“To swim is to enter a new state.”
—Lou Stoppard’s essay, “Winter Swimming” in At The Pond
“In water, all possibilities seem infinitely extended . . .
. . . you are free of the tyranny of gravity and the weight of the atmosphere.”
—Roger Deakin, Waterlog (as quoted by Stoppard)
It’s 5:30 a.m., and I’m typing in a dark hotel room after two-and-a-half cups of Starbucks Dark Roast coffee, percolated in pods with disposable plastic brew baskets.
I should be preparing opening remarks for my Free Time keynote tomorrow morning, one I’m nervous about. But I’m not.1
I shouldn’t even be writing this essay.