Or Perhaps I Mean Crocodile

Early Morning Barton Springs Swim Report, 8/26/2026

I’m getting used to approaching the pool from the south, but I don’t like it. I have to interact with people more. Thursday, a woman gestured at me with her flippers and said, “I know you! You’re a Lee mom, right?” I copped to it. (“Lee” is the elementary school my kids attended, Robert E. when they started, Russell by the time they left.) This morning an exiting man bid me good morning—I always like saying good morning at the pool, but no more than that—then said, “That’s LeeAnn, right?” That I couldn’t agree to; he was sweetly apologetic.

Last week I arrived on Sunday morning at the same time as a crowd of young people redolent of weed, bringing back the melancholy of a high school party I was about to not enjoy. One young woman explained to me, “We work together at a club and we just finished.” “Oh!” I tried to say in an interested voice, and she, the little mockingbird, turned to her friends and said, “She says, ‘Oh!’” Her imitation was uncanny.

Then another of the party, a woman wearing around her waist an inflatable doughnut—by doughnut I mean it was thus patterned, with sprinkles—caught sight in the dark of the glinting water and took off running. Unfortunately, she didn’t know about the drop to the deck from the retaining wall and she went down, and was silent a while, but by the time I got down she was in the water with her friends, all of them yelling at the top of their lungs.

No such shenanigans since, including this morning. On the north side of the pool, there are four gentle staircases in and one ramp; on the south, a single set of steep stairs. Oh, there are ladders—no thank you—and the diving board—never—but I take the stairs, swim east to the nearby deep end and begin my swim in earnest. This morning I saw a lump on the deck by the deep end, and then it began moving. Wild animal! I thought, as I always do, but it was merely a man lowering himself into the water in an alligatorish way.

I’m on leave this semester. Today’s the first day of classes, so it’s my first day of leave. Will I write here more or less? I feel a little at sea when it comes to social media. I loved Twitter, back when it was more lovable; I sometimes post on Bluesky in a desultory way; I like Instagram but I only reliably carry a smartphone (and therefore a camera) when I travel. Facebook foxes me. So who knows.

Very beautiful this morning: stars then slow apricot dawn. Still, I can’t wait for the cold.