"Let the water hold me down"

Heading out of the new swimming center into an evening sleet, already drenched because I had forgotten a towel and had dried off with my shirt, I looked up at the shining Department of Public Recreation (DPR) posters and repeated my mantra, “DPR or CPR.” What other possible reason could motivate one to endure the public locker, the sharp transition to submersion, the steroidal athletes slapping your foot from behind, the cramps, the monotony of counting laps (five, hive, hegemon, Ender, Take Five, , drive), the padding around from the deck to the shower, the congealed chlorine hair?

But there really is something more to it, a certain artistry to being even one of the slower and older people in the pool, or as Ed put it, looking like a turtle. The artistry relates to the infinite ways to propel oneself in the water, the infinite directions, planes, pressures, reaches, pushes, timing, turning, breathing, an infinity that makes walking seem rote and irrelevant, like the bundled shadows moving up the path, as you skate by on the seldom frozen canal among laughing children and would be hockey players.