Today was a strange and special day, because I did something completely different. See, a while back I woke up one day and looked at myself and said, “nothing is going to change until something changes.” So I’ve been trying to do different things, to see if doing them makes something different happen in my life. So …
Today I went swimming. I hadn’t been swimming, which I used to love so much, in about twenty years. It’s pretty amazing how fast twenty years can go by, and how dried out a person can get and still survive. I was feeling like a box of dry leaves.
We have a swimming pool at the condos where I live, but … naw. It’s very public, not good for the self-conscious, and on a Summer day it’s a chlorinated toilet for about a hundred kids. I went and asked some long time family friends – who have a lovely backyard pool — and they’re letting me use it. Very kind people.
It was a little sketchy for a moment. First, I stood on the top step in the shallow end, and realized my cell phone was in the pocket of my trunks. What a doofus. The water was perfect, cold on a warm day. Our friends don’t heat their pool, but it was great. I moved down a step, and another, getting used to the water, then aimed for the far side and went for it.
There was a mild sense of panic for a second or three, while my body got used to the concept of submersion in water. Even at my Baptism in 1991, I wasn’t submerged completely. We forgot to account for the displacement of water in the font, which is like a big silver garbage can, placed in the center of the church. I could only go down so far into it, and the water came up, and was then poured over the upper parts of me that didn’t fit. I made a mess in the church, but it survived.
It was wonderful today. In just a minute or two I was used to the beautiful cold, and my limbs remembered how to tread water. Then for 30 minutes, my cumbersome, overweight body was buoyant and moving through space without impact and the cruel claims of gravity. I had the place to myself, and just kept moving – the whole point is exercise you see – and looking at the trees and flowers, listening to the hum of the filter.
After half an hour, I made myself get out. Didn’t want to overdo it the first day. And the difference getting out was almost as amazing as getting in. Let’s just say I became acutely aware of mass in spacetime. Gravity sucks. But they say I can use their pool whenever I want, and I do.
I’m all about consolations amidst the trials and pains of life, over here.
Metaphor 