Last
week I changed swimming pools. This is not earth shattering news and yet it has
given me a fresh outlook on my best exercise and my life in general. For almost 3 years I have been going to
the one pool at the YMCA in south Asheville, an impressive new facility with
big windows overlooking the Blue Ridge Mountains and Biltmore Park residential
community.
Lately I hadn't been looking forward
to swimming as I used to. In order
to get a lap lane I was going earlier and earlier in the mornings before the
aquatics classes or children’s swim lessons took over half the swimming pool. In
truth, it began to feel like a chore.
Art, who switched to the downtown Asheville YMCA for his workouts a year
ago, kept bringing home the pool schedules and talking about the two swimming pools (one for lap swimming
only), the larger locker rooms and the fact that it is the same distance to go
downtown as to south Asheville.
Why don’t I try the downtown YMCA, he urged. I was used to the south
Asheville YMCA, I would reply. Last
week I changed and I wondered why it took me so long.
Swimming is my preferred
exercise because I don’t like to sweat and because it centers me mentally and
physically. I began swimming twenty years ago when we moved to Manila,
Philippines. The heat and humidity living on the Equator meant I couldn’t walk
a city block without feeling sweaty and miserable. The five-star Mandarin Oriental Hotel across the street from
our gated “ Urdaneta Village” community offered pool memberships. I joined out of necessity. In the beginning I couldn’t swim
one length of the pool without stopping.
Eventually I grew stronger, added laps, and learned that swimming helped
me cope with life in a difficult and complex culture. When we left Manila to
return to the U.S. I missed the swimming but had no access to a pool in rural
Vermont.
Twelve years later we moved to Dubai
with a climate my fair skinned body did not tolerate. We lived in a large
elegant complex of apartment buildings that boasted 36 swimming pools. After years of not swimming at all I’d get up eagerly before
the full desert heat of the day and swim laps remembering how it had
saved my life while in Manila.
Now, living in
Asheville I can go to the YMCA for swimming not
to escape the heat but simply to feel good. I have worked my way up to 50 lengths of the pool and could
do more if I pushed myself. Not only does swimming laps feel good, it is the
time when I do my best thinking. Ideas I’ve been mulling over, plans or
solutions to small or large problems are resolved while I swim. “Swimming is the ultimate form of
sensory deprivation,” Diana Nyad was quoted in a New York Times article
entitled “The Self Reflecting Pool” by Bonnie Tsui. “ It is one of the rare
times when we can be totally disconnected and alone with our thoughts. Swimming
is a total cleansing of mind and body. The
reflection of where you are: in essence, a status update to you, and only you,”
writes Ms. Tsui.
While I was at the downtown YMCA last
week going up and down the half empty lap pool I was struck by the logical
conclusion that had evaded me. I now could continue to swim in a more relaxed
environment and perhaps start to explore more of downtown Asheville
afterwards. After all, I spent three
years doing my errands in south Asheville but now I can easily go to Pack
Square Main Library, stop at Trader Joe’s anytime I like, go by City Bakery for
their delicious whole wheat seeded baguettes and an occasional coffee, or pop
into the Asheville Mall when I need something without driving to the “other
side” of Asheville. I should explore the Asheville Art Museum and maybe even
“do” the Thomas Wolfe Museum, or meet a friend somewhere for lunch. Changing swimming pools has given me a
new perspective on things to do in Asheville.
Finishing my 40th length
of the pool the other day, my mind was suddenly flooded with other small
changes I could make just to keep life from falling into routine. And so I came
home and rearranged my closet in a new way. I found some things I’d forgotten I
had, which was like having something new to wear. We hung our one large Vermont
wood cut painting of contented cows in a field over our bed having moved it
from an upstairs guest room. It
looks like we purchased a new painting for that spot. In truth, we bought the
painting 25 years ago. All of this
is to confirm that swimming is when I do my clearest thinking without
interruptions. My world seems to fall into place when I emerge from the water. Life is full of new possibilities and change brings new perspectives.
