The only place I can swim today is a puddle in the driveway – a single stroke wide, with a gasoline rainbow separating the deep end from the shallow end.
After a less-than-successful first attempt at swimming outdoors last Saturday, followed by a feverish Sunday trapped in bed while the sun shone, I FINALLY made it to Sunnyside this weekend – my very favourite pool to swim in. I had butterflies in my stomach, I was so excited. It felt like Christmas morning, but with chlorine instead of presents under the tree.
The pool was fouling-free and sun-full and I got there right when it opened.
After a lifetime of taking FOREVER to get in the water, my swimming ladies encouraged me to jump in last summer, and so what better way to enter the 2017 summer swimming season than with the biggest jump I could muster.
("Mama jump in swimming pool!" my toddler is still saying. I beam every time!)
The fast lane was SO fast – with a U of T swimmer who was tearing it up, and an older man who apparently was on the national team in the 70s – that I had to marvel at their speed one lane over in the medium lane. I will never tire of watching fast, efficient swimmers. That and watching the across the floor jumping combinations in a dance class are two of my favourite things to witness.
The water didn't have the thick layer of sunscreen like it will by August, but was crisp and perfectly turquoise, warmer than the air. My mind drifted and rambled as it only can during a wonderful swim and when I was done, I made sure to float on my back in the centre of the deep end, letting the huge blue sky full my lungs.
And if that wasn't wonderful enough, I ran into a guard who recognized me from my very pregnant swimming days before I had my daughter a few months ago. He had been guarding the day before I gave birth and got a glimpse of my little girl in her stroller.
It's been thunderstorming ever since (grrrrr), but I have my fingers crossed for sunny swimming days ahead!
yesterday's lake was quantum mechanics.
a whale-shaped rock.
a red guitar.
a too-shy bathing suit.
a new romance (not mine).
/
today's lake was a reminder.
it was not gentle.
I must've done something to piss off the swimming gods.
Granted, I got to talk about swimming in Toronto on CBC Radio’s
Metro Morning, but after that the week went downhill. There was food poisoning,
a lot of vomiting in the hospital bathroom, exhausting solo parenting and not a
lot of sleep. But it was all going to be okay because the pools were opening on
Saturday and I was going to swim outdoors at my beloved Sunnyside Pool.
I couldn't swim the minute the pool opened – kids,
scheduling, etc., etc. – but I finally got my kids fed and down for
simultaneous naps (!!), packed my bags, hopped on my bike and biked through High Park. I was so
gloriously excited for the first outdoor dip of the season.
When I got to the waterfront trail, I saw an older man
strutting along in a Speedo and sandals, a towel around his neck. I asked him
how the water was.
“Wonderful,” he replied, “but the pool is closed.”
“Closed?” I asked, bewildered. It wasn’t supposed to close
for another two hours.
“Closed,” he said motioning that someone had vomited in the
pool. They would re-open in an hour, he promised.
At 3. The pool was supposed to re-open at 3, except my
two-month-old would need to nurse at 3:30.
Not gonna lie, I sat on the to beach (grateful I packed a
picnic blanket!) and I almost cried. It was a terribly self-pity moment – the
week had been so long and so hard and this swim was the only thing keeping me
together.
I stared at the lake that looked like an ocean and made a
sad Instagram story and eavesdropped on a first date, and watched a couple do
mesmerizing things with hula hoops.
I tried to read my book as the sky darkened and got two texts – one from my sister and one from my fella. They’d both heard thunder.
I tried to read my book as the sky darkened and got two texts – one from my sister and one from my fella. They’d both heard thunder.
And thunder means lightning and pools have to close.
I called Sunnyside (at 2:56), but they were still opening at
3. Whew! I biked over as fast as I could. I was going to be the first one in.
Except when I got there, there was a lifeguard standing at
the door. “Thunder,” she said over and over again to *very * disappointed
would-be swimmers.
I couldn’t hold back. I actually sobbed on the beach. In the
rain. It was so sad and pathetic it almost makes me laugh now (almost…I’m not
quite over it).
I biked home in the torrential rain, thunder rumbling,
lightning spiking. I was actually relieved it was an actual thunderstorm and
not just a wayward grumble.
I got home soaked and freezing. My fella had a pile of
towels at the ready and handed me a hot toddy.
Of course the sun came out later, and the pool reopened
(after my kid-free window had closed, of course), so I decided the only thing
to do was make a happy hour cocktail to commemorate this ridiculousness of the
afternoon.
May I present, “The Fouling” – a dark and stormy (ginger
beer, rum and lime) with a chocolate garnish:
The pools (well, some pools!) open this coming Saturday and I'll be chatting about swimming in Toronto on CBC Radio's Metro Morning on June 13th at 7:25am. I could not be more excited!
Ten outdoor pools are opening on the 17th on evenings and weekends (including my beloved Sunnyside Pool!) and the rest of the pools open on June 24th (evenings and weekends) and then it's a swimming bonanza when summer schedules go into effect on Friday June 30th!
