It was foggy at the bulb this morning. I love the fog. I think I’ve already sung its praises on this blog, so I won’t repeat myself except to say that I was extra happy about my swim when I stepped out into the muffled stillness of the foggy morning. 

Angie and Charlotte were my crew this morning. We arrived as the 8 am crowd was leaving and stopped to chat with them as we got ready. Susan mentioned that she’d seen a group of women running earlier and they made her think of us because they were laughing and playing while they ran. I took that as a big compliment and it made me think about how much swimming does feel playful to me.  

I had already been thinking about this at my Lift and Spring class earlier this morning. Today we did a lot of skipping and I was struck by how immediately gleeful I feel the minute my body starts to skip; the happy little hop up in the air, the swinging arms, the flying forward. Even when I’m doing it for exercise, like I was today, even when it’s hard, I feel joyful and silly when I skip. My heart expands a little, a smile creeps over my face.

This is how swimming is. Swimming has always meant fun to me. I grew up near the beaches of Southern California, frolicking in the surf or doing handstands in the pool. My brother, cousin, and I wiled away our summers at our grandparents’ lake house in New Hampshire where we wore the same saggy bathing suits for weeks on end.

As soon as I immerse my body in water, that sense of playfulness and fun returns to me. I want to do somersaults and pretend I’m a mermaid; flip my hair and sink to the bottom for an underwater tea party. Even if I’m swimming hard, the underlying thrill of being in the water is always there.

Today I did not swim hard. Today I glided through that thick fog like I was on an enchanted lake somewhere, swishing and swirling and taking lots of pictures of the same gradations of gray because it all seemed so magical.