Rain for three days, but when I stepped onto my driveway it was clear, with a zaftig moon above. By the time I got to the pool it was a pea souper. No, not pea soup, but some kind of David Copperfield trick that entirely erased downtown Austin. Not a skyscraper visible, not a crane, when ordinarily the view at the far end of the pool is crowded with them. I’ve encountered this only once before: it’s as though the pool has traveled back in time. As though the fire curtain has come down at intermission. Not even a glow, though the buildings are only 2/3 of a mile away.
I peered down the ramp into the pool, as I do habitually to check for raccoons: raccoon present. I haven’t seen one by the water lately. All right, I thought. Okay. I will go to my alternate pool entrance.
The raccoon walked further. The raccoon waded in.
Last year I googled Can raccoons swim? This raccoon agreed with the internet: sure, why not. I cannot entirely describe my emotional state, as I saw the raccoon walk off the ramp into the water, then launched itself, and raccoon paddled. It swam next to the wall all the way to the stairs—my alternate entrance—went up the stairs, and got out.
Long ago I told a doctor that I didn’t much like painkillers, and didn’t like novocaine, and eschewed them for dental work and even, in one case, a biopsy. “You have a high pain tolerance,” he said. No, I said, I just didn’t think I felt much pain; things that other people found painful didn’t much bother me. “That is a high pain tolerance,” he said. So I don’t think I’m very brave, especially in the face of raccoons, which have driven me from the pool before, but I am pretty good at putting things out of my mind. I hadn’t swum in three days. I wanted to swim. The raccoon had left the water. I got in and swam two laps.
Not brave, but excellent at putting things in an inaccessible cupboard in my brain.
1st hike with the man I've now been with for 15 years. "Shh!" he motioned me to get down. On our bellies we peeked over the hill we'd been crossing. There was an adolescent grizzly bear probably 50 yards away, eating roots. We watched for about 10 minutes, until the bear moved downhill/downstream and out of sight. I assumed we'd be going back to the car, going home. Grizzly bear! "The bear went that way," he said, pointing. "And we're going up there. We'll be fine." Long long pause.
I followed him into the woods.
This made me laugh out loud