In The Swim Of Things

A week ago, I went to a public pool around the corner from my place, and had myself recording "swimming."

I placed quotation marks around the word, swimming, because whether or not I was actually performing the task might be debatable. Haaaa!

Truth be told, I feel very comfortable in the water. Regardless the depth. But I'm not a strong swimmer.

I have never mastered the breathing in freestyle swimming, thus, I keep my head above water, or swim underwater until I am almost completely out of breath.

Not good.

I've often thought to myself that if I were on a boat that capsized, I'd probably swim on my back and my side until I got to shore. Swimming freestyle on my stomach would tucker me out within moments.

I say all this to say that, at 55, I'm gonna take a real swim lesson for the first time. Everything I know how to do now was learned during my scouting days by trial, error and repetition.

While I'm learning to swim properly, I may as well learn to dive too, because all previous attempts to dive have wound up as semi-painful belly-flops! OUCH!