It’s all here, where it was stowed away ten months ago ---
the bronze padlock with its small silver key, the old plastic soap holder with
a slit of Yardley’s English lavender still in it, plus odds and ends of those
tiny motel shampoos and packets of free sample conditioners my friend’s husband
got us.
There's a bright fuchsia bathing cap too, some places require you to wear a cap though I hate to and broken goggles, which I found somewhere but never wear. There is an empty soft pink container that will keep things ‘sort of’ chilled and a few plastic bags tucked in to hold a wet bathing suit. Scents of suntan lotion and chlorine come out at me. And in a protective bag are Benadryl pills (in case I get stung by a bee --- I hope not!).
I thrill opening the zipper of the bright blue bag and
finding everything there --- waiting. I notice that the soap holder has a rubber
band around it --- it pops open without it.
In some ways, I have never really liked the blue bag that holds it all
--- it bears the name of my old boyfriend’s company on its side. The bag’s got a droopy shape to it but I
can’t quite part with it. Maybe, I can’t
part with this remnant of him so I carry the blue bag back and forth to beaches
and pools, wherever I can find to swim.
Today it will be our local Brooklyn pool in an adjoining
neighborhood. It’ll be my first swim of
the season.
It’s summer again.
The pool finally opened. I often
wonder why someone who loves nature, plants, flowers and water so lives in a
climate where I only get to enjoy outdoors such a short part of the year?
Everything's packed up and ready to go. The bag waited up on a shelf in the middle room all fall and winter and spring but now it’s time.
And, but a few blocks around the corner, cool aquamarine
water awaits me. And, the magic, the
silent thrill, of gliding through it.
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