Sweeeeeeming

My parents gave me the most amazing gift when I was but a young tadpole – swimming. I love that chlorine smell on my skin. It can take me back to my childhood as fast as fresh cut grass, the ice cream truck and orange push-ups and 70’s music (Rock the Boat). Today I swam laps at lunch for the first time in years. I smiled for the entire sixteen minutes I swam, remembering all of the swim practices, swim meets, and underwater tag games that are so much a part of my history. I love being able to do something that connects me to a part of myself I hadn’t seen in a while.


Vegas and Molly don’t swim in Iowa as much as they would like but they know about swimming. They do it quite differently. Molly swims like she runs – with complete and utter abandonment. All four legs swim in opposite directions and you know she is thinking, “I am HOT!” You can’t help but laugh at her. Vegas, true to her Golden Retriever roots, is completely OCD. She will be so tired she can barely hold herself up and she will bark when the pool party gets shut down.

When I go to my parents, all five dogs go swimming in the pool (sweeeeeeeming as it is called). My parents dogs (Becky & Bear), my brother’s dog (Sam), and Vegas spend the time retrieving tennis balls and the like that we throw for them. Molly, the free spirit, chases one ball down and then spends the remainder of the time running circles around the pool playing keep away. The thing is, no one else is chasing her. She jumps in the pool from time to time, but the rest of the pack ignores her. And she is completely oblivious to their indifference.

I love to swim. May we all find the tennis ball of our dreams and chase it down with reckless abandonment. Like Molly.