Asleep on the Path

Barton Springs Early Morning Swim Report, 3/30

This morning the birds were singing, Mister Cedric! Mister Cedric! as I arrived at 6:15. (I go later on weekends.) Lots of cloud clover, so I didn’t turn on my flashlight till I saw a dark lump ahead on my winding way down to the water. When I shone my light upon it, a human leg went kicking up, and a human being sat up. I am sorry, person, for waking you. (Asleep on the path, I imagine, because the ground elsewhere was sodden.)

The picture below is from Thursday, when I went swimming my first morning back from traveling. I might have slept in but for two reasons: it was going to be in the 40s and clear, my favorite conditions for a pre-dawn swim, and because I had the afternoon before casually said to my graduate novel class that I thought perhaps I hadn’t been bragging enough about my pre-dawn swimming this semester. (I was working on an extended metaphor involving changing POVs and how swimming pools, including Barton Springs, have NO DIVING stenciled on the deck by the shallow end.) One person referenced the fact that I have a substack on the subject. This shocked me, as any reference to what I write in the ethereal space while I am on the concrete plane shocks me. How did you know that? I want to say. You must be a spy. For me, all social media is talking in my sleep.

I am enjoying teaching this novel workshop enormously.

This morning in the early light I swam over the manhole on the floor of the pool. I always forget about it until I see it. What’s it for? What happens if you open it? I contemplate these mysteries every time I chance upon it, which is to say, one swim out of one hundred.