Swimming, I am told, is the best form of exercise there is. It gives complete, well, exercise to more areas of the body than any other and the water offers support so there is no unnatural strain as is found in, say, running. It is The Way. But, in spite of all this, I still enjoy it.
You have to understand what I mean by swimming. Children do not swim. They splash, and shout, and dive, and jump - and not in straight lines. You see, I have become one of those people who, when I was a child, I used to hate: the Straight Line Swimmers. The quick up-and-downers who, ostentatiously, did not care who came in their way, because they just swam though them. I am one of their damned number. And I rejoice in it!
Length swimming is an odd pastime; there is, as with all swimming, that sense of being in another dimension because of the support of the water and yet being in something essential and familiar: there is an odd sense of being at home, it being the Natural Element [note to self: there is too much capitalization in this writing, take care.]
Swimming isn't tranquil, even leaving aside the noisy younger elements; you can always hear your own breathing: the gasp of inhalation and the bubbling exuberance of the exhalation; the splash of arms and the push of water against the head. You can't relax: you'd drown - that is something of an incentive to do it properly.
Where you swim is important. Having thought about what I was going to write next, I have realised that, however I phrased it, it was bound to sound snobbish and elitist. So I won't say it. What I will say is, a pool, for me is more or less desirable depending on whether there are periods given over to the Straight Line Swimmers i.e. sacrosanct roped off swimming lanes or something more 'democratic' and filled with writhing creatures "Yea, slimy things with legs did crawl" etc.
When in doubt go outside. I use the same principle as my experience with parking. People will not park further away from their destination than they can spit. In a similar spirit people will not swim (willingly) in a pool which does not match their blood temperature and, if the weather is inclement then people do not believe in outside heating, then is the time to go outside and swim in glorious isolation. There is much to be said for outside swimming. The shock of cold air entering your lungs is like wine and you really appreciate the quality of breathing when you go back inside and breathe the sickly, oppressive miasma which passes for an atmosphere.
An interest in natural history is also catered for as long as you are wearing goggles. You can glide through and over vegetation and various forms of insect life. A large, hairy, moving, dead spider bumping along on the bottom of the pool, lurking in the eddies of a strong swimming action, is a great disincentive to many to venture into an outside pool and, as you know, the fewer the better. The ideal pool is an empty pool, except for me!
And the water: not all water is the same when you come to swimming pools. The indoor pool is always redolent with the memory of ill fitting pampers blended with the irresistible aroma of the dissolved detritus of adolescent pores, over which hangs the mature perfume of lingering eau de toilet undilutable by mere water. And under the water, if you can’t see more than a few feet ahead of you, surely it’s time to get out.
Swimming is, of course, displacement activity for me, because the house is not selling and I don’t want to have too much time to think about the time that I am not spending in Catalonia. Hey ho! Who knows what the morrow will bring?
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