Can water teach us a lesson?

I grew up every summer going to the local pool most afternoons to swim with my sister and brother. Over time, the pool became my place of family, friendship, laughter, and great memories. So when my husband suggested a few weeks ago that we try our local indoor pool for a few laps, I was curious to see what it would be like coming back to swimming as an adult.

1. Life is like a set of goggles. Sometimes things are super clear. Sometimes they’re a bit blurry. Goggles are life. There are some days they are nice and clear and cooperative and then other days they keep fogging up. Or those moments in between, where things appear mostly clear, but don’t hold onto that feeling because the edges are becoming cloudy. Getting my goggles on each week reminds me that sometimes I can keep going through the fog, but sometimes it means I have to stop, spit in them, and try again.

1. Go with the flow, ride the currents. Everyday arriving at the pool is a different experience: different swimmers, different water temperature, different lifeguards. Sometimes I show up and swim with only a handful of other quiet swimmers, each lost in their own thoughts doing their own lengths. Other times there’s a basketball team out celebrating their recent championship win by playing a fairly-full-contact version of Marco Polo across the length, width, and depth of the pool. Like the water, life is at times a calm and clear swim; other times it is brash and brazen. You gotta learn to ride the many waves, the many currents, even if they’re created by someone else, in the best possible way. And every once in a while, there’s a rare moment when you’re beautifully all alone and the only waves created are by you.

2. You never know who’s watching. Keep watching others. One evening, swimming lengths while there was a big recreational swim on, I noticed a man standing by the side of the pool and pointing at me. A bit taken aback, I paused my front crawl and met his eyes. A little boy stood next to him, the man’s hand on his shoulder. The dad was explaining how the boy’s “doggy paddle” would someday turn into a front crawl stroke. We had a unique, beautiful moment of connection. We beautiful humans learn from each other by watching and mimicking. Don’t be afraid to watch and learn from another.

3. Where you look makes a difference. Wherever we decide to set our sights will impact our course. Constant redirection will waste time and energy to get from one side to the other. Finding a gaze point and suddenly there’s momentum, a place where things can really flow.

1. Keep moving even if you’re tired. Over the last weeks of swimming I’ve been working on building stamina. Slowly I’ve been building the number of lengths I swim each session - 30, 40, 50, 60 - and I continue to gently push that number higher when I can. With a goal in mind, there are times I find myself getting tired before reaching a number. Swimming teaches me how to keep moving forward, even if I’m tired. Swimming teaches me how to utilize other tools so that I can maintain momentum, even if I have to slow down a bit.

I’ve found myself stuck in life recently and unsure of where to go next, what my next goal is or should be. In my lessons from the swimming pool I’m learning to accept help and support to keep moving. I’m learning that if I can keep the movement going it is easier to shift directions. I can slow down, but to stop is more difficult to start again (an object at rest and an object in motion). Even when stopped in the water, there is still motion. At the end of my lengths, I love to take a moment to float, to rest, and to relax. But there is still motion in my floating: my limbs shift to keep me stable, my bellybutton lifts to keep my hips afloat, I respond to currents in the water while I rest. I’ve just come from a long time floating in life, micromovements keeping me going before I decide my direction and make my next move.

What have you learned from the water?