Just keep swimming

The nights are getting colder. Small things remind me that fall is here. The other day, I noticed a shrub covered in cobwebs with drops of water on their silky strands. Leaves are beginning to turn.

When I was in high school, I used to stand on a chair every once in a while to get a different perspective. I would imagine being tall for a day and getting to see the tops of everyone’s heads.

When I swim at Walden Pond, I keep my heading above water from time to time for the same reason. I like to see how things look from the middle. It is like being on the inside of a snow globe and looking out. I can see people appear along the water’s edge at the little, secluded beaches around the periphery of the pond. I watched leaves float on the wind and gently rest on the surface of the water. Butterflies glide by. Jays screech from somewhere in the trees. Airplanes fly overhead. The purple commuter rail rumbles on the tracks.

This is not Thoreau’s Walden.

It is my Walden.

And someday it will belong to someone else.

Not that one can really own anything.

I will call myself a renter.

I pay my annual parking pass dues, and in return I will continue to dip into the cool waters for a weekly escape into another world for as long as my body can stand it.

I am a water strider.

I am a frog.

I may not be a fish, but I love to visit their home.