Diamonds, Daisies

Barton Springs Early Morning Swim Report 5/19/2025

Historically I have not been made nervous by fish. This isn’t on my resume under special skills nor is it something I have been congratulated on. No review of my work has mentioned my general—my previous—sangfroid around fish. “McCracken, a writer well-known for her bravery among our ichthyoid friends…” I hadn’t known to be proud of it.

That era of my life is over.

Last week as I stepped out of the pool, I overheard a woman explaining to a man that she had been bitten by a fish while swimming. While both of them were swimming, woman and fish. I apologized and interrupted to ask for more details. She showed me her calf. I admit that the resulting mark wasn’t terrible, or all that apparent, but I believe her.

It’s hot as fuck in Texas, as the meteorologists say, even those laid off from the National Weather Service. My morning swims have made me much more interested in weather reports, hourly, weekly, 10-day. My joy in seeing that it’s predicted to be 45 degrees and clear at 5:30 AM that is almost as good as actually swimming in the cold dark morning. We need meteorologists for the bigger questions, too, the bigger and bigger questions. I would say that our mad president has fired the meteorologist because he doesn’t like the weather, but he has fired so many people it’s hard to believe it rose to even that level of thought.

Swimming has made me more au fait with the sunrise, too. Mostly these days I get in the water the pool at about 6:15AM, before literal sunrise but in the light. I miss swimming in the dark. In the dark you can’t see things. Fish, for instance. They make me nervous now. Oh, when they’re where they belong, in the depths, I still like seeing them. But yesterday there were two suspicious looking finny fellows up near the water’s surface. I tried to beam friendly thoughts into their fishy heads, though I have never been all that in tune with fish (I can tune neither a piano nor a fish).

I’ve alluded in this space to the fact that me and mine are leaving Austin. My ball-&-chain and our kids are headed to the UK this summer; I’ll go with them and then bounce back to Austin for a bit, to settle my debts to the University of Texas (I took a leave last fall that requires me to teach or give back my salary and the value of my benefits for the semester). This space will continue as a swim report for a while yet, though it will also document some of the oddities I uncover while sorting through things.

I’m still thinking about these three. The weird books are harder to get rid of!

I am trying to get books out of my house as books come into it. I’m judging the National Book Award, and this weekend a box of galleys of my upcoming books arrived.

Maggie the Cat knows very little about fiction. She’s a fan of reality TV. (We are hoping to find a good home for her in Austin, as she is sweet and crabby and likes people but not travel and not quarantine. We love her very much but think she would be happier in her native land. If you are interested in a foul-mouthed lady cat, let me know. I will pay for her Prozac for the rest of her days.)

This book was published in 1995, and is probably less useful than it used to be.

When I finally leave Austin I will, in all probability, be findable. And pining for Barton Springs. Pining for other things, too. But not the fish, those slippery characters.