My Perfect Swim Bag

I am a meditation dance swimmer and you can get the fuck right off of my cloud!

If you don’t already know, I swim most every day.

I don’t do laps. I don’t run a timer. I have no idea how far I’ve gone, or how fast.

I’m not a specialist at any stroke— in fact, I delight in making them up.

“Susie,” my friend Louise tells me, “You are a meditation swimmer.” Lulu is a Masters competition winner.

“I wasn’t aware of meditating,” I shot back. “I’m listening to my music on a waterproof iPod and I make up my dance moves. I am a rock star and I share lanes with whomever can handle it!”

(Actually, that’s never a problem. People who swim at dawn, as a demographic, do not care about anything or anybody but their own “vision.” They are either old, or eccentric athletes, or both. Just stay out of their lane).

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This section of my blog is called The Leisure Hours.

It’s devoted to eating, drinking, crafting, playing, making your own fun.

If you’re happy we started this, so am I! Auntie Mame would approve.

However! If you want turn off email notification for ”The Leisure Hours,” you can.

Go to your account page and under “Email notifications” uncheck, or check, whichever email notifications you’d like to stay abreast of.

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I was once on swim team as a kid. In broiling Southern California, moms dropped their kids off at the pool after school— or you could easily walk there. No parents. Teenage lifeguards and coaches. Practice would end and we’d keep screaming in the pool. There was a popsicle stand swarming with bees where you could get all the candy you wanted. No one yelled at you to “Stop running!” Epic splash fights.

We didn’t leave for home until the pool closed at dusk. I could do swan dives with some amount of grace. I was going to be a “star” of the Sierra Madre Water Ballet squad, for the 4th of July, when my mom abruptly announced we were moving to Canada. That tore it.