Swim to the shore, swim out to sea

[hawkwing_lb]

So my exercise lately is going for a swim. (I swam to the shore and back in that image, not exactly endurance swimming but I'm building up.) Sometimes a bike ride and a swim. The sea surface temperature is up to a balmy 15C - well up from the 9C of back in late April, even if it's not exactly a Mediterranean sort of blissful, stay-in-all-day temperature.

What else is new with me? My beloved wife has offered to celebrate with a nice meal if I reach 50K words on my novel-in-progress - if I stop shying away from it, acting like what I write could never have value. (She didn't say that, exactly. But she's right, I should try to have more self-belief.)

Here is a poem I was reading:

The Blue-Green Stream

by Wang Wei
Translated by Florence Ayscough and Amy Lowell

Every time I have started for the Yellow Flower River,
I have gone down the Blue-Green Stream,
Following the hills, making ten thousand turnings,
We go along rapidly, but advance scarcely one hundred li.
We are in the midst of a noise of water,
Of the confused and mingled sounds of water broken by stones,
And in the deep darkness of pine trees.
Rocked, rocked,
Moving on and on,
We float past water-chestnuts
Into a still clearness reflecting reeds and rushes.
My heart is clean and white as silk; it has already achieved Peace;
It is smooth as the placid river.
I love to stay here, curled up on the rocks,
Dropping my fish-line forever.

Comments

[sovay]

So my exercise lately is going for a swim.

That sounds wonderful. Those are good rocks and weed.

[hawkwing_lb]

They are good rocks! I rammed my hand into one I wasn't expecting, while heading for the beach, so I can definitely confirm both their weediness and their solid rockiness.

I'm thinking about getting a cheap sleeveless wetsuit to keep swimming into October. (It's never the sea temperature that's the real barrier here, but the air temperature getting back out.) I don't trust the plague to end, and at least the sea is in the open air.

[cpolk]

that poem is lovely, and i think a wetsuit is a fine idea, if it keeps you swimming the way you like.

[hawkwing_lb]

I just can't imagine feeling comfortable being back inside a gym before spring, if that.

[cpolk]

and even so, isn't this more interesting?

[hawkwing_lb]

I do miss my boring old squat rack, I confess. :P