4 loops
lake nokomis open swim
72 degrees
Another great swim. The water was smooth and calm and not cold. It was overcast, which I thought would help me to see the buoys better — no sun in my eyes — but ended up making it harder. Not enough light for my cone-starved eyes. It didn’t matter; I kept swimming and trusted that my shoulders and hips and feet knew where they were going. They did!
Leaving the shore, and entering the lake, I made the mistake of swimming through a terrible patch of milfoil. So thick and tangled! I had to glide over it in order to not get entangled by the thin vines. Future Sara remember: do not swim close to the two white buoys nearest the swan boats!
I swam 2 loops, then got out for a bathroom break, then 2 more loops. After I was done, as I waited for Scott to finish his long run, I took some notes in my Plague Notebook, vol. 28 about the swim. Without intending to, I started jotting down words grouped by their first letter:
smudged (sky), smooth surface, submerged, shoulders, strong, swans
glassy, green, grit, geometry, grabbed (by milfoil), glimmer
flash, fin, finished, flat, far
Broken Bells (blasting from a bike in the park), barely there buoys, bridge
marbled legs, monstrous milfoil, mistakes made
in navigation, nose plugs
leaking, lost, looping,
(metal) detector discoveries (a rare nickel)
As I returned to land and gravity, I lost my nose plug: it fell off my finger. I think that’s the second or third nose plug I’ve donated to the lake over the years.
On the last loop, I looked up after passing my the 4th buoy and sighted the final buoy. It looked so far away. I decided to count my strokes to it: 225.
Last night, I was telling Scott about how I always see lifeguards on kayaks that aren’t there. Today, I think I saw why: something about the Cedar bridge and the tree line and the land, far off and to my left, looks almost like the shape of a figure on a kayak. Well, at least to me.
Before leaving for open swim, I re-memorized Tony Hoagland’s awesome poem, “Summer Studies.” For some of the loops, I recited it in my head. I can’t ever recite it, or any other poem, straight through, from beginning to end. I always get distracted or repeat myself. I think I got to the end of the poem just once.