Louise's pool etiquette

The pool in my building

The spa next to the pool

The pool is actually smaller than it looks, so there's a lot of turning around, but who cares, I love thrashing through the water.  And there's this: the only time I feel God is in the pool.  God exists in the pool in my building. Don't ask me to explain.

For this reason, I will not go in if there is anyone else in the pool. Only God is allowed.

Okay, so now I'm sounding like the crazy lady in testimony meeting.

I know it's hard to fathom but God is also in the spa, which is my reward for swimming in the pool.

I talk aloud to God in the spa.

Still the crazy lady in testimony meeting.

Yesterday, the pool was empty but when I got further into the room there was an Indian woman in a splendid sari letting her toddler splash his feet in the spa.  She turned and smiled at me, so I couldn't really escape like I wanted to.  I wore sweats over my suit and carried a towel, a cap and goggles. 

She pulled her son up and stood in front of me. She told him to say "Hi" to me. She showed him how to wave. I grinned and waved and repeated "Hi," and made a party of my eyebrows and slowly, shyly, he waved at me.

"How old is he?" I asked her. 

She didn't understand, so I put up two fingers and asked, "Is he two?"

And she nodded and was able to say, "In April." She pronounced the A as Ah.

I am one of those people who can speak every language with my face. I am a facial linguist.

It's a gift.  We "talked" for a few minutes.  I thought. she would leave, but she liked talking with my face and remained standing in front of me with her son waving at me and me waving back.

Soon she will leave, but no, she wasn't leaving.  So I took off my sweats and did a whole routine for the two of them by putting on my cap awkwardly and then a second routine putting on my goggles and lifting them up and down. I was really working it.

Then I said, "I'm going to swim," and pointed to the pool and swam across.  When I turned around, they stood at the edge of the pool waving at me, so I changed to the breast stroke, so I could wave back.  It was the longest five minutes of my life when they stood and waved while I swam.

Speaking a foreign language can be exhausting.