Staying Afloat

After years of remaining securely confined to dry shores, I'd decided to finally take the plunge. By joining swimming classes. Today was my first lesson. How'd it go? Swimmingly, I must say! At least... as swimmingly as swimmingly I swim.

Several lessons, in fact, were learned today. All of them to do with keep afloat... though not all of them literally so.

I started from office at 6, bubbling with excitement. The excitement of learning a new, exciting skill. The excitement borne of uncertainty, of not knowing how it'd be, and so letting the imagination swim wild with possibilities. Pregnant with visuals of Phelpian skills. Of becoming a very shark in the seas. And excitement, of course... from the anticipation of being surrounded by hot babes in cool waters :)

I'd signed up for Monday evening classes, but forgot the exact time. So I went to the gym to find out. Did I tell you about my awesome new gym? It's a colossal building, with a huge parking lot extending across both sides, which is almost always completely packed. I found a place half a mile to one side. Walking to the building from my car was itself enough of a workout! As I stepped inside, I felt I was entering a mall. Upon entry is a lobby... much like a hotel's. A counter, and behind that, a little waiting room with a lounge with a big screen TV. On its left, is a beauty saloon / barbor's shop. On the right, is a cafeteria. Behind it, started an array of office rooms, activity rooms, massage rooms (I got a back massage last week: a sublime experience). Further in, there come basketball and rackeball courts, and a mountain-climbing wall.

Towards the back, there's a huge area for kids to play - the kind they have in malls, with tubes to crawl through, and bazillions of balls in a cage. Wouldn't mind spending time there myself (I did ask them if I would be allowed in... the lady returned a smile, but did not look too pleased. I'll be keeping a close watch on you, it seemed to say). The first (or second, as it's called here) floor has cardio and workout equipment, and a couple of rooms where various classes are held.

In the center of the building, are the changing. rooms.The men's room reminds me of a Roman bath.. I guess it's the flooring. It's long, and fairly wide, with neat cubes of lockers to one side, a series of washbasins, each lined with blow dryers, milky lotions to silkify one's skin, and gels for upstanding gentlemen to fashion upstanding hair. At regular intervals, are neatly piled loads of white, soft, inviting, towels. Steamy vapor emerges from an opening leading to the showers. A passage from the rest room leads out to the back where the pools are. Four of them. Two inside the building, and two outside. And then, there are the sauna and the hot tub... where big, fat roman senators reposed, bathed in soothing steam, and bubbled by hot springs.

I went to the pool office, and asked what time the lesson started. 7:30. Great. A good hour to go. Home was a 10 minute drive. Home I drove, to dump my laptop and stuff, and catch a much deserved 15 minute rest after a long day's hard work. I wanted to reach the gym early because I knew they had some sort of secret and sacred ritual for gaining access to lockers. I knew it involved having to submit your membership card, and probably your soul, dancing over a pentagon, pledging lifelong allegiance to the society by signing in your blood, and so on; but I was foggy on the details. I got home by 6:45, and spent a relaxing 15 minutes lazing in bed. 7 o'clock, I got up and got ready. I took my change of clothes, took my license and couple of cards out from my wallet, since I didn't want to carry the whole thing - and was off.

I was the gym by 7:15. Walking through the door, I ruffled through my pocket for my membership card to show the guy at the front desk. The card loads up your photo on screen, and that's how they let you in (I hear impostures are caught and dispatched to wander forever in the dungeons below the building). But he recognized me from my brief visit earlier in the evening, and said - Didn't you already check  in? Yes indeed sir, i did, said I, and marched on to the men's room. Then i remembered i needed to find out about the locker.. All the while I'd been fumbling in my pocket for my membership card... and realized with a dread - I hadn't got it! Gah! I rushed out to car to see if i could make it to home and back in time. Drat the huge and packed parking lot! I reached car and saw it was past 7:20. No way i could make it back in time.

Then i had a brilliant idea. What did i need a locker for - when i had a car? I'd just dump all my stuff in here. Congratulating myself on my resourcefulness, I jogged across the huge, packed parking lot, back to the gym. There was someone new at the counter, but i confidently strode by, with a casual - I already checked in, you see. Only one problem. The keys to my car. I doubted if they'd last in the pockets of my trunks... those pockets were loose, and I was afraid the keys would decide to do a bit of swimming of their own. I could hand them to someone in the office, surely? But would they take the responsibility? I imagined the exchange: Why not keep it in your locker? Ah... you see.. I... err.. forgot my card.. What! Tresspasser! To the dungeons with you!!

