Considerations on a Swim on a Summer Day

I just returned to my apartment after a late afternoon swim down there. Well, it was more a late afternoon float as I am not much of a swimmer. The sun was just brushing the shallow end of the pool when I got there, and though I went a couple of times to the deep end with a boogie board I got at the 99 Cent Store that I couldn't handle very well--I tried to sit on it and naturally it popped out from under me--I spent the largest part at the still slightly sunny end, allowing the water, and the sun to do what they do best, put me in an extreme state of relaxation. For some reason, not a lot of people in this building use the pool, me, a couple of times during a summer, the HOA President, and a couple of downstairs neighbors are about it out of a bit over 20 residents. That works for me, as there is something delightful about having the whole space to myself. And when it is as hot as it has been, so few people are going in and out that I feel as if the whole building is mine as I noodle in the water.

I think the pool is one of the favorite parts of my living in this location. The angle of the photo is the view I have when I am sitting on my terrace and I call it (to myself, and now to all of you) my "little lake".  All I have to do is go up a few steps after a swim and I'm home, out of the wet clothes and into the cozy dry. Now that's something I didn't have in the Bronx! I feel gratitude for this small amenity, more than I would have thought possible.

At one point, I simply sat submerged (except for my head) on one of the steps--you can see the rail there in the picture, where the steps are. I let my hands float free under the water. The water undulated around me gently. The sun was between two parts of the building and had that look you usually only see in drawings, the little triangular extensions of fire. I closed my eyes. When I opened them again, I noticed one of the local hummingbirds on a cactus by the wall watching me, and twittering. I closed my eyes again. And again when I opened them a minute or two later, the bird was still there. The sun, the weightlessness, the minute creature observing me--I was at complete peace.

Other than the twittering birds, the sounds were limited to the occasional bark of a dog and the mechanical hums of several air conditioners. As I sit tee shirted, shorts and bare footed on the terrace, another of my favorite parts of living in this location, I still hear the sounds of the occasionally barking dog, the twittering hummingbirds garnering the last of the day's nectar from my feeder, and the humming of the air conditioners, though the temperature has dropped significantly. And my old cat Bleu is taking a swig of water from my solar fountain.

Life is good.