Vacation was perfect.
I swam a lot throughout it and for further relaxation, the last day, did this inventory of meaningful swimming experiences from two-41, in six states and six countries [Between 2006 and 2013, or 41-47, added additional experiences: Revisited some bodies of water in Israel along with new ones, added a pool in the U.K., and another part of a familiar ocean, but in a new country -- my first time in the other hemisphere; added several more through age 53, which I'll be for another week, including two new states, as well as returns to Israel and China]:
Stamford, the early years -- two-10
Fun
Jewish Community Center (JCC) pool and trampolines on Briar Brae Road in Stamford, Connecticut; my sisters and I would alternate between the pool and tramps for hours; there was never any adult supervision at the tramps, which were the woven kind, stretched over two rectangular pits, and we would jump from one to the other and do flips, sometimes landing with one of our then little legs between the springs, but were never afraid.
Power
In-the-ground swimming pool off of Mayapple Road in Stamford, where I took swimming lessons from a small, blond doctor's wife, who gave me tremendous confidence.
Betrayal
Swimming hole off of High Ridge Road in Stamford, where I swam with my mother and sisters, and cut the top of my foot on a rock -- and still have a scar.
Freedom
Dorothy Heroy Stamford community pool off of High Ridge, near the border of Pound Ridge, New York, where my sister Kathy and I would bike nearly every day in the summer.
Family
Out-of-the-ground pool in our yard, under a canopy of leafy trees, which meant lots of whirlpools by my sisters and me, gathering leaves from the pool's surface, and skinny-dipping with my sisters at night with only the porch-light above us as our guide.
Rarity
Best friend Alicia's in-the-ground oval pool, at her house on Rockrimmon Road in Stamford, next to which we hunted for Native American arrow-heads in the woods.
Allure
Best friend after Alicia, Jennifer Juliet's (J.J.'s), in-the-ground pool at her house on Haviland Road in Stamford; her mother lived in a bikini during the summers.
Mud
Lake in Shelton, Connecticut, at Camp Rippowam, during my first year of sleep-away camp; I liked canoeing on it better than swimming in it.
Israel, at eight
- Salt
The Dead Sea in Israel, where we loaned my crush and classmate a body-suit to swim in, since her mother hadn't thought it would be warm enough to swim.
- Wonderment
Ein Gedi, in Israel, under a waterfall with my mother; I loved my mother's plaid bathing suit and sketched a drawing of us in my journal afterwards.
Long Island Sound in Stamford with my best friend; her sheer presence in her white bikini when we were 11 fully awakened my attraction to girls.
Frustration
Lake in Palmer, Massachusetts, at Camp Ramah, site of my Bat Mitzvah, where I tried cultivating a boyfriend, rather than studying my Torah portion and bombed at both.
Crush
Community pool in Yorktown Heights, New York with a crush from a summer drama program; at summer's end, I cried when my parents picked me up.
Adventure
Mediterranean Sea, along Chofit, Israel, next-door to my relatives' village; my cousin and I swam and body-surfed regardless of black flags posted at the lifeguard stand.
Nature
Natural pool in a gorge in Ithaca, New York; my only boyfriend ever and I visited his openly gay brother and partner for a weekend, and they took us swimming.
Sublimation
Pool on the Givat Ram campus of Hebrew University in Jerusalem; my friend and I swam 50 minutes daily for the year, including a cross-town bus-ride each way.
Israel, at 20
- Beach
Mediterranean Sea in Tel Aviv, Israel with my childhood Israeli friend; he wasn't much of a swimmer, though he could do innumerable pushups on his knuckles.
- Escape
Dead Sea again and this time, at 20, a friend and I were there with men who expected intimacy with us, and who weren't happy when it didn't materialize.
- Danger
Sea of Gallilee in Israel, where my friend Cathy, with whom I swam daily, stepped on a piece of glass just off shore, under the water, and needed First Aid.
