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In times of crisis, I go to water. It can be wading in the ocean or watching a storm or planning my run to take me over a bridge or sitting next to a man-made waterfall or even just taking a shower. I spend a ludicrous amount of time in aquariums. More than that, I’ve discovered that it’s also an integral part of my general self-care. I have lived away from water. It is not something I intend to ever do again.

Every time I go visit my family, I come back nostalgic for the storms and for the ready access to swimming pools. I moved away over twenty years ago. Next month, I will have been here for eight years. It’s always the same. I go. I come back. I lament about real rain, especially if I didn’t get a good storm while I was there and wish I could swim more. The cycle repeats.

This time was different.

I went. I swam every day. Sometimes twice a day. At one point, I realized I had swum every twelve hours for the previous four days. Eight a.m. Eight p.m. Eight a.m. Eight p.m. Ridiculous. Marvelous. I sat on the screened-in porch with a glass of good scotch and a book while it was storming and promptly forgot about the book. I went barefoot in the rain to get the mail. I may’ve danced a little.

I came back. I wrote a love letter to the rain that I shared with the world and grumbled about access to swimming to myself. And then I sat down and gave myself a good talking to. The result of that talking to was finding a pool that is near both work and home, that has reasonable rates and a good chlorine balance, and that has lap lanes during my lunch time.

This may be one of the best things I’ve ever done for myself.

It is vigorous like my self defense practice (which I also sometimes do during lunch) but without the need to manage the adrenaline after. It is soothing and therapeutic like meditation or reading (which I also sometimes do during lunch) without the harsh readjustment to the workday when I’m all floaty or otherwise transported.

My strokes still feel a little clumsy. I never was a swimmer, per se; I just swam and I’ve only really become as much of an athlete as I am in the last five years or so. This week, I worked on bilateral breathing. Holy crap, that’s hard. I have a lot of trouble ‘breathing into the trough’ on my left side but I’m making progress. I suspect I may pick up the frequency when I’m not actively training for one thing or another—right now it’s a half marathon—but for now this is perfect. So very perfect.