The Last Day of Summer Swimming

Today is the last day of summer for our neighborhood pool but you could not tell by the blazing sun and the hot temperatures in the upper nineties for the entire week. But the pool is closing tomorrow. My sky-blue liquid heaven will empty its content for the winter after the dog swim on Saturday.

The water was warmer today and families started showing up with their kids in tow, squealing with delight when the lifeguard turned on the huge blue mushroom, cascading water like a waterfall for the kids of all ages to play, including my husband.

Peter, the best lifeguard of all, hailing from Slovenia with his lovely girlfriend, was doing his daily job of vacuuming the pool, the pool that, thanks to his hard work, sparked all summer long. An hour later, a gust of wind blew new dead leaves from the nearby forest, floating like tiny brown and yellow fallen wings. They flew and danced in the air momentarily before landing in the crystal-clear shimmering water.

I am going to miss my watery paradise and so is my hubby who joined me on weekends. We did our water aerobics religiously every day, unless it rained, or we were out of town.  I swam in the deeper end while he floated and dog paddled, waiting for the 15-minute break whistle when everyone had to come out of the pool so that lifeguards could take a break. The pool is quite large and, whoever is on duty, must scan constantly a large surface for all the kids floating and playing in the deeper end.

The pool is just two streets from our home and, most mornings, I was the only one swimming at 11 a.m. It felt like it was my own pool but without the trouble of having to maintain it. It is the only time I can say that I got our money’s worth from paying the steep HOA fees.

Water aerobics and swimming are good forms of exercise for everyone. As we age, it is very important to maintain our muscle mass, especially in the legs. Sarcopenia is very dangerous and a real threat. Exercising in water is much easier and it uses muscles that otherwise would be impossible to target in a gym, without using highly specific exercise machines.

I shall miss my five-foot-deep pool, its privacy provided by the lush forest nearby, the blue mushroom with the waterfall, and the yellow flowers that attracted the tiny gold finches almost daily until the beautiful flowers turned to seeds. It was fun to save the frogs who jumped in the pool every morning for a swim and could not escape the slippery tiles without our human intervention. It was certainly fun chasing them around the pool with a fishing net.

Goodbye summer fun, hello beautiful fall foliage!

September 4, 2023

Note: The photo is not our actual pool.