- Attraction
Ein Gedi again; my summertime roommate Lori, along with one of the guides and I bathed there during a hike from the Sea of Gallilee to the Mediterranean Sea.
Italian Center in Stamford with friend Leslie during the summer after returning from my year abroad in Israel, and then Leslie was killed five years later by a drunk driver.
Vindication
University of Michigan's pools on Central Campus, where I ran into the woman for whom I had longed for two years, who I felt now showed interest in me -- too late!
Joy
Indoor pool in Chicago; my ex-girlfriend and I lived in a building that was built in the '30s and we hosted a party, turned off the lights and most of us skinny-dipped -- most of us innocently -- though a couple of our friends became a couple that night.
Youthfulness
Off the Belmont Rocks in Lake Michigan in Chicago; I dove in after my rugby coach Denise -- ah, youth....
Consolation
Marshfield YMCA in Chicago, down the street from my new apartment and I swam there nearly daily; the pool kept me company after the breakup.
Bonus
Health club in Schaumburg, Illinois, which offered a deal to Advantis employees, of which I was one before moving to IBM and to New Jersey in 1996.
Surprise
Rooftop pool of W Hotel in San Francisco, along with an exec who was a good swimmer.
Womb
JCC's indoor pool on Newfield Avenue in Stamford with my mother; I was three weeks late in being born, and so I guess I liked swimming around her then, too.
United Kingdom, in my early-30s
- Home
Winchester, United Kingdom (UK), at the local health club, when I'd visit the employee from Hursley who worked on my team at the time.
- Refreshment
London, near Golder's Green, where I swam prior to meeting with a Jewish lesbian woman who turned out to be the daughter of a man my mother had dated and liked.
Art
During business trips at the Inter-Continental in Chicago, offering the second-most dramatic pool I've ever swum in, as it was in Art Deco style.
Vacation
Ogunquit, Maine, where Pat and I stayed at a gay-owned B&B; lesbians raced in the pool while gay men lounged in the adjacent jacuzzi, to one another's amusement.
Drama
The Grand Hotel on Mackinac Island, in a giant outdoor pool designed for Esther Williams, which was the most dramatic pool I've swum in due to its size and history.
Expansion
Pacific Ocean off of Conchas Chinas Beach in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico with Pat and three friends, where the tide threw us against the shore and gave us shell-burn.
Garden
Snorkeling for the first time in the Gulf of Mexico in Costa Maya, Mexico with Pat and friends, including Paul Noga and his partner, during the EAGLE cruise.
Appreciation
Our friends' house in East Hampton, New York; lounging on my side on a pool-float, one of their comments made me feel ultimately aesthetically appreciated.
Competition
Atlantic Ocean with a friend during our visit in East Hampton; we treaded water for nearly an hour and then I felt her racing me back to shore....She won.
Marvel
Mt. Scopus campus pool at Hebrew University -- the first infinity pool I had swum in; it didn't exist 20 years ago when I was a student abroad there.
Pleasure
Outdoor pool in Stony Creek, New York, during the "Adirondyke Weekend," accepting a dare to dive in the pool in my clothes and then my Adidas track-pants slid off.
Melancholy
Community pool in Rye, New York with my friend Sarah and her kids, and sadly, couldn't recapture our childhood swimming experiences with her children there.
Solitude
Beijing indoor hotel pool, which was big and nearly round, and colder than any indoor pool I've ever swum in; there was no lifeguard and I was completely alone in the pool.
Disaster
Hotel pool in Shanghai in October, where I did butterfly, figuring I could work out the pain in my neck through swimming -- turned out not to be a good strategy.
Relief
Outdoor pool at friends' condo in St. Pete's Beach, Florida over New Year's -- my neck was still tender and so I just sat in the water, and it felt good to have no gravity on my neck.
Redemption
Young Men's Hebrew Association (YMHA) in Clifton, New Jersey, where Pat and I joined as a couple, and which has the most calm pool ever, with blue-on-blue tile.
