swimming

It is swimming, of course, and I’m back at it!

Swimming does not hurt your joints, it really works your core, resistance to water tones muscles, you have to really focus on your breathing, etc. etc.

As is customary with me, I was a late adopter, a late bloomer, unlike my sister who was winning swimming championships in high school.

I did not start swimming as a workout until my second year of college when they built a pool. My brother Theo and I would go for a swim almost daily. In my mid 30’s in Madrid, I was schlepping to Chamartín for the amazing 50mts length pool. Back in the US I swam on and off, eventually swimming at the Wellesley YMCA on my way back to Boston from work. Of course, UNC has a phenomenal pool where I loved to swim. I love open water swimming because you don’t have to turn around. In Naples I enjoyed swimming on the Gulf side. Here on the Atlantic coast, I have to wait for the ideal conditions, which are exceedingly rare; no rip tides, no choppy water, no Portuguese Man o’ war, etc. Sadly, in the last 3 years I have only managed to get out about a dozen times.

But the apartment building I have moved to has a lap pool! So, despite my less than perfect technique and my lack of practice, I’m back in the pool and swimming more and more.

If you can get access to a pool, throw on a swimsuit and go swim some laps, you are welcome.

My family used to go on holidays to Galicia, the Northwest coast of Spain. Atlantic water temperature and Atlantic waves. When my little sister Rocky was born we decided to switch our holidays to Mallorca island on the Mediterranean, where we found a little “cala”, inlet on the south shore of the island. Warm, beautiful, tranquil, crystal clear water. We have been coming to the same place for the last forty odd years, Camp de Mar. First we stayed at the “Gran Hotel”, old world style and panache, real furniture, “sit down dinner”, even a springboard on the beautiful pool! Unfortunately, after falling into disrepair it was razed and turned into a gaudy monstrosity. So we rotated through a series of rental homes until in the early 00s we found the Dorint. A resort built on what used to be an old farm where we used to go on nice summer evening walks eating the carobs off the ground. Some of my fondest memories are of excursions around the island, walking the old streets of the capital, Palma de Mallorca, with it’s beautiful squares and Gothic cathedral. I loved coming to the island when I had my own business and customers to visit. For many years when I had the money I rented a rag top Jeep to drive around the island and to go to the village to pick up freshly made ensaimadas, the local pastries, enjoying the sun and wind in my face and hair (I had hair then).

For the last few years my parents have been bringing their grandkids on holidays here. The rest of us come and go as time and money allow! I have been able to come for the last three years and I love it.

There is something magical about these islands. The light, the sea, the warm, dry days and nights, the intoxicating sweet smell of night. Not surprisingly it is, and has been home to Phoenicians, Romans and Moors, Chopin and George Sand, Agatha Christie, Rubén Dario, Joan Miró, and more recently Michael Douglas, Claudia Schiffer, and of course Rafa Nadal.

Our life here is very quiet. Wonderful breakfasts with local pastries, quiet beach, pool, siestas, and nice meals. I enjoy the gym, swimming, running on the local forested hills, evening walks with the family after dinner and the bar at night. But most of all I am getting a ton of reading done for my Ph.D. exams next spring! On Sundays I go to the village to the 1248 church for mass (granted it was pretty much re-done in 1703, but still).