I remember this time of year — that awkward pause between the last swims of fall and the closing-in of the season. I don’t really want to go to the pool, b/c that would be admitting that’s where I’ll be all winter, but I can’t easily get into the water. Olivia says she’s got a swim or two left in her this year, but the tide wasn’t right last weekend.
So I’m running instead, & left home this afternoon around 2 pm under bright sunshine. Heard a slow rippling grumble as I passed the post office. A sharp crack at Sweet Bears, our local coffee-shop-cum-ice-cream outfit. The sun blazed off the sound to my right & I thought I’d get my short run in before any storm came. The wind had been off the water when I’d left home.
The rain started as I was running down Double Beach Road toward the headquarters of CT Hospice (formerly the Double Beach Club & still a great place to swim — long story). The wind now came from the northwest, inland. It blew hard, making a cold, sharp staccato on my shoulders and back.
Hail mixed in as I turned into the Turtle Bay condo complex, & I started to think about the physical properties of water. All three states surrounded me: liquid rain, solid ice, and water vapor. Shakespeare talks about a “sea of air” somewhere, Timon I think. No need to get in the Sound to get wet today.
By the time I got home I was soaked, and the sun was shining. What was it Mark Twain said about the weather in CT?
Weather is a funny thing. It’s funny how all of the elements, like you said, can exist around you at all points, solid, liquid, and gas, among others, but the one funny thing about it, it’s all water, and it all embodies one thing; the thing you love. While the weather prohibited you from swimming and you found yourself running, it may have been giving you a sign to get your ass into the lake, and to stop running. Maybe you should have went swimming. The sign may lie in the end of your event though, and that was when you got home to a shining sun. I can smell the heavy air, the muggy, steamy, slippery climate, and after a run, all you want to do is cool off. Maybe that sun was a symbol…something telling you to dive in. It had to punish you while you chose against swimming, and torment you during the run, but still reminded you that it was WATER that was doing it. At the end, I think you know what to do.