Utility
Boston Sports Club in Lexington, Massachusetts, where the soap in the showers smelled better than the pool looked, but it was utilitarian and just fine.
Revival
Lagos community indoor pool in Madrid, Spain, which was hectic and a bit cold, but with views of gorgeous trees, and filled with older women and young gay men.
Delight
In El Escorial, Spain's community pool, including infinity edges, a gorgeous female swim coach of a beautiful teenage swim team; during one swim, a couple in the other lane were boldly affectionate, and during another swim, witnessed an adorable swim class for toddler-aged children and their parents.
Added nearly a year later, on 25 May 2007:
Molasses
In Allouez, Wisconsin, at the YMCA's pool from the '50s, Olympic-size and shallow the whole length, which is what I believe made it so slow for swimming, but it was near Pat's brother's house and so it was ultimately convenient during our vacation.
Awe
In Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin's Y, the family of a ship-building baron had donated an ultra-fresh "aquatic center," which was Olympian-ready and giant. The water-aerobics class was held next to the lane-swimmers, with plenty of room for everyone.
Spirit
In Ann Arbor, Michigan, at the Central Campus Rec. Building's Bell Pool, which sported maize and blue banners at each end; other than Beijing's, and the out-of-the-ground pool next to our house, it was the coldest pool in which I'd ever swum.
Added on 3 November 2007:
Beep
In Bangalore, India, at the Windsor Bengaluru, where I could hear the auto-rickshaws and two-wheelers beeping beyond the wall of greenery every time I came up for air while doing the breast-stroke, and the pool was nearly as cold as Beijing's and Ann Arbor's.
Contest
In Whitefield, India, at the Palm Meadows Club, where we live, it's a competition in the lap-pool among us and the kids from around the world, floating on various blow-up toys.
Infinity
In Cochi, India, at the Taj Malabar, it felt like we could have swum over the edge of the infinity pool into the lake beyond it and then out to the Arabian Sea; it captured my imagination.
Silk
In Agra, India, at the Oberoi, the air was hot and dry and the pool smooth and huge, with a portion indoors, where a giant, gold Ganesh on the blue wall beckoned us to swim toward him over and over.
Added on 25 May 2008:
Salt II
At our friends' condo-pool at John's Pass, St. Pete Beach, Florida, where the swimming pool was a salt-water pool -- unnerving to be in a blue-bottomed, concrete enclosure, rather than the ocean and yet to taste salt-water; Pat liked our extra buoyancy.
Cooler
At our friends' pool in their backyard in South Pasadena, Florida, where the water made the hot air suddenly cooler, and where the salamanders feasted on what Rita skimmed off of the pool's surface...and where the neighbors' grandson, his grandmother and I played an endless, fun round of beach-ball volleyball.
Added on 20 September 2008:
Sugar
The Radisson Hotel on Cesar Chavez Boulevard in Austin, Texas offered sweet, warm water and the second-longest hotel-pool I've ever swum in (the longest was at the Grand Hotel on Mackinac Island). I plowed through the already-warm, early-morning darkness, while the pool-lights changed, green-red-blue, without a clock and guessed 30 minutes perfectly -- confirmed by looking in the window, at the bottom of the CNN screen on a TV monitor at the bar of T.G.I. Friday's restaurant, which overlooked the pool.
Added on 6 May 2009:
Exhalation
Danbury, Connecticut's Courtyard Mariott provided a pool not much bigger than a bathtub, but it was so lovely to immerse myself and to swim a few strokes back and forth with my French friend, Sonia, who was staying at the hotel during a business trip.
Added on 20 June 2010:
Race
Upper Saddle River, New Jersey at our friends' home in a salt-water pool big enough for a race. I won, going and Rahel might have won, returning. Rahel's daughter, Aspen, was the water-winged three-year-old sprite, who made me, if not Pat, feel like a friendly giant.
