My swim this morning was off-kilter. It was a beautiful day, a little chilly, but the pool was pleasantly warm. I didn�t feel particularly tired, but I must have been. When I swim, it�s all kinesthesia. I�m frequently not entirely aware of what my body is doing. It�s trance-inducing. The rhythms are remembered in my muscles and bones; my head is elsewhere. Except that this morning nothing was quite where it was supposed to be. I was careening out of line, swimming diagonals across the pool (mercifully empty except for me). I gulped mouthfuls of water � my lungs are still aching. At one point I ducked below the surface, having the distinct impression that something large � a tree branch perhaps, was falling over me. It was just a strand of my hair, escaped from the rubber strap on my goggles. It was disconcerting. Normally when I experience a glitch in the mechanism, I swim it off after a few laps. But today I didn�t start to feel normal until it was almost time to get out.

With any other physical activity, I always write off the uncoordinated days to exhaustion or lack of attention. But something about the nature of the way I swim � the fundamental rhythm of the breath, the pure sensuality of the activity � makes it feel more like a psychic break.

Fortunately, as I emerged from the water into the cool morning air, I was distracted by the arrival of my husband and AJ who had come to meet me. AJ had decided he wanted to play in the pool, so we spent an hour splashing around. AJ most enjoyed throwing diving rings into the water and watching me collect them. The game was that he would throw them as far apart as possible and then I would try to pick them up on a single breath.

The morning has left us all exhausted and we�ve retreated to our separate corners for recovery. My husband is dozing on the porch. AJ is napping in his bed. And I am prowling around the basement, hoping to write, although I�ll probably end up filing. This is not the material of my life that I used to imagine, but the small domesticities are soothing in the face of the great anxiety of the Dissertation that Will Not Be Finished.

When I discover the moral to that fable, I will let you know.

0 people said it like they meant it