Cold

Barton Springs Early Morning Swim Report 9/10/23

Sometimes I think I forget to say how beautiful Barton Springs is, these early mornings. I mention the possible raccoons at the water’s edge (I saw those bumbling shadows yesterday) or the insinuating vegetation or the human beings who behave in ways I don’t approve of, IE, contrary to my trajectory across the pool. I never stop noticing the beauty. This morning I didn’t get to the pool till after six, and swam through sunrise, and the weak sun on the water was lovely as I swam through it.

I don’t know if the water is considered cold enough for “cold water swimming” health benefits (though if I feel dyspeptic when I get in I feel fine when I get out) but it’s cold enough to feel cold, these dreadfully hot Austin days.

Yesterday I got up earlier than usual, 4:30, because the pool gets very busy on Saturday mornings and I wanted to swim three laps and then possibly go back to bed. Once I’d swum and gone through the gate I discovered a hole in my coat pocket, and then I discovered an absence of keys. As I walked in to retrace my steps, I heard somebody call my name. I am wretched at recognizing people, or at least I recognize almost nobody automatically, autonomically, by which I mean I don’t casually recognize people. I have to look. So I looked. It was a wonderful woman I work with and her beautiful child. Her child explained to me that she had two dinosaur eggs. I explained to her that I had lost my keys.

I found the keys about where I’d guessed they’d fallen from my pocket, and I left again. This time outside the gate I saw my colleague’s husband, who said hello, and with the context of the rest of his family I recognized him, though when I first met him he wore glasses and now he doesn’t and he’s also gotten very fit and had been running and was wearing only running shorts and running footwear. Just the absence of formerly habitual glasses is as good as the Witness Protection Program where I’m concerned. We exchanged pleasantries and he said, “We don’t usually see you. Are we late, or are you early?”

The question confounded me. It was 6:50AM. I had been up for more than two hours, had lost my keys, found them, it was daylight, it had been dark. My only athletic abilities are these: I’m buoyant. I’m insulated. I wake up very early to take the waters.

“It’s me,” said I, stout and middle-aged, to the tall athletic young man. “I’m late today.”

“You’re late?” he said.

“I’m late,” I said, and then I did go home, and I did go back to bed.