The things I love about swimming:

• the immediate sense of relaxation as soon as I dive in
• watching the tiles on the bottom as I churn through laps – it’s my meditation
• the ritual – from the order of my laps to the way I roll my towel and bathers post-swim
• the lingering smell of chlorine or the grit of salt

The specifics: I’m a medium-laner; always a 50-metre pool; always outdoors (all year round).

The Swimmers by Julie Otsuka is a novel in two parts. The first is about an indoor pool and its swimmers. Swimming can be a great leveler, and Otsuka captures this in her descriptions –

We suffer from bad backs, fallen arches, shattered dreams, broken hearts, anxiety, melancholia, anhedonia, the usual aboveground afflictions. Continue reading →