Sunrise Swim

The atmosphere at the pool is different at 6 am than 10 am!

First, I saw a lot more naked women, showering with the curtains open, having finished their swims before I got there at what I thought was an early hour. Luckily, without my glasses, I was spared too much anatomical detail. Okay, I'm a lesbian, I should enjoy that, right? Wrong. I think I'm too much of a novice locker-room participant not to blush and giggle at breasts and vaginas, especially at 6 in the morning. Besides, the bodies were of the post-child, post-menopausal, average American-size variety. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but bodies like mine are not the stuff of my fantasies. Now if . . . . I won't even go there.

In fact, the population as a whole was very serious about swimming. Swim caps, laps, special timing watches that beeped, and then those very confident, comfortable showers. I mean, they must have gotten there at 5:30 when the pool opened, so they must be serious.

I suppose that makes me serious about swimming, in a way, since I was up so early. I plan to be swimming at 6 am from now on, except weekends, so I don't have to juggle it with our ever-changing schedule. But it doesn't make me a serious swimmer, in the sense that I can't do laps for 30 minutes straight. Though, the more serious nature of the others made me more diligent--more laps, less floating. But I'm slow, with breaks, so at least I had my own lane. I've checked with the lifeguard and now know that I can avoid the most serious lap swimmers by coming around 6ish. So that's good. It would make me stressful to share a lane with a cap-wearing, timer-checking woman I'd just seen naked in the locker room.

Unless it were . . . I won't even go there.