Added on 21 January 2011
Mist
Los Angeles, California, at a hotel on Wilshire the name of which I can't recall, the air was so chilly and the water so well-heated that I swam through mist till the rain began.
Added on 23 May 2012
Hike
Juneau, Alaska, at Juneau High School in August, 2011, to which we hiked for the afternoon from our ship. The pool was sponsored by BP Oil and the walls were painted green and sported the BP logo.
Chill
Dallas, Texas, at the Hyatt in October, 2011, where the indoor pool was not heated, nor the room it was in, and my visit was during unusually cold weather for the time, in the low-50s; it woke me up prior to dressing for a business dinner.
Added on 29 May 2012
Grief
Clifton, New Jersey, at L.A. Fitness gym, where we have to go, now that the Clifton YMHA closed due to low membership and being sold to a special needs school; we miss the Y.
Added on 24 November 2012
Dream
Jerusalem, Israel, at the Mt. of Olives Hotel, with my wife Pat. Being in Israel with someone who loved me (other than my parents), was dreamy. And fun to see fellow swimmers served watermelon while perching in the shallow end.
Cork
The Dead Sea, Israel. Pat & I were human corks. It was >100 degrees and it felt just as special to stand under the public showers afterward, blasting ourselves with fresh water, to rinse off all of the salt.
Congestion
Across from the Dead Sea, Israel, at Hotel Rimmonim (Pomegranates). Refreshing after the concentrated salt across the road at the Dead Sea, but then too much humanity, and plastic cups, bobbed around the giant and crammed pool till Pat & I opted out.
Vigor
Kibbutz Lavi, Galil, Israel. That morning, we were in the heat of Metro-Dead Sea, then by afternoon, in the relatively chilly air of the country's north side. We jumped in the cool pool that was indoors, but with all of its glass-doors and windows open, and with a brisk breeze blowing through.
Jelly
Tel Aviv, Israel, Mediterranean Sea. Pat and I submerged ourselves in the green-yellow dirty/cloudy water and it was also rough, pushing us around, and not in the fun way I remember when my cousin Nitza and I used to body-surf in it near Netanya when we were 15. We ran into a number from our tour-group who had welts on their arms and legs; they'd been stung by jelly fish at the same beach!
Rinse
Dan Panorama Hotel, Tel Aviv, Israel. We showered swiftly by the pool, and then slid into the shallow end, feeling relieved to rinse off the sea, and that the jelly fish had left us alone.
Ache
Guarujá, Brasil. I was with four work colleagues, rather than Pat, at the most gorgeous beach in the world: powdery-fine, white sand and glowing blue sea-water. All of us went barefoot and two of us rolled up our pants to our knees and waded in. The waves splashed above my knees and salted the cloth. I ached to dive in. It was a happy torture.
"Comfortition"
Slough, United Kingdom. It was 6 am, with only the under-water lights of the indoor pool lit. Swimming next to a colleague was both comforting and pressure-filled, which made me swim faster. I coined the term, "comfortition," while swimming and realizing the two at-odds emotions.
Treadmill
Westford, Massachusetts. The pool at the Marriott Courtyard Hotel was long enough for seven strokes per lap. Still, I loved it, as outside was the aftermath of a Nor'easter storm and yet, indoors, I was swimming in warmth.
Expansion II
Bangalore, India. April swimming at 9ish am in an outdoor pool that wasn't heated -- possible for me only during the hottest time of the year in India. Both times, had it all to myself and felt like my limbs could stretch to the four corners of the pool as I did breaststroke.
Added on 16 February 2014
Underwater-Disco
Minneapolis, Minnesota, at the Hilton. Instead of tiles, the pool floor and walls were covered with aluminum-y metal and the light played off of it, making me feel like a Disco star while I swam.
Traffic Jam
Dedham, Massachusetts, at the Hilton. The many-child family was an obstacle course and the water was as warm as a bath, but the pool-size was decent and I was desperate for a submersion after our four-hour ride through a hectic snow flurry-storm up New Jersey and much of the slice of New York we drove through. Loved the chill, coming from the glass walls, and contrasting with the heat of the pool.
