Tag: Swimming

Monday Morning Wake-Up Call

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[…] I’m old but not when I go for a swim. A transformation takes place. In fact, it’s surprising how much younger the body feels in water.

What happens to the body in water — the flabby, bony, wrinkled body, I mean; my body, I mean — is a quiet miracle. You’re trudging along on land, reluctantly dragging the 1940s cargo vessel you’ve become, and then you step oh-so-carefully into the water.

As soon as your body feels the cool liquid element around you, you’re ageless. Memory takes you back to childhood, and you swim just as you did in your 20s, though this time you have brains.

And that’s the beauty of it. Age has endowed you with knowledge and experience. Now, in water, you have achieved the impossible. You’re young and old simultaneously. A wet Dorian Gray. […}

Obviously I feel none of that. I’m just an old man enjoying the water and the quiet, feeling peaceful if a bit tired, almost but not quite like an Irish selkie, who lives on land only temporarily, and whose true home is the sea.

— Roger Rosenblatt, from “Flabby, Wrinkled, Happy…I’m Old But Not When I Swim” (NY Times, August 2, 2025)

Get your ducks in a row…

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Will never look at birds swimming the same again. (Why Do Ducks Get in a Row?)

Note:

  • Photo: DK @ Cove Island Park, 4:45 a.m., 58°F. June 7, 2022. More photos from this morning’s walk here.
  • Post Title: Thank you Mary Ann.  Where did the term “Get Your Ducks In a Row” Originate. Read here.

Why Do Ducks Get in a Row?

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The River Thames is beautiful in early summer, and the stretch just upstream of central London is full of birds: motionless herons watching for fish, bustling moorhens poking around the submerged plants, and watchful flocks of preening swans. But as my canoe club paddles along the river, we’re always looking out for our clear favorites: the mother ducks with a fluffy cluster of ducklings tagging along behind.

When they’re lingering at the shore, it all looks slightly chaotic, with baby birds dawdling and exploring as the mother duck keeps an eye on them. But when it’s time to move on, chaos shifts into order as the ducklings line up behind the adult and the convoy moves off together quickly and in perfect formation. It’s mesmerizing to watch, and it’s not accidental. This is all about saving energy.

Swimming is hard work, because water is dense and slightly viscous. At the surface, a large part of the resistance to movement comes from the waves that are produced behind whatever is moving: its wake. This is the familiar wedge-shaped wave pattern that we see behind ships, canoes and ducks alike, and all of those waves carry energy. If you move along the water surface, those waves are always continually generated and so the swimmer needs to put in enough energy to create them. This energy cost is felt as a resistance to movement. There’s also resistance because the water touching the ship or duck is pulled along too, creating additional drag. Continue reading “Why Do Ducks Get in a Row?” →

Lightly Child, Lightly.

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I am floating on a blue rubber raft. My eyes are closed, face to the sun. Black motes dance around under my eyelids in the opaque red. I drift, listen to the sound of my breath going in and out, let the salt wind carry me to the middle of the pond. There is nothing but me. No one here but me. A perfect moment. I dangle my arm over the edge of the raft, open my fingers, feel the resistance of the water as it passes through them.

— Miranda Cowley Heller, The Paper Palace: A Novel (Riverhead Books, July 6, 2021)

Notes:

  • Debut novel.  Book, highly recommended.
  • NY Times Book Review: Summer After Summer, a Clan Returns to Cape Cod
  • Post Title & Inspiration: Aldous Huxley: “It’s dark because you are trying too hard. Lightly child, lightly. Learn to do everything lightly. Yes, feel lightly even though you’re feeling deeply. Just lightly let things happen and lightly cope with them.”

T.G.I.F.: Silver Lining

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Eva Creel (Hirschau, Bayern, Germany) with Silver Lining. “Underwater above and somewhere in between. I’m a photographer. My goal is to suck a little less with every shoot.”