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I always forget the endorphine high I get from swimming. That I like the activity is something I can hang onto regardless; water just feels good. Yes, the chlorine smells, and the pool itself is loud, with the chatter of bored teenagers and shrieks of excited children. The water is turbulent and unpredictable from the wakes and flailing of other swimmers, and more often than not you have to twist to overtake those slower than you, or curl into a corner of a lane to let a more faster and powerful front crawler (they always do front crawl. Why, I know not, but always front crawl) go past. I don't care.
It was no different on Wednesday. The pool was over crowded, the teenagers in full force, stood in the middle of lanes in full make up, faces an oddly different colour to the rest of them and eyebrows that had been drawn on looking more artificial than normal under the lights. They picked the fast lane to hang out, bizarrely enough, occasionally deigning to do a single slow jerky length, heads held stiffly at odd angles, trying desperately not to get their hair wet. The most aggressive swimmer - a woman in her early 20s, expression dismayed, her goggles and swim cap no nonsense - cocked her head at them in thought for a few seconds before breaking into one of the most strategic uses of the butterfly stroke I've ever seen. Her form was freaking perfect, and the resultant waves, crashing unavoidably down the lane, caused the teens to pull faces, roll their eyes at us 'uncool old folk' and exit to go hang out in the hot tub with some tattooed young men cultivating beards that could be described more as 'hopeful' than 'present'. Mission accomplished and the rest of us shared small congratulatory smiles, hidden behind hands or hair.
And despite all that, despite the noise and the bickering and the smell that invariably gets worse when you breathe at the wrong moment during an unexpected wave and end up inhaling it, so it crawls up the inside of your nose and even once you're out, you still smell it with every breath, I still find peace in it. Being in the water just feel natural and homely and wonderful.
I expected soreness and tiredness the next day. It's how I feel after all other exercise, so it made sense. But I'd forgotten, when I sprang out of bed an hour before I should have been up, full of strange energy that won't let me sleep any longer, what swimming can do to me. Or the effect it has that I can feel while walking to work, like someone's taken my joints apart and oiled them thoroughly before putting them back together. I feel right. I feel better. I feel me.
*Happy sigh* I love swimming. I don't love the after effects quite as much. But I nearly do.
It was no different on Wednesday. The pool was over crowded, the teenagers in full force, stood in the middle of lanes in full make up, faces an oddly different colour to the rest of them and eyebrows that had been drawn on looking more artificial than normal under the lights. They picked the fast lane to hang out, bizarrely enough, occasionally deigning to do a single slow jerky length, heads held stiffly at odd angles, trying desperately not to get their hair wet. The most aggressive swimmer - a woman in her early 20s, expression dismayed, her goggles and swim cap no nonsense - cocked her head at them in thought for a few seconds before breaking into one of the most strategic uses of the butterfly stroke I've ever seen. Her form was freaking perfect, and the resultant waves, crashing unavoidably down the lane, caused the teens to pull faces, roll their eyes at us 'uncool old folk' and exit to go hang out in the hot tub with some tattooed young men cultivating beards that could be described more as 'hopeful' than 'present'. Mission accomplished and the rest of us shared small congratulatory smiles, hidden behind hands or hair.
And despite all that, despite the noise and the bickering and the smell that invariably gets worse when you breathe at the wrong moment during an unexpected wave and end up inhaling it, so it crawls up the inside of your nose and even once you're out, you still smell it with every breath, I still find peace in it. Being in the water just feel natural and homely and wonderful.
I expected soreness and tiredness the next day. It's how I feel after all other exercise, so it made sense. But I'd forgotten, when I sprang out of bed an hour before I should have been up, full of strange energy that won't let me sleep any longer, what swimming can do to me. Or the effect it has that I can feel while walking to work, like someone's taken my joints apart and oiled them thoroughly before putting them back together. I feel right. I feel better. I feel me.
*Happy sigh* I love swimming. I don't love the after effects quite as much. But I nearly do.
