A very positive outcome of this temperature blanket I’m crocheting is the way it motivates me to swim every day again. I swam a lot in 2023, but it was remarkable how quickly my daily habit from the year before fell away once I didn’t “have” to do it. It feels good to be getting… Read More January in Victoria
Sadly it’s our last morning in Victoria. I went for a sunrise swim so that we’d have time to say our goodbyes to Eliza and catch the morning ferry. Clouds hung heavy and gray in the sky so the sunrise wasn’t very dramatic, but the subtle shifts in light and color were beautiful nonetheless. It… Read More Goodbye Victoria (Day 314)
This morning I went for one last swim with the Cold Water Addicts. A little snow still clung to the ground, but it was clear and beautiful. The mountains of the Olympic Peninsula across the Salish Sea rose up dramatically and, for the first time, I realized how tall they were. In the previous days,… Read More Healing Cold (Day 313)
It snowed yesterday; by the time we were driving back from dropping off Eliza in the evening, it was a magical winter wonderland. When I woke up this morning, snow still coated all the surfaces, glittering and white. A bitter wind made even letting Lulu out for a pee feel like an ordeal. Swim? Are… Read More Snowy Swim (Day 312)
It was rainy and cold this morning and I wasn’t especially excited by the prospect of getting into freezing water, but I was happy to join the Cold Water Addicts again at their usual swim spot: Ogden Point Breakwater. Even better, Kevin was joining me this morning (not to swim) and I was looking forward… Read More Ogden Point Breakwater (Day 311)
On my trip to Victoria last January, my swim with the Cold Water Addicts was one of my most memorable. It was the first time I’d ventured somewhere new for a swim with a group of strangers; my first time swimming in bitterly cold water. It was the swim that showed me that this year… Read More Spiral Beach (Day 310)
The last last swim at Lac Louisa today. I woke up early this morning after not enough sleep, a pile of chores in front of me to get our house cleaned and packed up, and decided to swim before I did anything else. The day was already warm, the water calm. I waded in, dawdling… Read More Last Swim (Day 218)
I celebrated my last night at the lake with a beautiful sunset swim at the sandbar. I haven’t gone for a night swim all summer nor have I made a trip to the sand bar. The sand bar is a shallow, sandy-bottomed part of the lake where, on a hot day, sometimes you can find… Read More Sunset at the Sandbar (Day 217)
Today was my last Adult Swim—the first big last as we wind up our summer here at Lac Louisa. I was feeling all the sad feels; all the it’s gone by too fasts; all the resistance to change; the happy-right-where-I-ams. The weather matched my mood: a gray and cloudy sky, heavy with rain that eventually… Read More Lasts (Day 216)
I woke up at five this morning and wasn’t able to get back to sleep. Or maybe I would have been able to, but before I managed it, I had the thought that I’ve yet to do a sunrise swim and wouldn’t this be a great opportunity? Once the thought was there, I couldn’t put… Read More Lac Louisa Sunrise (Day 215)