It was especially peaceful at the bulb this morning. Angie and I arrived as the sun was starting to warm a morning that began coated in a thin layer of pale, glittering frost. Colleen was already there doing her PT exercises. The wild waves from earlier in the week, which had calmed yesterday, were nonexistent today. Smooth and flat, the bay was silky strands of gold weaving through gentle swells of blue.

And I just kept thinking about Ukraine.

I’m a member of a Facebook group called Did you swim today, in which people from around the world post pictures and stories about their swims that day. Yesterday Vladimir posted a picture from his pool swim in Kyiv. “We are still swimming today!” he said. I keep checking back to see if he has any updates today. 

It’s a strange feeling to be swimming so serenely through the peaceful water of the San Francisco bay when Ukraine is being invaded 6,000 miles away. It’s always this way, of course: I’m living in my bubble of peace and plenty while countless people suffer around me. (As I write this the “Don’t Say Gay” bill just passed the Florida House by a vote of 69-47.) But today the heaviness of fascism, of conflict, of current and future suffering feels especially close.