Swim Date: Self-Care X Two
I just returned from two glorious weeks on Cape Cod, where the summer prices for food and lodging are exorbitant, but oh how wonderful to feel the crunch of sand beneath my feet and the sea breeze against my face. Many nights the temperature was in the low sixties, good sleeping weather, and the abundance of sunny days meant multiple swims in the Bay.
What a wonderful sensation to experience icy cold water and the warmth of the rising sun or by contrast to watch the sunset while taking a brisk walk to dry off while taking our elderly dog Chloe to the beach on the “off hours.” Visiting grandchildren enjoyed a bonfire one night, beach combing, swimming in a kettle pond, the local library’s playground, and the boat harbor.
I felt invigorated from all the swimming and walking, ready to make an early morning jog part of my daily routine until I stepped out of the car after a nine-hour drive back to Maryland and was greeted by a blast furnace.
Last week I wrote about the successive heat waves around the globe this summer and now I was experiencing one, high temperatures compounded by humidity. Each step was laborious and a half a mile walk seemed too long. Perhaps it was fatigue from the journey, but the next morning’s walk did not feel much better.
My husband Peter, member of a swim team, regularly trains at our County Pool. Long ago, our “first date” was a Saturday morning swim at that same indoor Olympic sized County Pool thirty-four years ago. Sitting on the porch with our coffee, reading the Sunday newspaper, I found myself saying, “You know it is so hot, I could actually see myself going to the County Pool to take a swim even though I haven’t been there in years.”
“Well let’s go,” Peter said. “I can even lend you a bathing cap.”
Before everyone’s concern over too much sun, the normal protocol in July would be to visit an outdoor pool. Our county does have a nice one open, not too far away from our house, but when the temperature is in the nineties, an indoor pool makes sense. The ceilings are tall and it is the largest indoor pool, fifty meters by 25 yards, in Anne Arundel County. On Sunday I appreciated the facility’s air conditioning and the lack of necessity for multiple applications of sun-block.
Both my husband Peter and I find swimming soothing. That’s something we talked about the first time we met, at a Happy Hour meet-up sponsored by a local singles club called Young Anne Arundel Professionals (YAAP). A big fan of swimming in saltwater, I began swimming at the indoor pool regularly as a safe way to exercise after a car accident that left me with multiple soft tissue injuries. The following year it was the rhythm of swimming that sustained me as I grieved for my first husband who died within a period of three weeks after experiencing a massive stroke.
During that period of my life, I was an antiques dealer with two young children and I remember trying to explain to some of my clients how I couldn’t meet them at certain times of the day because I needed to do an activity with my boys or I needed to swim my laps. They could understand the requirements of motherhood, but my insistence on swimming yielded long silences and questioning stares.
What works for one person, may not work for another, but in my case the routine of visiting the pool and the focus on the physical provided me with a sense of control. Each stroke I took, I endeavored to draw out and extend. The longer the stroke the further I could glide. I am not a racer. I do not care much for free style. I am strictly breaststroke, sidestroke, and backstroke.
Peter was a runner in high school. The winner of many races, like me he appreciates cold water, whether it be saltwater or a pond. When we met, he was swimming laps at the County pool because he felt stressed by his job that required extensive travel and dealing with a series of difficult managers. Swimming, he said, was calming.
Swimming is also the exercise of choice as you age and one of our neighbors , fellow member of an early morning running group, told Peter during one of their five-mile runs about a swim team opportunity at the Naval Academy and Masters Swimming. That was fifteen years ago. The swimming group at the Naval Academy no longer exists. And now Peter is part of an evening swim team, The Amphibians, that meets at the County Pool. He swam across the Chesapeake Bay (The Great Bay Swim) seven times.
Perhaps because I took a full-time job, and then worried as to what chlorine (even with a swim cap) was doing to my hair, I stopped going to the pool and took up Pilates, yoga, barre, and Zumba, at various intervals. I’ve been sticking with the Pilates primarily, but this summer Sunday afternoon at the pool is probably going to be a regular “date.”
Swimming, is great exercise, and unlike a visit to a beach or a resort, no one cares what you look like. People of all shapes, sizes, and ages come to a municipal pool to do their strokes. They may swim for twenty minutes or for two hours. As the summer heat continues, try it, you may just become addicted.
Thank you for reading and if you’d like to read more about what led up to that first date, here is a link to a personal essay published in Tell Your Story on Medium. If you haven’t already signed up, please follow me for FREE on WordPress, Medium or Substack. And be on the look-out for my new chapbook, RECIPES FROM MY GARDEN, published by Old Scratch Press and available in September.
Originally published at https://nadjamaril.com on July 8, 2024.
