR suit I wore a few years ago. She’s a strong swimmer, but not that fast. Today she swam freestyle, backstroke, and breaststroke. Sometimes she had booties on her feet. Other times she walked/marched/ran the part of the lap in the shallower end.
A man in a black shirt and black swim trunks swam on the other side of me. He was doing underwater running drills in the shallow end with a lot of running backwards. I wonder if we was coming back from an injury or just cross-training. When he got to the deep end, he swam freestyle and breaststroke. At one point I stopped to drink some water and I realized that he was having a loud, animated conversation with the aqua jogger in the next lane. I had not heard it all as I was swimming. When I started swimming again, I could see he was talking — something about how he was moving underwater, his legs, how his body was positioned — but I still couldn’t hear he was talking. Strange, but not strange.
As always, I noticed the orange of the signs on the pool deck, the orange of Scott’s swim trunks.
Noticed a few cracks or bits of crud stuck to the tiles at the bottom of the pool as I swam above them. Thought about the wonderful book, The Swimmers, and the story in it about the mysterious cracks that began appearing in the basement pool.
Did I think about anything else? This is tiring. My feet/legs feel like rudders. Is Scott standing at the end of my lane? Is this swimmer/runner next to me trying to race? How can I balance supporting my daughter when she’s anxious and needs to stop doing things, with holding her accountable and not letting her stop doing everything? Why are my goggles leaking? That’s all I remember.
Found this delightful poem by Paige Lewis this morning:
I’m not Faking My Astonishment, Honest/ Paige Lewis
Looking out over the cliff, we’re overwhelmed
by a sky that seems to heap danger upon us. We
end up staring at a single white fluff in the air—
feather, fur, dandelion puff—we don’t care
to define it. The relief of having something
to focus our attention. At home, our patio furniture
unscrews itself under the usual sun. On this trip—
well, I’m not any sadder, I just have more space
for my sadness to fill. I don’t want to give
particulars. A woman huffing up the trail behind
us says to her hiking partner, It wasn’t my size,
but it was only 9 dollars. And now all I want
is to see what it is. The future refuses
to happen, so where else should I turn?
I love the line breaks in this poem and what they do to the meaning– we don’t care/to define it and The future refuses/to happen. I love the line, I don’t want to give/particulars, and And now all I want/is to see what it is. I enjoy overhearing conversations and trying to make sense of them, although I’m not sure I’d like to know what it is; I’d rather imagine what it might be.