Sunday, December 19, 2010

Missing the Ritual and the Open Water

The spring/summer/fall of 2010 will be remembered as one that brought my life a new source of inspiration: the challenge, beauty, and camaraderie of open water swimming.

It not only filled me with a renewed sense of energy and enthusiasm, but, for the first time in my life (since I was a gymnast at age 8 - 12 or so), at age 46, I actually felt physically powerful and capable.

As the winter slips in and I burrow more and more, I feel the glaring disparity between summer and winter even more than I have in the past. As someone who already suffers from a bit of seasonal affective disorder, this isn't the best thing. I already feel the winter sloth setting in. The lethargy. The 'everything aches and I don't want to go outside' blues.

Sure, I head to the pool on a tri-weekly (or more) basis, and the water fills me, but it just isn't the same.

I miss the open water.

I miss this:


and, this:


and, of course, this:



But, especially, I miss this:




Spring really can't return soon enough.

- gae




8 comments:

  1. I completely agree with you. I dislike the cold to a cellular level. Spring and summer complete me.

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  2. and, no, that is not me, but my gorgeous friend Evelyn rocking the pink bathingsuit on the left. I am the one laughing ridiculously hard in the middle. Can't tell you at what. It was x-rated, of course. . .

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  3. ooh, caroline, we were simul-posting. :)

    We need to go find ourselves some summer. Somehow. Somewhere... :)

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  4. I don't have your yearning for the open swim, but I certainly feel the same about finding it a struggle to make myself move. Once I begin, or if I have a destination, I am MUCH happier. Yesterday, my boyfriend and I walked all the way home from the National Portrait Gallery in D.C., about seven miles. Wonderful! Today, while he's watching football, I find myself lazy, achy, grumpy....

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  5. Simul-posting can make threads confusing. I would love to go find some summer!! Melt the sludge right out of me. Do you think a tanning membership will suffice? Artificial summer for a few minutes a day?

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  6. I hear you, Gae--I hope winter goes REALLY fast and you can get back to it! (and I can get back to my power-walking without three layers of HATED CLOTHING! (gads, I hate clothes)

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  7. I am so in the SAD world -- must battle it with all my strength. But it's so hard NOT to miss the warmth and sun and water and fresh greenery. I must fight the sloth!
    B

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  8. I feel you loud and clear - I miss the open water in a way I didn't think possible - and I haven't even been in the pool either - love your resolutions too - and thanks for the props on the bathing suit :)

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