things making me happy today

Swimming. I am no longer counting which means I surrender to the physicality of moving through the light-dappled water, in an amniotic buoyancy. I move, move, move and I forget exactly where I am. It is so wonderful.

The water is different every day. Like everything else, I guess. The way the sunlight reveals itself in the water is quite different each day. And the way the water holds warmth is different each day. There is some part of my thinking self that keeps askng 'why isn't the pool a uniform temperataure?' Some days the pool is a uniform temperature. Some days it is not. Why? Why? I think about this instead of counting. And I like thinking like this much better than counting.

Today there was a large cold spot in the middle of my lane. In one instant, I would be moving in water warmed by the sun then with a stroke or two, I would be cold. Kerchunk. After hitting the cold patch a few times, however, I began to look forward to it. I looked forward to the wonderful moment when I would move past the cold spot and reenter the warm. In and out.

Another thing making me happy is that some of my fellow swimmers have begun to talk to me in the locker room, awarding me with their attention. "You swim so long. I kept looking over and noticing 'she's still in the pool!' You were in when I got in, you were still in when I got out. How long do you swim?" Just like a child who wants his parents to wave at him each and everytime he comes around on the merry-go-round, I love having someone notice me.

I lost a prepaid swim pass two weeks ago. I asked the lifeguards if someone turned it in but no one had. Today, when I left the pool, the lifeguards gestured for me. Someone had found my swim pass the day before and turned it in. A very small thing but it added to my happiness. I love it that someone turned in my swim pass instead of using it. And I love it even more that the lifeguards know I am Tree Fitz. I love the lifeguards, of course. I love all the other swimmers, too.

There is one guy, age 84, who swims with a baseball cap. I look everyday but, so far, he manages to swim for half an hour without ever getting the hat wet. Is he bald under there? Does he wear it to protect himself from the sun? There is another guy, also 84, who has a very fat belly. It sticks straight out from his frame, enormous. He swims over an hour nearly every single day -- and he has for thirty years -- I know this because he brags in line. How does his stomach manage to stay so huge when he swims so much? This guy, with the big tummy, wears a wetsuit. I can't help thinking he must wear it to, well, hide his tummy, which, of course, he cannot do: it sticks out with or without the wetsuit. It touches me to think he is self-conscious about his tummy. Also, it makes me sad, because I imagine that he has to eat huge amounts of food to maintain that tummy and still swim an hour every day.

I don't know these people's names but I love them. I used to have a much narrower perspective on what I thought it meant to love people. Now I think the capacity to love other people, and to be loved in return, is as abundant as sunlight or the stars. I have found that I can love everything upon which my eyes light, just like an infant. I am not always in such loving space but I love it when I am. I am today.