Added on 2 March 2014
Steppe
Reykjavik, Iceland at the Laugardalslag public pool -- indoors. It was the hugest pool I'd ever swum in, vast, and I felt relatively tiny in it. Pat & I had the whole thing to ourselves while swimming and giant music speakers in the center of the ceiling played American '70s classic rock.
Glow
Reykjavik, Iceland, at the Laugardalslag public pool -- outdoors. Pat and I stepped out into 2-degree-Celcius weather in our wet swimsuits and with our soaked heads, feeling certain that Icelanders were crazy for doing this habitually. How could all of the other people outside look so unbothered by the weather? And then we found a hot-pot of geothermally-heated water and sunk into it, laying our heads back till our ears were covered with loving, warm water. When we exited the warmth, we couldn't remember where the door was to get back to the locker room and walked around for a time, searching. Marvelously, we were not cold, though we were still wet and it was still 2 degrees out.
Mung
Arnessysla, Iceland, at the Laugarvatn Fontana. In contrast to the public-pool experience, where I neglected to mention that there were strict matrons, making sure everyone washed naked with soap prior to suiting up, this place -- despite its crisp lake-and-mountain views -- felt unsanitary in a particular geothermal pool. Pat & I walked in up to our hips and Pat declared, perhaps a bit too loudly, as she reflected later, privately, and with a grin, "I'm not staying in this one; it's full of mung!" When we returned to the locker room, someone had taken Pat's towel...not the ultimately relaxing experience we had hoped for, but then we climbed a glacier and saw the Northern Lights that night and felt better.
Goo
Svartsengi, Iceland, at the Blue Lagoon. I think of this as the Goo Lagoon because while it was spacious, the geothermally-heated, mineral-rich liquid we moved through was super-viscous and my feet wondered at the unsavory bottom, full of toe-stubbing opportunities and gloppy squishiness. Also, people were drinking drinks while immersed and there were no signs, let alone human monitors, requiring pre-immersion showers, so I wondered at the cleanliness -- or lack -- of it. The best part was wrapping my arms around Pat's shoulders and resting my cheek on her back and being ferried part-way 'round the space for a ride. My favorite experience of geo-thermal water had been at the public pool four days prior.
Added on 1 February 2018
Mood-light
Jerusalem, Israel, at the Mamilla Hotel. Felt underground, but not in the way the ancient part of the Old City's underground looked, all stony and tunnelly. It was warm and shallow and mood-lit and purple-tiled. Spent better time on the elliptical, watching Katy Perry sing on my monitor while listening to two apparently local women and neighbors of the hotel, speaking animatedly in Hebrew during their workout.
Wedding
Beit Herut, Israel, at the community pool. I didn't swim there as an adult, but during a 2015 visit with Pat, remembered an experience I had at 15, when I swam in that pool all summer while staying with my second cousins: One evening the pool was transformed by a small sailboat filled with flowers, floating in its middle as part of a local family's wedding celebration. My same-aged cousin Nitza and I sat in the adjacent park when it grew dark while bats flew and swooped just above our heads it seemed. I was afraid and Nitza wasn't.
Color
Tel Aviv, Israel, at the beach in front of the Hilton. Each morning of our stay, I took a dip not so much for exercise, but to feel the warmth of the water under the early sun and to smile at the bright yellow, little fish that swam under me. That beach was supposed to be where most of the gay men hung out in Tel Aviv, but during these early-morning swims, I was surrounded by what appeared to be heterosexual couples who were nearly octogenerians.
Skyscraper
Shanghai, China, at the Ritz-Carlton. I wasn't as intrepid in 2016 as prior (see "Solitude" above), and so I couldn't immerse myself any deeper than waist-level due to the cold temperature of the water. In 2005, the water was even colder, yet I managed to swim in it for 30 minutes. This time, my swim cap was unnecessary, as I paced half a length and back on foot, looking out the window at eye-level with higher floors of the other skyscrapers around us. I avoided eye-contact with the other swimmers, a couple of whom I recognized from our tour, and then sheepishly climbed out.