What else could I do? Cache it in my mouth? Tuck it in my underwear? ...And then i realized - there were two problems: I had my shirt too. Actually three: my shoes. I could just leave those somewhere in the men's room, I guess. But that kind of thing would surely be frowned upon here. And I couldn't go out without my shirt if it got lost. And i definitely could not afford to loose my keys. So I decided to ask for a locker anyway, and see what happened. The guy said - let me see.. we can probably give you one - do you have your license? Great, of course I did!

Of course - it was in the car. So I dashed across that dratted huge, packed parking lot again to get to my car. I'd thrown my license somewhere into the dashboard... and now, it was lost in a pool swimming full of schools of papers, chargers, a GPS, and bits and ends God knows from where or when. I took a deep breath and dived in... At last I managed to retrieve my license, and sprinted back in. The old guy was back at counter. You again! he exclaimed. Yup, the very same, said I, rushing past him to the locker guy. 7:30. I got a locker key, searched for it in the men's room, stuffed in my keys, license, shirt and shoes, and hopped along to the pool.

Then began the swimming lesson. There were quite a few people in the pool. I walked along the pool, trying to pull in my tummy as far as it'd go. The gods, with their cruel sense of humor, have made me such that my abdomen is the only part of my meager frame that grows without bound. There was only one other person in my group - a lady, also as new as me to the art. Which was a comfort to both of us. Her little kid was learning outside in the kids' pool. Our coach was nice, a girl 20 or so i'd guess. She asked me about my experience.. Ah so you're new at this.. what all have you done? Absolutely nothing! My very first time in a pool. Ok, no problem, she said. We'll soon get you swimming! I guess she could see natural talent brimming in me. And to my surprise, I found I was a natural indeed! I took to the water as a fish.......  to air. Yep, I was a natural all right - a natural... disaster.

The first exercise involved holding on to a ledge and kicking to stay afloat. I kicked. And drowned. Don't fight the water, the water is your friend. Relax your feet, she said. Relax, my foot! How the heck can you relax when your supposed friend is intent on swallowing you whole? ...I closed my eyes and mentally chanted: The water is my friend. The water is my friend... and imagined myself as a lean, mean, submarine... gliding gracefully though the seas.

...Of course, sub-marine was exactly where this landed me.... while displaying all the grace of a hyperactive baboon. Realizing I might require an easier level to start at, the instructor took us across to the shallowest part of the pool to try our kicks there, where we could place our elbows on the floor. Here, I at least did not drown - because it was too shallow to do so. The kicks, however, fared no better. Undaunted by the complete lack of progress, our coach decided we needed to try something different. So we went on to practicing lying on our backs. Now this was something I could do.... even worse than the kicks. You had to bring your hips up to float. Somehow. My adamant hips, however, decided to stay stubbornly stuck in the dismal depths of the pool. I was in completely over my head with this task - which is not a great place to be when you're in water. Anyway, the lesson ended after a while, with some more desperate kicking, more ungainly attempts at up-hipping, and getting my ass totally kicked by my new friend, the water.

But guess what, I actually improved a tiny winy bit! My feet now stay kicking at water level almost a whole nanosecond. And though I was no shark, I think I put up a performance that would do credit to an unhinged octopus.

As I pulled myself out of the pool, I realized that I had forgotten my shorts in the car. Drat. I had to walk out in my wet trunks. I strutted out of the pool area with what i thought should be a casual, nonchalant gait... while hoping people around wouldn't wonder what the heck i was doing walking out in soaking clothes.. I then noticed a door marked 'Exit' to the side, a bit nearer where my car was parked. So I didn't have to go the front lobby, at least. I opened it, and it let out a huge screeeech! Emergency exit, of course. I just hadn't read the 'Emergency'. Gah.

Anyway, I then crossed that huge, packed park yet another time, reached my car, and realized the locker key was still with me. Gah and more gah. I'd have to walk back. Of course, since I was already at my car, I could at least get my dry shorts and change before I got back out. And of course, I didn't realize that till I was half way back to the gym. Gah and drat. Anyway, back I went to my car, got my shorts, and returned to gym. And of course, the guy at the desk was there, waiting to welcome me again. You, yet again! Yup, me, yet again.This is what I do all day. I handed back the key to the locker guy, changed, made one final trip across the parking lot, and drove back home.

So.. not quite the adventure I went looking for... but then, what's an adventure if not unpredictable? I went to learn to swim - and ended up learning many more lessons than I had planned on - in and out of the pool

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That - was three months ago. Sadly, my swimming days seem to be over for the while. I did, however, discover a brilliant new use for my swimming goggles: I now wear them when cutting onions. This activity usually causes my hopelessly sensitive eyes to leak like the Niagra. But with my goggles on, I can cut away without fear or tear