water, water

Spring has taken a long time to really get going and it’s been pretty rainy.  I’ve had to drive in some intense rainstorms and I seem to do this during the worst lighting.  Day heading into night, night heading into day, and just plain night.

My vision is not great in the dark and when the visibility plummets with the rain, well, so much the worse.

I realized that I have specific set of behaviors for adapting to these conditions:

• Headlights on when the wipers come on.
• Wipers from Occasional to Regular to Frantic.
• Radio off. I dunno why, but I always turn it off. I guess it’s a “minimize distractions” thing
• If there’s someone else in the car, conversation stops. Same deal, I guess.
• Firm grip on the steering wheel at 10 and 2
• And if I can manage it, I tilt my seat all the way upright.

Everything set to gather as much sensory data as I can.  Like the Terminator, right? From there, it’s “find and constantly re-find the lines”, stay between the lines, and keep track of every other car on the road.  And then try to find a balance of speed between being safe and getting away from the bad weather.

Wears me down, but I always get to my destinations safely.  It’s weird how a little rain can completely change a casual drive with moderate concentration to a second-by-second sensory glut.  Never occurs to me to stop and wait out it.

The way out is the way forward.

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I’ve been swimming more and have noticed a change in my shoulders and chest – and a little in my arms too.  I like how that feels and so I’m trying to hit the pool every day. And do a mile every time.

But lately, the lanes have been set to the long distance  – 50 meters one way. And the Open Swim lanes are singular – we get one, the rest of the pool is taken up by high school swim teams. Sigh.

If there are just two of us in the lane, we usually opt to split the lane.  We each take half and easily stay out of each other’s way. If there are three or more people in the lane, we switch to a “circle swim” – everyone stays to the right, comes straight in at the end of the lane, and launches back out at an angle to switch sides.

I’m not great at this because I’m not that fast, but I usually hold my own and I try to stay out of the faster swimmers’ way.

And when it works, it’s fine.  When it doesn’t…

Last week, there was a day when I got to the pool and the one open lane.  At the shallow end was a guy trying to teach his girlfriend how to swim. (Wrong pool for that, buddy.) At the deep end, a coach at the edge of the pool giving surface diving lessons to a swimmer on his team. (Not enough to take up the rest of the pool, is it?)  I got in and started out – and did a pretty fair job of keeping track of everyone. I tried to circle swim so as not to surprise anyone and that worked up until two more people got in the pool – and decided to swim side by side in the same direction.  

What the hell, people?  We had six people in one lane and I was the only one doing it right.  I thought about giving up in disgust, but decided I was going to make this work – though still disgusted.  I dodged and wove as the swim lesson switched sides or drifted to the middle. Sped up to get out of the way of the diver. And zoomed between the side-by-side swimmers – sometimes diving to the bottom of the pool to avoid getting kicked in the head.

I got my laps in and found it’s possible to mutter under my breath while underwater.  Not sure if that’s a special talent I’ve nurtured or if anyone can do it, but I’ve mastered it.

Today, we had 5 people in the lane and I was the slow one.  Everyone kept passing me and I would check at the end of each lap to see if I needed to wait so that I wasn’t slowing anyone down.  I tried to be courteous, but it kinda got me down that I was so slow. Thought about cutting it short, but then I realized that the other, faster swimmers were having to rest more than I did.  One guy would zoom past me, then have to rest at each end of the lane.

Okay, I see how it is.  You may be faster, but I can out-distance you any day of the week.  

And today, bitches, is Wednesday.

I poured it on at the end, not stopping or giving way for anyone that had paused.  If they wanted to pass me, they were going to have to work for it. And the last few laps, no one did/could.

Grab your surfboard, kids, and enjoy the wake I leave behind me.  Even if I am old enough to be your dad…

…this old man can move.