Take a breath and stop growling.
There now, feel better?
So we conclude a happy looking corpse is better than an anxious one and leave for the day.
And found ourselves back at the YMCA pool as the temperature drops back into the fifties, the sun sets, and the wind again picks up. The younger lifeguards sulk and hide air cooled brows beneath knit snowcaps while waiting for the opportunity to unfurl the pool thermal covers and sail off into the night. Meanwhile, the recalitrant patron slips into the warm (relative) depths of the deserted lap lanes and falls into his 40 year old freestyle rhythm and seeks transcendence in much practiced motions with small opportunities to draw breath.
And yet the world is turned oddly about during my sojourn here. The eternally young and tanned guards sit shivering in winter garb overlooking the slowly emptying olympic sized pool (water polo practice concluding). The scent of chlorinated water is less than one normally experiences during the height of the summer when the pool is heated by the sun to almost bathtub temperature. Now, the water temperature is heated to almost 78 degrees F (a good 15 to 20 degrees warmer than the air temperature), so, the water beckons as I tread across the uncommonly cool concrete deck, "Come on in. Immerse yourself. Find your rhythm within my world, within my body, and forget the assassinated smiley face. The only reality is the lap count and the ability to draw breath. Follow the blue lane markers. Are you comfortable drawing breath? Follow the blue lane markers." And I do. And begin to count.
So I settle into the routine of 36 laps, or 72 lengths, or 1 mile. I alternate flip turns with wall touches and advance stroke by stroke to my goal. I'm late (again), so the staff has already started to roll out the thermal plastic blankets covering the body of the pool overnight, working from the ends in toward the middle where I progress stroke by stroke. Normally the air is warmer, and the water cooler, but now the situation is reversed with the water providing warmth the air will not. So I feel like I'm swimming low in the water, beneath the cooler air where I draw breath. I unconsciously, or consciously, maximize my time and depth immersed, timing my breathing to still maintain my comfort in this "other" place I transit, where I guess we all originated from and now only visit, like me, beneath the blue halogen lights.
I'm most acutely aware of my need for air at the flip turns. I normally exhale through my nose until I've leveled out and reversed, but sometimes I run short of breath and can feel the sting of the chlorinated water up high in my sinuses and think "find your rhythm. . . ", but there's always that little hit of desperation, of not having enough air and wanting to inhale deeply. The count progresses. As it does, my peripheral vision first picks up the shadow of the thermal blankets darkening the water. They advance inexorably toward my location. Sometimes I think, I'll feel the snap of the nylon rope over my shoulder and find the blue tarp being pulled over my head in this place I'm visiting, but where I don't belong (get to the side and lift yourself out!). But, Chris is out there, and we talk together, and he makes sure I get the most time possible. And I keep pulling myself through the water until length 72 is behind me, and slowly blow bubbles while floating just beneath the water before lifting myself up onto the concrete deck and pulling my goggles up onto my forehead.
Of course the night ends and I wash as much of the chlorine scent as I can off myself in the locker room shower and change into shorts, t-shirt and birkenstocks for the final trip home. As I start the car, the check engine light comes on as it has for the last month.
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