I felt so normal, so like myself, last night that I was sure COVID had left my body. Excited at the prospect of getting to swim with a gang in the morning, I took a COVID test to be sure. It was positive. I was still feeling the disappointment when I woke up this morning… Read More Moonset (Day 107)
I swam by the cigarette butt you casually flicked into the gutter this morning; the empty Cheetos wrapper you dropped on the sidewalk; the rotting orange you tossed into the grass; the baggy that got away from you and you didn’t bother to chase; the plastic bottle top you chucked, laughing, at your friend, which… Read More Dirty Water (Day 106)
A silver lining of my COVID isolation is this shift to early morning swims. As soon as I drive through the intersection of Buchanan and the freeway entrances, I begin to get excited about what I will find at the water. What will the clouds, the light, the wind, the colors be like? It’s never… Read More Light (Day 104)
Peace and solitude were the words for my swim this morning. Oh, and cold. The water temperature dropped ten degrees since yesterday, according to the beautiful graph my swimming buddy, Colleen, is making to keep track of her swims. The cold temperature and the churning energy of the water were the only remnants of yesterday’s… Read More Solitude (Day 102)
It felt good to be back home today, swimming at the Albany Bulb. Getting into the water was incredibly easy, like getting into a pool. My thermometer read 19°C (66°F) degrees, which is a giant jump from yesterday’s 12° or the 8° of the day before. It was a calm, silky swim, rolling ribbons of… Read More The Warm Waters of Home (Day 99)
I’m incredibly grateful for my swim today; it was a moment of peace in what was otherwise a slog of a day. We drove from Bellingham to Ashland today, with a stop in Olympia to check out Evergreen College and go for a swim. The Olympia wild swimmers Facebook group is pretty active and through… Read More Burfoot Park, Olympia (Day 97)
All traces of yesterday’s storm were gone this morning, except for the flotsam and jetsam bobbing around on top of the water. The air quality wasn’t looking great; a murky brown haze clung to the city when I arrived at the Albany Bulb. But the water was luxuriously flat; silky ribbons of silver, green and… Read More Solo Swim (Day 75)