Back in Black

Barton Springs Early Morning Swim Report 8/15/2024

I’m not against change but I sure do hate it for myself. While in England for the summer, I heard rumors that my usual early morning entrance to the pool had changed its hours, and anyone arriving before 7AM would have to use the South Entrance. I didn’t want to use the South Entrance for the following reasons:

1. Fear of the unknown.

2. Fear of raccoons.

3. Fear of geese.

Yesterday afternoon, in anticipation of this morning’s swim, I drove to the South Entrance just so I could see what it looks like. When I turned around to go home, I saw something in the road ahead. When I got closer, I saw it was: two fucking geese.

Regular readers of this blather will remember that I was once attacked by geese at Barton Springs. By “attacked” I do not mean threatened by geese, I mean I was swimming in the pool and then suddenly two large white geese were beating me about the head. They removed my goggles and broke the skin. If you ask me whether I was near their nest, as many people have, I will shriek, "I WAS SWIMMING IN A SWIMMING POOL” Lots of other people were also in the swimming pool and remained unmolested by waterfowl. You can hardly blame me for taking it personally.

These geese were brown, not white, though with similar bumps on their beaks. I breathed a sigh of relief. Then I came home and looked them up: they are, like my attackers, Chinese geese. They are, according to Wikipedia, “knob geese.”

I’ll say they are.

This morning I went hopefully to my regular entrance, just in case the rumors were wrong. They weren’t. As I drove to the South Entrance, I wondered how it would go, whether I would end up rejoining the Y with the outside pool, which I quit partly because the woman behind the desk was too friendly, or whether I could adapt.

I estimate that 87% of my day I operate on muscle memory, or muscle anticipation. I like to get into the pool the exact same way every time. I think the same thing just before I get swimming. Early mornings, I’m either thinking of what I will do next or I’m already doing it.

There are no ramps on the south side of the pool, my usual mode of entry, and no shallows. Perhaps I’d use the diving board, I thought to myself, but I was only kidding: I have a fear of the plunge as confirmed as a Victorian’s taphophobia. When I jump into deep water I assume I’ll never come up. But I found some stairs and lowered myself in, and I swam and was, after all my inner grousing and worry, entirely happy, despite the pool being busy (it was light by the time I finished).

I was slow, slower than usual. I only swam one big lap and a bit, but that was enough to satisfy my smart watch, which says, Finished if I swim for less than half an hour and You did it! if I swim for more.

I did it, I told myself, with no exclamation point. I’ll do it again.