Head On

Early Morning Barton Springs Swim Report, 11/02/2023

Went back to Barton Springs, raccoons or no raccoons (as far as I could tell: no raccoons) because it was in the 30s and clear, & I wish to feel mighty. Lots of mist on the water, and when I arrived I saw no evidence of other swimmers, though I knew they must be there, and that they would appear all of a sudden.

I swam. A cormorant! no, a snorkeler.

I’ve long been terrified of running into one of the speedy swimmers who slice across the pool in the dark without looking. I am a ponderous water mammal, and I can’t switch directions easily, so I try to look ahead to correct my trajectory if I see one coming at me. My fear, I realized this morning, is of being punched in the nose.

In the fog I cannot look ahead very far. A speedy swimmer came at me. I tried to course correct, but we were near the artificial ducks that are anchored to the pool floor. “Watch out!” I said, but he couldn’t hear me, or see me, so I said it several more times in a rising volume, and then—

I was not punched in the nose. Instead, I was suddenly, aquatically, in the arms of a very nice, extremely apologetic man. Then we dog-paddled and had a brief pleasant chat. “All this water, and I still ran into somebody,” he said. “My fault."

“It’s inevitable,” I said. “You couldn’t help it!”

Then we parted. If we’d been wearing hats, we might have tipped them.