Moving slow as molasses. Treading, flapping. The water holds me down, holds me back, and my muscles all feel it.
I’m in the pool. It feels so good.
The water is warm, the sunlight is streaming through the walls of windows. Outside, the trees are moving easily, and the green stretches down to the lake, up and into the distance.
I haven’t been here for weeks, and it feels like months since I used to leap into the pool for an hour of water aerobics class.
I move so slowly now.
But it’s not all bad. I work my way through laps of something like stretching and something like walking. I can do it. Tom smiles at me.
And I see beauty.
The sunlight and the trees reflect into the water as it ripples with me. In late afternoon, the sun is low and the reflection breaks into bars and swirls of color.
Every lap I get a reward.
The light shifts, the branches shift, the water shifts, in a dance that never stops.
I move slower than the dance.
But I move.