I had an incident in the Caribbean twenty years ago and I really haven’t gone swimming since.<\/p>\n
Oh, I’ve been in people’s backyard pools with three year olds. But as far as entering what we used to call an “Olympic-size” pool, with a depth over my head and a distance from one side to another of more than one or two strokes, I don’t think so.<\/p>\n
You see back in the Islands I went snorkeling. They passed out these little inflatable bags that were supposed to serve as life preservers, and I didn’t think twice. But after looking at the fish I turned to go back and I realized I was in a current. Okay, okay. I swam slow and steady, but when I looked up the boat was still far away. Not light years away, but I was alone, in the water, outside of the confines of the United States and I won’t say I began to panic, but I did start to get scared. And I’m paddling and paddling and eventually I make it to someone else’s boat. Which I pull myself upon. And no one questioned me, and I thought that was weird, but after resting about five minutes it was time to swim back to my boat, which really was pretty close, but I was daunted, and after making it, I don’t remember going swimming again.<\/p>\n
I grew up swimming. My mother took us to the beach…those are some of my earliest memories. We went to Cape Cod on vacation. I knew how to swim before I even attended Camp JCC at six years old. And I got all the badges and Junior Lifesaving and then Senior Lifesaving…<\/p>\n
I even went snorkeling alone in Sharm El-Sheik, when it was briefly part of Israel, when the only abodes were tents, and I was much further from the shore than I was in the Caribbean, and I was diving down into coral reefs and…<\/p>\n
There was that time in my late twenties when I would go to the West L.A. YMCA and swim 600 yards a day. I had the Speedo and the goggles.<\/p>\n
But you eventually burn out on swimming. It’s one of the more boring sports.<\/p>\n
And I didn’t realize I hadn’t been swimming since that time in the Islands until about seven years ago, after I had rotator cuff surgery.<\/p>\n
And the more time that went by, the more uptight I became.<\/p>\n
I mean how strong was my upper body anyway? I do these exercises with a band every day, but I don’t pump iron, I don’t like to do any exercise that has no component of fun. And I’m into aerobic, not anerobic. And I used to ride my bike, but there was an incident that was so heavy, that required surgery, that took me more than a decade to get over emotionally.<\/p>\n
So I hiked.<\/p>\n
And I was out walking today, and it was a beautiful day, and my leg strength is really pretty good, as is my breathing capacity. I’ve never smoked. I hike in the mountains three to five times a week. I do back exercises and I stretch every day. But swimming is more about the upper body than the lower body. When was I going to get back in the water?<\/p>\n
And today I got a hankering. It was just that warm. And I dug deep into a drawer and I found…<\/p>\n
The same damn bathing suit that I wore in the Caribbean. It was faded, stretched out, but I put it on and traipsed down to the pool in the Lodge and…<\/p>\n
There were two ten year olds in the pool, acting just like I did when I was that age, without a care in the world, believing there was no way they could drown, never mind there being no supervision.<\/p>\n
I’ll be honest. I was too anxious to dive into the deep end. I know, I know, it’s psychological, but still.<\/p>\n
So I walked down to the shallow end and I was confronted with the fact that I always dove in, but here it was too shallow.<\/p>\n
So holding on to the rail I tippy-toed down and…<\/p>\n
The water was cold. Somehow I expected it to be warmer, but I’ve been through this routine a zillion times. You’ve got to go in all at once, to acclimatize yourself, soon thereafter it doesn’t feel cold at all.<\/p>\n
And that’s what I did.<\/p>\n
And I experienced an unanticipated euphoria. I was connected to who I once was, it felt so good.<\/p>\n
But now I had to swim.<\/p>\n
No one was watching, there was no test, so I started off with a baby step, I swam the width of the pool. And then again. And again.<\/p>\n
And now I started evaluating my stroke. I realized when I was turning my head for air, I was turning too much of my back. So I adjusted.<\/p>\n
And then I walked out to the deepest part of the pool I could still stand in and…<\/p>\n
Swam to the shallow end.<\/p>\n
That was not a problem. But I won’t say I was super-confident.<\/p>\n
Now it was time to swim into the deep end. I chose a ladder on the side, just shy of the end, for my target. And the one great thing about a pool is you can open your eyes underwater and see where you’re going, and I could see the aluminum steps and it was no problem.<\/p>\n
And from there, I swam to the ladder across the pool, all the way at the deep end.<\/p>\n
These were not huge accomplishments.<\/p>\n
But you reach a certain age when…<\/p>\n
You wonder if you can still do it.<\/p>\n
Most people stop doing it.<\/p>\n
And I do certain things. If I die taking chances on the ski slope, I’m fine with that. But every once in a while I wonder… If I fall and get hurt, how fast will I recover? I’ve been injured, it does happen. But when you get older, it takes a longer time to recover, physically, never mind psychologically.<\/p>\n
And now they have via ferratas in the mountains of America. I’d like to do that. But the newer ones are more serious, they require a certain amount of upper body strength, do I have that much?<\/p>\n
In my thirties, even forties, I wouldn’t have thought twice. I’ll be honest, in my fifties too. We once thought of booking a trip to Canada where a heli-skiing operation has a via ferrata in the summer.<\/p>\n
But now?<\/p>\n
So I was at the deep end of the pool. Now I had to swim the entire length.<\/p>\n
I knew I could make it, but I wanted to avoid freak-out, so I stayed within reach of the side.<\/p>\n
And there was one moment when I swallowed a little water, but I stayed calm and focused on my technique and soon I was at the other wall.<\/p>\n
Now what?<\/p>\n
Well, especially when you get older, you have to build your strength up. You don’t jump into the pool and do twenty laps without having gone swimming for years.<\/p>\n
And to be honest, I could feel muscles I normally don’t. Every exercise uses a different set of muscles.<\/p>\n
So I didn’t see the point in more laps. But I thought if I had easy access to a pool, I could go in every day, build up my stamina. That’s who I am. I’m into nailing the routine.<\/p>\n
But I don’t have regular access to a pool.<\/p>\n
So I’m there in the water, alone, wondering what I’m supposed to do.<\/p>\n
No more laps were necessary, I’d proven my point.<\/p>\n
But was I supposed to just float, or get out, or..?<\/p>\n
And then I realized if there was someone else there, I could have stayed in forever. You know, until my skin pruned.<\/p>\n
Ultimately, after a few more minutes, I got out. Toweled off and came back to the room.<\/p>\n
But I can’t wait to go back in tomorrow. This time, with a dive!<\/p>\n
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I had an incident in the Caribbean twenty years ago and I really haven’t gone swimming since. Oh, I’ve been in people’s backyard pools with three year olds. But as far as entering what we used to call an “Olympic-size” pool, with a depth over my head and a distance from one side to another […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21036","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-life"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p96vPs-5ti","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21036","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21036"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21036\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21037,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21036\/revisions\/21037"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21036"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21036"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21036"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}