Well, it seems as if winter arrived in Germany, Canada, and in the States. Friends are sending wintry greetings and stories about how they’re coping with ice, snow, and cold. Even though the conditions are serious, I can almost sense a note of relief in their recounting. These last months of unusual mild weather was quite unsettling to many.
My friend/colleague and I went out for a rigorous walk during our lunchtime break. This is the first time we did this in weeks and weeks. The muddy trails were frozen over, the leaves and high grass silvered in ice crystals. We kept up a lively pace both in step and conversation. We certainly have missed these midday walks.
My ever-loyal walking companion of many years came down with serious back troubles before Christmas. Both of us kept on hoping the situation would just disappear and we could get back to our evening walks. But, the situation won’t go away, so, we are going to switch over to swimming.
I love swimming in Grenada. I can even remember liking a swim in a cool Canadian lake during a heat wave. The idea of liking the experience of swimming in cold, chlorine-saturated water (21 degrees C) in a large, cold (20 degrees C), chlorine-smelling hall, is hard to imagine. I didn’t always think this about swimming in a public pool.
In younger years, when I was swimming, running, cycling regularly, I thoroughly enjoyed training in the university pool complex near my apartment in Erlangen. I was working at that large German corporation that sounds like seaman’s and I needed something to counterbalance the immobility of working all day on a computer. I loved swimming countless lanes; a masochistic leftover from my ballet days. Things certainly have changed since then: no more masochistic inklings, no more joy from endless repetitive strenuous activity. Who knows, maybe they can also change back… what do you think?
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