I did something unusual today. I got in a pool. <\/p>\n
Now, I like the water. One of my earliest memories is being fished out of the deep end of a pool I had no business being in. As a child the local YMCA had the fish-themed swimming lessons and I made it up to the shark level. I was a certified lifeguard, back in the old style where you had to go get people and in the kinder, gentler, let’s don’t get hurt or sued and throw in a float instead style. I have memories, for some thing or other, of turning blue jeans into a floatation device. I’ve treaded water for more than an hour. I’ve been a SCUBA diver for two decades. <\/p>\n
I’m good with the water, at peace with what I can and can’t do there, particularly below the surface. You still have some control of things there. If you know yourself you have fairly defined ideas of your limits, and that is satisfying and comforting; I’m not afraid of the water because I know what I am and what I am not, he said, hoping that sounded wise<\/em>. But I treat it recreationally. <\/p>\n One thing I am not is a lap swimmer. <\/p>\n Never could hold a straight line. That’s just the basic problem. Olympic and national champion swimming coach David Marsh<\/a> once told me “You have to respect someone willing to spend hours and hours, swimming hundreds of laps, to shave a thousandth of a second off of their best time.” <\/p>\n I respect that level of dedication and discipline, even more in the context of things I’d never do. I’m not that kind of swimmer. <\/p>\n So there I was today, cool new reflective race goggles, in an outside lane of an outdoor pool with the temperature hovering around 65 degrees and falling and trying to swim. <\/p>\n I haven’t done anything more than tread water or float on my back in a year or so. <\/p>\n Today I just tried to make the goggles fit. They didn’t. Water got in. I don’t like water in my eyes. So I quickly realized you don’t clear goggles like you would clear a diving mask:<\/p>\n