How can water do all that?

Posted by Melissa Baumgart

The Ballard Pool

As I drove away from the Ballard Pool today, I was filled with total peace.  I breathed in and out with mental and physical contentment.  I carried this state of mind with me for a few hours afterwards.  It was not unlike the feeling I used to have after Bikram yoga.  I didn't think I would find anything else that brought me to that place.  A place where the physical meets the mental, and transcends them both to place of pure bliss.  I know, seriously.  It is that good.

I think it is something about the water.  In these deep-water classes we get to wear a buoyancy belt, so you are floating in the deep water.  While I was waiting for the class to start, I floated around a bit, looking down to see the blue water continue deep down below my feet.  I felt like a kid again.

I always like pools.  When we go on vacations, I love playing the the pool with my kids.  We swim races against each other, we see how many flips we can do without taking a breath and splash and play.  In water aerobics, I get to exercise and get a little bit of that vacation feeling all at once.

And better than that, the water just plain old feels good.  Good in a way that words cannot express.  Believe me, I have been sitting here for way too long, putting off my kids bedtime trying to figure out some damn words.  It feels good on my skin.  It feels good to be weightless.  It feels good to be massaged by the water.  It feels good to be held by the water.

I guess it was a lot of things that gave me that euphoric, yet calm sense of being when I left the class today.  After searching the internet for some study to prove what I experienced, I found nothing noteworthy or peer-reviewed for that matter.  So,  I'll just have to be OK with it being a mystery.  One that I intend on repeating tomorrow.

Anyone else getting to the pool these days?