Upon the urging of my yoga teacher, I joined PG Pool, a local private pool in Mount Rainier. I’m not really a private pool kind of person, having spent nearly every summer at my local public pool, first as a swimmer and later as a lifeguard. But, neither is she, and she assured me that it’s a very open pool full of hippies. The ‘hairy-legged breastfeeding pool’ is how it was described to her 18 years ago; that might not be as true these days, since they’ve redone the filter system and the pool liner and our area has gotten a bit more hip in the intervening time. Still, though, there’s a sign at the entrance that says they won’t discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity or veteran status or disability, so that’s a pretty good indication that there are still some hippies kicking around.

Since we’ve joined, I’ve been swimming about every other day. It’s a small miracle that I am able to swim laps at all without having a nonfunctional shoulder, a result I attribute to a decade of body work and physical therapy. More recently, credit is due to the aligning and strengthening effects of 8 months of twice-weekly yoga classes. So I’m back in the pool and the pool is lovely; I’m only doing 600 meters at a time, but this is the most I’ve swum in over a decade so I’m happy. I never thought I’d be glad to have Speedo ™ tanlines, but I am! Truly, any visible marker of my progress is fine with me, and they come with my hair getting back to its ‘normal’ color. (You know, the color it is when I spend all day every day outside in the sun all summer…not something that people could confuse with brown!)

In addition to my regular swims, we’ve been going on weekend evenings to use the gas grills and hang out for the music and late night events. We keep running into people we know from other venues—neighbors, friend of a friend from college, more students of my yoga teacher—and we’re getting to know some new folks as well. We haven’t yet met any other members without kids, and that definitely makes us an anomaly there. I get the impression that the other adults who joined to swim laps go to the early morning swim; I suppose we probably are anomalies as non-parents who don’t mind spending an evening surrounded by hordes of kids.

One of the nice things about the pool is getting to share it with our friends, and we’re looking forward to another picnic dinner there on Saturday. If you show up then, you may get to witness the rare event of my partner drinking beer from a can! (No glass allowed.) Yes, it will probably be some weird imported stuff, but a can is a can.