Seven For a Secret Never to Be Told

Barton Springs Early Morning Swim Report 06/06/2024

A lovely 72 degrees this morning. I swim before daylight for three reasons—bragging rights, parking, and pool traffic—though today I didn’t get to the pool till 6AM, when it was already light. I know how the orbit of the earth works, kind of, and yet I was surprised by the peachy blue daylight. The little parking lot by the playground was already full of runners meeting up to run through the park in their packs, not a space for me. I am not a superstitious person, by which I mean I’m entirely superstitious and I declare that I’m not as a way to ward off bad luck. My most persistent superstition is seeing things as omens. I don’t like things—like the approaching equinox, apparently—that mess with my routine. But I found a spot in an only slightly more distant lot and ambled down the hill.

I supposed I’m almost never in Austin this far into June. My ball-and-chain and our older kid are already in the UK; my younger kid is off to a Shakespeare camp in Round Top, Texas, on Sunday. This week, we’ve been going to a movie every day to make up for all the movies we didn’t manage to see when I was plaguey. Tomorrow we have plans to see five movies in a single day: wish us luck! I am hoping to stay awake for most of them.

It was a glorious swim, three laps, not too many people in the pool, clear and lovely. At the end I saw the goslings, big-bottomed and beautiful, who will not be goslings for much longer. Then I went to the recycling center with some electronics. So many of my happiest transactions are when somebody takes away something I don’t want. It was delightful. A good sign for the day, I decided: goslings, the nice people at the recycling center, all of it.