Up and swimming

I'm back to swimming again. I've been going around ten or ten-thirty in the morning, but I woke up early today and have already been. The reward is sitting in the hot tub with the jets massaging my aching back.

What to think about while crossing back and forth: well, I start out with complaints and then realize that I am the narrator of my own life, and do I really want to continue in this vein? No. So I pray instead. In a half hour, you can pray about a lot of things and people. I begin and end with thanks. Hot water, Tom, family and friends are always on the list.

I consider what I might do in the future. Maybe I should go to the library twice a week to write. Not a novel. I'm no longer interested in writing novels. Family stories. War stories. Geography and place.

Maybe I'll teach again.

Or maybe I'll make a list of knock-knock jokes for Elliot to memorize, since the ones he tells do not make one bit of sense.

Or I'll read something difficult like Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese, which I am now reading.

I seem to be interested in domestic life in a way I've never been before. There's a thrill in knowing that even behind cupboard doors things are clean and organized. Definitely channeling my mother there.

Anne is coming to live with us for awhile. I'll ask her if she'd like to learn the front and back crawl. Maybe she'll say yes.