Swimming Meditation

I don’t know who I was when I was younger. That person who exercised to Jane Fonda videos… even now I don’t know how to describe who I saw on that screen without sounding judgmental. But I wanted to be in shape. I powered through… My body the object. My body I dressed up and showed, or hid.

This morning I went swimming. The pool, a short 6-minute drive from my house – a gift from the owners who allow others to use it. I step into the poolhouse. The water looks aqua and the surface ripples and moves. I step in, gingerly, until I adjust to the temperature and begin to swim, breaststroke, backstroke, side stroke.

I didn’t know I was a swimmer. How fiercely I hold onto this opportunity to move my body.

Before Lyme disease, I practiced Ashtanga power yoga. 4, 5, 6 days a week. My struggle to survive precluded my ability to exercise. My very strong will was no match for the microbes infecting me.

When I was three or so, my mother pushed me into the pool when I wasn’t looking during swimming lessons. My fear was too much for her to bear.

I remember the teacher. She talked about how she had accidentally swallowed a piece of glass. That it came out through her eye. Ever since, I have been careful around broken glass.

Even earlier, when we lived near the Jersey shore, my mother carried me out into the ocean, into the waves. I was holding tight. I wouldn’t release her. She dropped me into the waves. She would not hold me through my fear.

I remember when exercise was more like playing tennis, running, reaching, trying, sweating, achieving.

Today, as I backstroke, I watch the ceiling, see the light filtering through the windows, notice the temperature, the silkiness, the little splashes as my arms reach back and into the water.

I don’t meditate much anymore. Not like I used to. But the slow movement through water takes me into that place of witnessing, watching, breathing, noticing.

I don’t know why my mother could not be with my fear. Why she could not reassure and comfort that part of me.

I don’t know why I fell so ill 16 years ago, or even why I am not all the way better yet. A world that is evolving; the answers sometimes are in the distance.

Recently another woman joined our swimming group. She took my lane. Pushed me out into the chatterers and doggypaddlers. Like the exercise I used to do, she took her non-relational space and pushed herself, the rest of us invisible. I found myself feeling resentment, hatred.

I could not sleep. My thoughts swirling.

I have talked to the person whose group I am in. I will come earlier. Stake out my territory. Perhaps this dilemma is solved. Perhaps my heart will now soften.

The slow meditation of breathing, being, the gift of the water, the gift of this pool, the gift of healing slowly, one tiny moment at a time.

Inspired by a prompt from Diane Zinna.

Love’s Cauldron wins Silver at the Nautilus Book Awards 2026.

Love’s Cauldron Book 2 is out!