Club
Tenakill Swim Club, Tenafly, New Jersey. Joined my cousins Carol and Alex, her where-did-the-time-go-mature son, for a partly-sunny conversation on classic pool-side lounges, and then for a dip with Alex. I felt immersed not only in the cool pool, but in a community that represented generations of club members. For that afternoon, Pat & I, too, were in the club.
Oasis
Santa Fe, New Mexico at the Genoveva Chavez Community Center. More lap-lanes were available than in any other pool I'd ever seen. This indoor pool seemed double or triple the Olympic-sized pool, where we swam in Reykjavik. A ~12-foot-high digital clock on the wall made it easy for me to clock 30 minutes. Walking back to my rental car after a welcome, needle-spray shower, the enormous pool was visible to my right, and a regulation-size ice skating rink to my left. I swam in the pool three luscious times.
Added on 4 May 2019
Welcome
Memphis, Tennessee, at the Memphis Jewish Community Center. A trip to the land of R&B and horses and mega-synagogues after Chanukah in 2018 included daily dunks in the welcoming, gentle, giant, indoor pool of the local JCC. Pat & I talked and trod water for 30 minutes each time, then lay on our backs and let go luxuriantly, letting the water cradle us. At Temple Israel on Friday night, we introduced ourselves and sat next to a kind woman we had seen at the pool.
Added on 7 July 2019
Genius
Cambridge, Massachusetts, at the Hyatt Cambridge. Who's swimming with me in my sunlit lane? A prospective MIT professor and her husband? Visiting researchers? Certainly, I'm in the right 'hood for such swimming companions. These 75 feet of salty water are my reward for catching a 6:22 am train out of Newark Penn Station. It's my pleasure, doing the backstroke with one eye shut behind my dark goggles against the sun blazing past the retracted roof.
Added on 21 August 2021
Splendor
Memphis Tennessee, in our backyard. COVID-19 was raging and we thought we might never swim again if we didn't buy a house with a pool so last July, we did. Nearly every summer evening, Pat & I glide down the clean, wide steps and into gently rippling deep end, where we chat while treading water for 30-50 minutes. The water and we lap luxuriantly.
Added on 12 June 2023
Goudanator
Somewhere in the Southern Caribbean in April, 2022. We shared the ship's pool in the early mornings and watched the crews clean it nightly after sunscreened party animals crammed it from mid morning till sunset. Time spent there shed the ounces earned by eating gouda and more gouda at each Dutch-influenced country, where we docked.
Wetsuitable
Tel Aviv, Israel, Hilton Hotel. Just like in 2015, the pool would have been more immersible if I had had a wetsuit to wear. My ears stung when I submerged in the water, and that's how I knew it was warm enough only for treading water. And this time, I dipped only my toes in the Mediterranean Sea some hundreds of feet away.
Last Resort
Eilat, Israel, Dan Eilat Hotel. I was the only non-Israeli swimmer in the pool, it seemed, since COVID-19 had slashed tourism in June, 2022. There were, however, plenty of Israelis to zigzag around. What a lovely view of the Red Sea into which I also dipped only my toes.
Treat
Snow Lake, Mississippi. Jumped off a dock and back into a happier version of my childhood (see "Mud" and "Frustration" above). "Here's to new beginnings!" Keegon, my friend and fellow-writers'-retreat-comrade, called out as we held hands and launched ourselves. What a treat to bob with other writers, including Rebecca, Sharon, Alice, Sheri, and Elizabeth, and the baby turtle that peaked at us periodically. I also skimmed the surface both as a brand-new paddle boarder and pontoon passenger thanks to our hosts, Tracey, another writer, and her lovely husband Brian.
