A 6-month pool season is my "sisu"

Today, October 15th, I swam 55 laps in my darn cold pool. Over the past few decades, I discovered some lakes that were just as cold in the national forest or state parks in California, so jumping in a freezing cold lake has been a ritual for a while. Like a rejuvenating, wholesome cleansing. I have fond memories of going with my sons and whichever parent was visiting at the time to Emerald Bay at South Lake Tahoe despite the big sign with a warning about the cold temperature. Maybe I am a dopamine-junkie (in my late twenties, I tried sky diving and I always crave wild rides and roller-coasters at fairs, like my oldest son). I often marveled at an aerial view of the pools seen from an airplane that departed from Dorval (now Trudeau) airport. The artist in me always thought they looked like paint pots with all shades of blue and green.

Cold water has many benefits. Namely, it is great for circulation, pain control and stress reduction. This activity is one of the many healthy approaches that Finnish people enjoy and is part of what they call "sisu", another tool to add to your toolbox, along with the Danes' hygge I described last week. I am determined to use everything the House of Enchantments has to offer. There will come a time when it will be too cold for me to venture in my pool with my bathing suit, but recently, the weather has been quite pleasant, and I plan on swimming as long as the outdoors feels like summer.

When I take a plunge, going all at once, without soaking my body gradually, without negotiating with myself because it has become a routine, without thinking that it is indeed cold, I feel like I can leave my head for a little bit and just focus on being in my body by swimming and counting the laps. As I go, I also remove floating leaves that keep teasing me (because I just removed many with a net from the surface of the water or swept around the pool). 

It is rather interesting to note that I have not always expressed that side of me as a "water person". When I was young, I was very scared of water. I don't know if I should attribute my phobia to questionable teaching methods in the swimming school across the street where instructors apparently "threw" the babies into the pool. I am the proud recipient of a "floatability certificate" for when I was a toddler but to me the merit it implies doesn't reflect reality. 

This certification is a joke. I vividly recall that, a few years later, as a kindergartener, maybe traumatized by this brutally immersive method, I was scared to death when we all had to jump in the deep section of the pool because I didn't know how to swim. I remember as if it were yesterday letting out terrified sobs as I clung onto my instructor's bathing suit. She seemed more worried about me pulling it down than caring about soothing my fear. It took another 3 years for me to tame my fear of water and experience the incredible freedom that comes from the miraculous alchemy between moving and holding one's breath to float and swim. I must thank my grandmother Idéa for that. I still remember her patient approach with me as she demonstrated the skill and guided me in the wading pool of the RV park we were vacationing at in Orlando, Florida. 

A pool, with all its summery and fun possibilities, has always been magical since that point on. I didn't grow up in a house with a pool even though I begged my parents to get one. Everyone else (neighbors, relatives, classmates) seemed to have one, so I would often end up being invited somewhere, thankfully. But waiting to be invited doesn't provide the sense of freedom that I now experience, not having to ask anyone's permission and being able to lead a life on my own terms as I open the kitchen door and cross the mini bridge leading to my pool. Every time I enter my pool is like redeeming a bit of my childhood.

I was proud when my sons learned to swim before the age I was when I learned. And I am proud of them today for being the avid swimmers they are.

Now I am writing this blog filled with gratitude next to my own blue paint pot. 

In med school, I remember reconnecting with this activity in my hometown at the local pool. During my residency, I remember getting up early in the morning to go swim laps at the university pool.  It was as cold as February can be and I recall my long, wet hair freezing as I exited the building to go start my clinical day. I never took lessons besides what my grandmother taught me. But what mattered to me was to move my body more than having the technique right.

In the Quebec I grew up in, people will get their pool running in June, and generally not beyond September. I am hoping that my pool season in Northern California will be at least 6 months, starting in April. But at this time, it is not over yet, as the weather forecast indicates some days above 30 Celsius this week. After that, to stay sane during the fall and winter months, I will have to find a replacement for that "sisu" method. Suggestions, anyone?