Lake Erie: A very great lake


When I picture lakes, I picture Haliburton lakes—placid, benign, with waves only lapping at the shores if there’s a motor boat. But I recently arrived home from a three-day camping trip on the shores of Lake Erie, and can still feel the lilt of the huge, relentless waves when I close my eyes. What a glorious lake. What a glorious beach – all sand (though my four-year-old was very upset that there wasn’t any beach glass)


I hadn’t been camping in years. Not since my late twenties when I was in a terrible relationship and had a very close encounter with a bear. My back/hip/shoulder are too creaky for thermarests, and for years, I told myself that my kids were too little. BUT then I learned about huge, cushy blow-up air mattresses, and my kids are potty-trained, and no longer napping and a friend had booked extra days at a campsite that she wasn’t going to use, AND the site was next to a beach and all of a sudden, there were no more excuses. 


And so, we borrowed tents and air mattresses and camping chairs, and made list after list after list, and drove up to Long Point Provincial Park with our bird identification books, and a pile of bathing suits. 



The waves the first two days were intense. I was shocked by the height of them on our first walk down to the beach, and was nervous the undertow would take out the four-year-old. 

I debated googling “how to swim in waves”, but strapped on my orange tow float, and went straight into the water, remembering how much easier it is to let the waves carry you, instead of standing and having them crash into you. But there were so many sandbars and I had to swim for a long, long while before I couldn’t touch.

I must admit, the waves mean more active parenting than I had hoped for, but by the third day, the waves were smaller, quieter and it was just perfect. It also helped that it was brilliantly sunny the whole time we were there (have the forecasts been right even once in the last few weeks?) and we all got too much sun, and I managed to read two novels on the beach. 

My six-year-old loved identifying all of the terns and swallows swooping over the water (and we marvelled at the lack of gulls – nary a gull to be seen for three whole days!) and though the mosquitoes were out in full force in the evenings, it was a most magical trip.

Last summer, I fell in love with Lake Huron, and this year it’s Lake Erie, and so, it looks like Great Lake swims are becoming an annual tradition (Lake Michigan on tap for next year…?!)

  • Lindsay
  • Tuesday, July 20, 2021

Fifty metres of linden flowers



I had a few false starts, but I finally made it to a public lane swim and IT. WAS. GLORIOUS. 


I’ve extolled my deep love of Smythe Park Pool before (okay, more than once), and this year I almost wept, sitting on the edge, with its 50 beautiful metres stretching out in front of me, with only six of us allowed in. (I mean, it never really got much busier than that pre-pandemic, but still). The trees lining the pool fence were shedding, and I swam back and forth and back and forth through tiny little flowers that I learned afterwards were linden flowers—the origin of my name, Lindsay. Fitting really, as, after this long, impossibly hard childcare-less winter, I am finally starting to feel like myself again.

 
I must admit, after many swim tethered swims, it is disorienting to be MOVING while swimming, watching the bottom of the pool slip under me. It really does feel like the different between running on a treadmill, and running on the sidewalk—I felt like I was flying!


The length swim slots—10:30am-12pm—aren’t the most convenient, but so far, I’ve been able to juggle meetings and childcare to get at least a few in each week, and I’m pretty sure it is saving me.


I even have a recurring alarm set for 7:55 every Thursday morning so I remember to log into the City of Toronto site and sign up for next week’s swims. I know the online sign up system doesn’t work for everyone, but I admit, I love scheduling my swims in advance.

  • Lindsay
  • Wednesday, July 7, 2021

A return to the pool, a return to myself


This year has been so, so hard on so many levels, and so when my fairy pool-mother sent me a note saying she had opened her backyard pool and would I like to come swimming, I leapt at the chance. It was truly the greatest joy to be able to slip into the water float in the deep end, staring up at the morning sky, feeling weightless for the first time since my last swim (Sept. 29, 2020, and yes, I’ve kept track!).

A cardinal flew overhead, and I told myself it was the same cardinal who kept me company last summer. I clipped into my swim tether and felt the weight of the last year lighten. 

Something opened up in me as I began swimming, and I remembered what I’ve always known—that I am most myself when I’m swimming. I started being able to think again. I started figuring out problems in my novel-in-progress that I’ve been stuck on for months. I recognized myself as I got out of the pool and towelled off and I was reminded how necessary swimming is for my mental health (to say nothing of my aging hip, shoulder, back…!)

To a summer of swimming! To a summer of returning to ourselves!


  • Lindsay
  • Friday, July 2, 2021

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