Here's a list of all the City pools and their opening dates (and links to each pool's page!)
In case it's been a while since you last swam outdoors, here's a Swimming Holes We Have Known approved summer swimming pool checklist:
Don't forget...
- your suit
- a quarter for a locker (and an extra in case the locker eats the first one/a fellow swimmer has forgotten one)
- flip flops- waterproof sunscreen
- sunglasses
- goggles
- towel(s)
- underpants (Laura made this handy reminder)
- a book for on-deck reading (Note: no newspapers allowed!)
- extra hair elastics if you're of the long-haired persuasion
- a water bottle
- a small Ziploc baggie for your phone
- extra swim diapers if you're swimming with a toddler
- a plastic bag for post-swim wet suits/towels
- swim snacks for the post-swim hungries (Rhya's go-to is Doritos. I'm a fan of the swim biscuit)
Sunnyside Pool is full and ready to go!!
In the weeks after my daughter was born, I wasn’t allowed to
swim. I missed it desperately though and those eight swimless postpartum weeks
felt like months. BUT, one Saturday, I was hauling children and car seats and
emptied boxes of raisins out of the car and a woman showed up on my front lawn
– a friend of swimmer/writer Jessica J. Lee, who had a book for me – Lee's
swim memoir Turning: A Year in the Water,
sent all the way from Berlin.
I e-met Lee months ago through Twitter (thanks Shawn!) and
have been inspired by her swim-ventures ever since. I was fascinated and
dumbstruck by her tweets about swimming in the coldest days of winter, packing
a hammer and a toque (and I interviewed her here!)
"I'm at home in the water, and I'm not scared to be
alone here," she writes.
In a single year, Lee decided to swim in 52 lakes around
Berlin, in part to heal her broken heart, in part to reclaim the geography as
her own. There is something so healing about submerging yourself in a different element – I can't count the number of times I have swam through deep
grief, my goggles filling with tears I would have to empty in the shallow end. It is the closest thing to meditation as I have ever known and has saved me on too many occasions to count – broken hearts, lost loved ones, a failed dance
career, debilitating injuries, postpartum chaos…
"There's a kind of offering in the generosity of water
holding you afloat. In the way water holds feeling, how the body is most alive
submerged and enveloped, there's the fullness of grace given freely,” Lee
writes. Yes yes yes, I nodded while reading. Yes yes.
The rules for the project were: no swimming pools, no wetsuits. All the lakes had to be reachable by public transport, bike, or on foot. All had to be reasonable distances (i.e. day trips) from central Berlin.
Lee writes with depth and eloquence, weaving together her
personal relationship to swimming and lakes, to the complications relationships
of the geography of the lakes she swims in (swimming in lakes near former Nazi
bunkers, and a lake that was once divided into East and West Germany by a line
through its centre). It is a beautiful meditation on swimming and water and
what it is to heal and find your strength once again
I am a fair-weather swimmer when it comes to outdoor
swimming. I'm a summer swimmer, and even then it can take me forever to get in the water. I’ve never once even considered doing a polar bear dip, but Lee talks about the
endorphin rush of swimming in the winter lakes, literally hammering her way
through the ice, toque on, counting out her strokes, and I would find myself
reading these winter passages faster, wanting to get the same rush vicariously
through her winter swimming. I didn’t ever think that swimming in a frozen lake
could be romanticized, but I caught myself dreaming of a trip to Germany next
winter – toque, suit and hammer packed…
In reading Turning, I learned more about water than I have
all my life – the physiology of lakes, the biology of lakes, how the
temperature changes, how wind and depth and algae determine the quality of the
water.
Until we three swimmers were swimming in the Gatineau River last summer, I hadn’t thought much about the different textures of water, but
Rhya was fascinated by how silky the dark river water felt (turns out it comes
from the many, many sunken and decomposing logs at the bottom of the river).
And of course Lee explores the different textures of the water she swims in. “The water
I grew up with was hard, cutting...the lake a whetted blade,” she writes
of the Canadian lakes of her childhood. “The water in Berlin has a softness to
it. Maybe it's the sands buffing the edges of the water like splinters from a
beam. It slips over you like a blanket.”
“There's a safety in this feeling. In the lakes here,
there's a feeling of enclosure and security that Canada can't replicate.”
(This is where it took all of my will power not to buy a
plane ticket to Berlin…)
After swimming through heartbreak, three seasons in, Lee develops
a friendship with another wild swimmer, Anne. Their connection is deep and
generous in a way that swimming friendships are. I’m not exactly sure why, but
swimming friendships are special, different somehow than other types of
friendships. And as the two of them sought out the last few lakes in the
52-lake year, their friendship deepening and widening, the lakes: "became
points of light in the landscape, generous, steady and incalculably beautiful.”
Jessica’s coming to Toronto this summer and we’re going to
go swimming. I truly can’t wait.
You can buy the book here, or at your fav indie book shop!
