Swimming Laps...

Twenty Two minutes - that was the best my damn near 38 year old body could muster in the over chlorinated Hilton Garden Inn South Natomas Sacramento Swimming Pool (with the air of a Professor, I say please refer to the photograph above)...It was a paltry combination of floating, drowning, cramps, a few rear emissions, some gulping of water, and at the end of it all, I felt like I has just made the English Channel - except that I had gone for a paltry twenty two minutes. I used to never swim - in fact, I was just good enough at it to keep up with my wife for a few minutes, to keep from drowning during my short lived amature surfing days, and to always be sober enough to at least backstroke my way out of a hotel bathtub after a few too many vodka cranberry adult drinks...but that was the level I worked towards - being able to just do what it took, and not really pushing myself to feel what it takes to really swim...

So, the past couple of months, I really have taken this whole idea of swimming in a different light - I bought a pair of those goggles that make everything underwater look like you are staring at things from inside a fish bowl, got a pair of running shorts that show way too much junk (that double as a swimsuit), and started going down to the swimming pool to see how long I could go without (a) wanting a cigarette (b) swallowing my weight in water (c)cardiac arrest and (d) all of the above. At first, it was about four minutes - that was all I could do. Sad, but even floating part of the way, dog paddling part of the way, and backstroke the rest - about four minutes was all I could get through before I had to cling to the wall like a piece of toilet paper hanging on after a trip to the airport bathroom (see previous writings about bathroom TP experiences...and tips on how to avoid those pesky streamers) -

For all of about four minutes, I felt like I was drowning, hated every minute of it, and decided to go buy a six pack and hang out in the hot tub. Now, although not much of an accomplishment for those sleek bodies that I see in the water cutting a slipstream and silently for hours going back and forth - my twenty two minutes is starting to get peaceful. When there a carloads of kids splashing around, interstate noise, a couple giggling from the happy hours - I have the sounds of my hands cutting the water, my breath forming mercury bubbles, and the feeling of freedom - just floating and kicking and pulling, and for twenty two minutes - that is a pretty cheap way to have someone sing you a lullaby of water sounds and not be bothered by techno exercise music or televisions. It is just blue water washing away all of the rough conference calls, the endless lines of Excel Spreadsheets, the calculations, the sticky feeling of office attire - it all goes away in twenty two minutes.

Growing up near water - always near water, I wish I had appreciated it a little more - it always held a mystery from me, and now that I have learned to tap into the mystery it held from me all of these years - I will gladly go back and hopefully get a little more able to do more than just twenty two minutes...