Masters Forever

In August, I started swimming with a masters swim team at UIC. A number of things led me to go back to swimming, mainly body aches and boredom with workout routines. 

It's been truly wonderful to be the almost-slowest in the pool again. I think swimming gave me the good quality of being able to laugh at myself. Because sometimes, try as you may, you are just going to be slower than all the other 60 year olds in the pool. 

My favorite lane mate is named Dave. He's 59 and I'm positive he was hyperactive as a child. He's so fast, and he makes fun of me by calling me a "fitness swimmer." Not infrequently, he passes me up and has to be the lane leader, and then he makes me count down the seconds until the next interval since he can't see the clock. It delights me every time. 

I admire his energy and enthusiasm at 59, and I swim faster when he's there. I want to be a cool old person who's still killing it in the pool in 20 years. 

I also signed up for a masters swim meet in Munster, Indiana in November. It was a good goal to work towards, and it was fun to see what adrenaline could do for my race times. It turns out I'm still slower than when I was 23 which was slower than when I was 17, but I guess that's normal and I was pretty happy with my times considering I'd only been swimming 2-3 hours/week vs 20 hours/week. 

Also cool at the masters meet was that there were people of all walks and ages there to compete. College kids, mom's and dads, 70 year olds! No matter your time, everyone was happy to cheer you on for just being there. That 68 year old who finished her 50 free more than a lap behind everyone else was amazing. She finished and didn't care. Or maybe she did, but I couldn't tell and she was my hero. 

Anyways, I suppose it's now time to enter into my swimming era part 2. Maybe one day I'll figure out how to be faster but I won't count on it. 

Chicago's Historic November 2016

Last week I said that I didn't care about baseball, but I cared about history.  Then the Cubs won the World Series! For the first time in 108 years! The ultimate underdog story -- the notoriously losing team winning the National League and qualifying for the World Series, then recovering from a 3-1 loss-win to come from behind and take it all, in a 10-inning 7th game with a dramatic rain delay after the 9th inning.

Chicago went wild. Every window was filled with silhouettes of people jumping up and down, people ran exuberantly in the streets, whooping and cheering could be heard across the city in every neighborhood. Everyone walked with excitement and confidence in every step, congratulating each other on "our" win. Everyone felt united and together! The Cubs did it for us! We were part of history! Everyone at work was zombies from celebrating too hard for too many nights in a row!

And up to this point, I'd say that I don't care about politics. But again, we made history. Trump also represents an unbelievable win, unexpected and unprecedented in American history in many ways.

Chicago went quiet. Every face in the streets, on the bus, and on the train felt blank. Every conversation I passed in the street was about the election -- commentary on this year's divisive campaigns, speculation on what the future could look like, how his win could represent "our" country. We were part of history. Everyone at work was zombies from wondering too hard how this happened.

Leading up to the election, a lot of people kept saying that they "couldn't wait for it to be over." I'd respond that it was actually just beginning, but I didn't know that I'd be so right either. I don't have a big agenda for calls-to-action or justice, but I stop and think about how this is history and that anything and anyone is always a possibility. 

And I suppose it's that thought that I should remember to motivate me to stay involved and pay attention to things I haven't cared about. Because we are part of history.