P.S., she’s hosting a Turning launch party at Ben McNallyBooks:
Tuesday, July 11 from 6-8pm
·
This winter was cold, gray and loooonnnnnnng.
I sometimes plan a trip somewhere south to shake the February blues, but this year I was working on a big project – the launch of www.reggie.bike – and I couldn't get away from my design shackles.
So, I decided instead to pass the cold months with a countdown to the first outdoor swim of the summer -- arguably the greatest swim of the year, especially in Ontario. My countdown was a #tbt series on Instagram, revisiting of some of the best & worst swimming holes I have known in the past.
For those of you who missed them on Insta, here's the recap... and at the end... well let's just say Summer 2017 has BEGUN... with a SPLASH!!
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1. March 23 #TBT -- Provence:
That time we all lived at Poor Peter's Chateau in Provence. (*this is Chateau de Massillon in Uchaux. Spectacular place. Was there doing a photoshoot with Rob Howard for Butterfield & Robinson. Chris T was an exceptional sport and dove into this pool about a million times for the camera. Poor, poor Chris. Luckily, CHAMPAGNE afterwards.)
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2. March 28 #TBT -- Puglia:
This one had ancient olive trees and palm covered chairs to fall asleep in. Puglia, Italy. (*Can't recall the name of the hotel at the moment. But it was the first time I had burrata and I. WENT. BANANAS. (Photo: Rob Howard)
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3. April 6 #TBT -- Tulum:
This was Tulum. I went on a retreat to this
beautiful place called Amansala, for which they refurbished Pablo
Escobar's former beach house. Magnificent place. (Relocated due to sad
and terrifying mafia story two weeks after I left). Wish I was reading
and jumping into those waves from that swinging bed today....
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4. April 12 #TBT -- Santorini:
This swimming hole was a real-life fantasy. The infinity pool at the Perivolas Hotel on
Santorini overlooks where they say the Lost Atlantis dwells. Arguably
the most beautiful place in the world. I can hardly believe I came home.
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5. April 20 #TBT -- Baja:
This was Baja and you weren't really supposed
to swim on this particular beach. There was a menacing Undertoad, as
Garp would say. (Plus schools of stingrays and the occasional dolphin /
whale). But we did swim here, just briefly enough to be reminded of the
awesome power of Big Water. Big beach. Big sky. Big feels. I loved Baja.
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6. April 27 #TBT -- Marrakech:
This is Jnane Tamsna, in the Palmerie just outside of Marrakech, which I ended up at because Carmen and I had a impulsive late night bidding session on LuxuryLink a few years ago... oops! Gorgeous, elegant place, look it up! (Photo credit: Hip Hotels)
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7. May 4 #TBT -- Aruba:
This was Aruba, where I went with my mom a
couple of Februaries ago. I was extremely exhausted when I got there so I
slept on a lounge chair everyday with this as my view and a few times a
day I would slip in and swim back and forth beside that breakwall. It
was quiet and so beautiful. UNTIL around 5pm when the tide went out and
these little holes in the sand underwater would appear and all these
toilet-papery ribbons filled the bay... took a moment to realize they
were CREATURES of some kind (eeeek!!!) but we just took that as our
signal that happy hour was upon us and we'd go for a cocktail and get
ready for dinner.
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8. May 11 #TBT -- Costa Rica:
This was Costa Rica. I stayed in this nice teeny hotel owned
by a Canadian couple with a good wine cellar, and you had to walk down
(and then back UP!) this steep hill to get to the beach. I regret to
inform you that I did not have a good time at this swimming hole... it
wasn't its fault though -- it had a great beach shack with cold beer and
fish sandwiches, and I read an excellent book there (The Shadow of the
Wind). But my companion was really mean to me on that trip and you all
know that I don't like meanies. So, I guess I need a Do Over, Costa
Rica... and I have a plan...
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8. May 18 #TBT -- Tuscany:
My fave day of the week, the Swimming Hole
Countdown! with a look back to Tuscany and the insane view from the
infinity pool at winemaker Roberto Cipresso's agriturismo.
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9. May 24 #TBT -- Lake of Bays:
The big question of the day is: will the
Swimming Hole Countdown end this weekend??? Will the Paper Crown Queen
end up IN THE LAKE IN MAY for the second year in a row?? Stay tuned...
but in the meantime, THIS Swimming Hole I Have Known is the Lake of Bays
which I have loved for many reasons... there is a very nice boat from
which to jump off the back, and that same very nice boat often has
margaritas hand-delivered to it while we read twin copies of the same
book and I ask my friend Don all the questions I can think of.
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10. And the countdown brings us to Georgian Bay, May 28, 2017:
Parka: 1. Bathing suit: 0.
Wool socks with sandals: 1. Bathing suit: 0.
AND THEN THIS HAPPENED:
Found in cottage closet: wetsuits circa 1983. And our inner Charlie's Angels.
AND THEN:
WE ARE IN!!!!
May 28, 2017. Bone Island, Georgian Bay. The water temperature was below 60° C.
Summer has officially begun. Get in!
