Swim Swim Swim

I don't know about y'all, but for me, the worst thing about this frick'n pandemic has been the sudden and complete shutting off of access to swimming pools.  It's not our swim team's fault; most of the pools around town have just shut down, and their owners don't seem to know when they'll open again.  So my team, which had something like 50 practices a week in The Time Before, has zero now.  And frankly, even if they opened up tomorrow I don't know if I'd go.  I'm just thinking a bunch of people, 3-4 to a lane sometimes, swimming hard, panting for breath -- and Covid-19 is of course spread through the air.  So probably not a good idea.  

The team is still charging membership fees, though they dropped them from $85 a month to--a dollar.  If they don't charge us something, the names get kicked out the of the system and they would have to re-enter everybody.  I'm totally fine with paying a dollar for the duration.  Heck, I'd be okay with the regular fee, too, if I knew that we were still being charged rent for the pool lanes and such.  But I don't think that's the case.

I'm used to going to the pool roughly 3-4 times a week (or up to 6 times a week in July, which is Swim for Distance Month).  To go from that to zero has been rough.  And yes, we do have a treadmill, and yes, most days I've been on it for about 30 minutes, but It Ain't The Same, Folks.  For one thing, it doesn't involve water.  For another, all the people I used to see aren't there.  For a third thing,  there's no Jacuzzi.  And yes, we could buy one, but if I had that kind of money, I'd get all the trees cut back around my house, and replace the ceiling fan in Joan's room with a better one, and if there was any money left, I'd maybe get a new refrigerator.  It's the only appliance we haven't replaced at least once.  

Seriously, I miss swimming.  Luckily, a friend of mine in OA has been generously offering her backyard pool in the early morning.  So I drive over there about 7 a.m. (which is quite luxurious compared to the 5:30 start time my swim team likes) and swim for about 45 minutes.  Like most backyard pools, it's not very big; about 7 strokes each direction. But it sure is nice to have access to a pool.  I can still go fast and get a decent workout.  I just have to make a lot of turns.  So thank you so much, Anonymous Friend.  You may have kept me from going bananas.  

Around the end of May, when it looked like this problem of closed pools would be continuing for a while, it occurred to me that I could get a new sunsuit (my old one has long since disintegrated) and swim in the local lakes, too.  So I ordered said sunsuit.  It finally got here about two weeks ago.  Covid-19 has affected mail order Muslim swimwear retailers, too.  And considering the thing is made in India and then shipped, I can't really complain.  I mean, these things take time.

But anyway.  I wriggled into my sunsuit and took off last Saturday to Lake Ray Hubbard, which is the closest lake.  It turned into this big adventure.  I made a wrong turn, and then another and another.  GPS kept trying to steer me south of the I-30 and I kept trying to go north, where all the public parks are.  After about a half hour of driving around, I ended up at a public park in Garland.  And then I had a total attack of what felt like stage fright.  There were other people there.  What if they laughed at me? What if they threw rocks at me because they thought I was a Muslim?  I mean, these things aren't likely to happen, but  they could.  It took me about ten minutes to get out of the car.  

But, no rock throwing ensued.  The other people who were there looked like a family group, and they were in the middle of a Big Discussion when I walked up.  So there was this moment of very awkward silence.  Then the guy in charge (there's always a guy in charge in groups like this) looked over at me and said, "Hey."  And I said, "Hey."  And that was that.  They went back to their Big Discussion and I got in the water.

And the second I was in the water I forgot all about the other people.  I forgot all about everything, really, except the fact that there was a sandbar about 200 yards offshore (I'm a terrible judge of distance; it might have been 500 yards or it might have been ten feet) with a dead tree stuck in it to mark it for boaters.  I swam out to the sandbar and around it.  A boat went by and generated a big wake and for a second there it was kind of like being back in San Diego and swimming out past the breakers.  I swam back to shore.  Then I turned around and did it again.  Then I did it a third time, and that was enough.  

The next day, I got on the Interwebz and looked up the park where I'd ended up.  I discovered that not only was I in Rowlett and not Garland, like I thought, but that swimming at public parks is illegal in Rowlett.  So all that time I was feloniously swimming around.  Well, probably misdemeanorly swimming around.  I checked out the laws in Garland and Dallas, as well, and there's basically no place you can swim legally in Lake Ray Hubbard (though there are plenty of places where people swim illegally, including that park in Rowlett.)  And it'd be pretty embarrassing to get cited for illegal swimming because I'm a for God's sake paralegal, and I'm supposed to know these things.  So I had to find another lake.

Just north of Lake Ray Hubbard is Lake Lavon; in fact, I think they're connected, though I don't know how.  Not only is swimming allowed at Lake Lavon, it's encouraged.  There are a number of public parks with swimming beaches.  I found one called Collin Park, which looked to be the closest to the house, and took off this morning. (It's still not very close; it's in Collin County and it took me about 40 minutes, give or take, to get there.  But I got there.)  There's a huge swimming area with a big floating barrier around it to keep out the boats.   Here's a pic, shot from inside my car.

Again, there were people around, but not many.  It was early.  I went down to the water and swam out inside the floating barrier, across and over to the other side and back.  Then I did it again.  Then I did it a third time, and then my brain tried to kill me.  "Let's do it again!" "Uh, no, Brain, I think we're about done." "Come on, come on, let's do it again!"  "Brain, we still gotta hike back to the car, and it's all uphill."  "One more time!  One more time!"  "Brain..."

Anyway, I swam to the middle of the barrier in a compromise, and then swam in.  Sure enough, the hike back to the car just about did me in.  When I finally got there I had to lean against the trunk and pant for a while.  But it was glorious.  I felt so much better.  I still do.  

The thing about open water swimming is, you don't have to stop or turn.  You can just go in a straight line for as long as you want, or as long as it's safe, anyway.  It's just swim swim swim until you're done, or until you get tired, or whatever.  If you had an escort boat, you could, theoretically, swim all the way across. (I did not have an escort boat.  I did, however, have a bright orange swim cap, which makes me more visible to boats.)  And that's the kind of swimming I like best.  I'm always the first one in the pool when SMU configures its big new pool to 50 meter lanes.  If I were younger and more reckless, I'd be thinking about doing some 4 or 6 mile swims across like Lake Michigan or something.  Or going with the swim team on their annual trek to Hawaii, where there's a relay swim from Lanai to Maui (10 miles, and don't mind the sharks).  Or maybe the Flowers Sea Swim on Grand Cayman, which is only a mile (a bit closer to my speed and talent).   

Actually, the Flowers Sea Swim doesn't sound bad.  Maybe next year.  If my swim team is able to get back into the pool.  And if we get a vaccine for Covid-19.  Meantime, see you at the lake! At least until it gets too cold out.