by Jay Hiller, August 19, 2023
Photo by César Couto on Unsplash
After a 6 day worky-work work week, my husband and I got up early and drove to Barton Springs this morning. Walking from the parking lot while it was still dark everything smelt like dead grass because of the extreme heat we’ve been having and I wondered how it was going to be. I felt happy before I even got in the water. It’s always a special experience there and everybody seemed to be in a good mood. I was surprised by how many people were already there at 6:30. Such a special experience swimming into the sunrise. When we were finished swimming I did my dorky jump off the diving board. I wish we could go every week. Take me swimmin’.
Something else that happened
Every Sunday I teach a stand up paddleboard yoga class and every Sunday I reassure nervous guests that the paddleboard doesn’t want to pitch you into the water and the boards are more stable than they appear. I say, “It’s not impossible to fall in. I don’t think you’re going to fall in.” Most of the time I’m right. I’ve been saying that every week for three years.
Without going into too much detail, two weeks ago, the last time I taught the class, I was hauling the big float we hook the SUPs into back to the boat dock. I couldn’t get it to move. I kept checking to make sure I’d unhooked from the buoy. I had. Without going into all the embarrassing details of how long it took me to figure out a bungee thing-a-ma-jig hanging off the float had gotten tangled up with a hook hanging off the buoy, I will share that while figuring it out I not only fell off my paddleboard, I completely flipped it over. Until two weeks ago, I thought was almost impossible to do. I was super anxious because I had 20 minutes to figure out what was wrong get the equipment back to the dock, change my clothes and teach another class. All during my 6-day work week in air-conditioned flourescent-lit environment, trying to problem solve weird and irritating stuff, my mind kept going back to what it was like floating in Lake Austin, doing a different kind of problem solving.
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