The water is really warm for the first three inches below the surface, and beneath that lies cold currents and sharp, greasy rocks.
I forgot I could float.
A deep, deep breath and my natural body fat enable me to coast along on this green lake, with just my tits, toes and nose above the surface. My ears can only hear a weird, atonal hum, like bass pressure, and it sounds wonderful.
A fish swam by. I said hello. I said hello back to myself in the fish's voice. I do that a lot. I get along very well with uncommunicative life forms.
A little yellow bird came down and bathed itself by the rocks. Paula swam over to me and pointed him out. My glasses were tucked down deep inside between my bathing suit and my belly so all I saw was a yellow blur of motion, and i laughed along with her.
She wears a lifejacket; she's afraid of water, and I'm trying to teach her to swim, in return for my driving lessons. I never push people, which is why she's still wearing the lifejacket. It's more than good enough that she's trying. Patience has become a more comfortable virtue for me, this last year. I seem to have an inexhaustible resource of it. I like that.
Part of patience is practice though, and I see her floating there next to me. On my back, I take a deep breath and my toes pop up, all pale and happy. My head at her feet, I reach over and gently clasp her ankle, and after a moment, she holds mine.
We float like that, and it's sparkling on the water, quiet in my head. The sun bounces off of my nose; I'll have so many more freckles tomorrow that I'll look like an Irish stereotype. That's okay; I'm Irish.
Small patches of my skin are warmed, the sink below the water as I let out breath. They're warmed and dry again as they resurface into this glorious August day. The metaphor gets a little heavy, so I drop it.
I can tell there'll be a thunderstorm tonight from the clouds and the encroaching thickness in the air. It's inevitable.
We float like that for ten minutes, an hour, eternity. I think about everyhting and nothing and between, and a bug lands on my nose, apprising its new landscape.
My face, my skin. Things I can't change. I blow the bug off my nose; things I can.
We make an old, inside joke, break apart, swim over to a floating picnic table that someone has considerately thrown in the water. We laugh, we play.
I don't want to leave but there is a time for everything and we do. On the drive home the air becomes so thick in the car that I lean my head and dawdle my arm outside the window, catching air.
The storm tonight will please me. Water is movement. I smile a lot on the way home.