Worth an experiment, anyway

While I was in Anchorage over the weekend, Geoff cleaned out the storage closet and threw a bulky "Back to Utah" pile in the hall. On top of this pile was Geoff's old river rafting wetsuit - a full body neoprene neon thing that's pink and blue and, as I remember, makes him look like an ambiguously gay surfer hippy from the 80s. I swam for an hour at the local pool yesterday and thought about this wetsuit. Then I thought about it some more in the evening. Then, this morning, I tried it on. Geoff is taller and leaner than I am, and I've admittedly put on a little extra chunk since winter, but I was able to squeeze into the thing. I stood in front of the mirror for a while, wondering about possibilities.

To be honest, I have been thinking a lot about open water swimming recently. I live along a long stretch of protected Pacific water known as the Gastineau Channel. The tides are large but the waves are not. So the surf is often glass-calm, especially along the shoreline, but there are some realities that definitely make swimming daunting. There are sea lions, salmon sharks, the occasional humpback or killer whale, and, scariest of all ... the average water temperature is 42 degrees.

I can't find much information about swimming in the Gastineau. But it has been done. It would probably take a better wetsuit than Geoff's pink nightmare to last longer than a few minutes, but I don't know. When I lived in Homer, guys used to go surfing in January in the frigid water of Kachemak Bay, and they had some pretty rangy wetsuits.

Plus, I have mentioned before that I have a natural ability for swimming (survival long-term swimming, not fast swimming.) I also have a higher-than-average tolerance for cold water. I first realized it when I traveled through the Yukon and Alaska on a three-month car camping trip. My friends and I would bathe in glacial lakes. They would rush in and out of the water in spurts as they lathered up. I would crawl out a hundred yards or so and float on my back as cold sunlight sparkled off the glass-clear water. I loved those swims. And I would love to swim the Gastineau. Even if it was just for a few seconds off the shoreline of a picnic area as Geoff stood watch with 911 set on speed-dial.

It's not that I need craziness in my life (but who knows ... maybe I do.) And it's not that I can't bear lapping an 80-degree chlorine cesspool ad nauseum or lifting weights at a gym. I just need to get out there again. Hiking is so steep around here that it can be more stressful than pedaling, especially on the downhills, but swimming doesn't cause any pain at all. If it really fits my abilities like I think it could, I may find whole new places to explore, whole new ways to love life. (And, if it doesn't work out, I'm still in the market for a discount sea kayak.)

Snap out of it

So, apparently, one of the unexpected side-effects of injury is insomnia. Never struggled with it before, but its been about six weeks since I've been able to ... you know ... sleep ... much. There's the issue of night pains, but even beyond that, there's the notion of using physical fatigue as a sleep aid. Back in the day, when I could throw down some four-hour mornings on the bike, make lunch, juggle a nine-hour stress fest at work, eat, blog, go to bed ... well ... I was always out before I hit the pillow. My co-workers may even argue I was out hours before. But now, I'm up in the morning ... I'm up late at night ... I'm up in the day ... and out of it.

I keep thinking that one of these early early mornings, I'm going to roll out of bed and be 100% fine. It's easy for me to carry this delusion because something similar happened to Geoff and his IT bands last year. Six weeks of searing pain ... and then, one day, he was just fine. I also like to tell the story of my cat, who one day hobbled home to my apartment in Idaho Falls with a huge cut on her right hind leg. The vet did a few tests (no kitty MRIs, but decent tests) and informed me that she had severed her Achilles tendon. The vet told me a $900 surgery would give her a 50-percent chance of partial recovery - granted she receive the requisite physical therapy (how do you get a cat to do physical therapy?). But in all likelihood, the vet said, she would never walk on that leg again. I struggled with the surgery decision for some time ... weighing the expense, researching the success rate, calling up specialty vets in Boise and Salt Lake, and watching my cat live a relatively happy life as a tripod. I decided against the surgery. I am a guilty pet owner.

Months went by like that. During that time, I was injured for several weeks and we were both awkwardly mobile together (something my landlord commented on constantly). Then, one day, I came home from a long weekend away - she had been inside on her own the whole time - and she was walking. Not tripoding. Not limping. She was walking. I never even saw the transition. And, to this day, I've never seen any hints of the injury. She can outsprint dogs in a heartbeat. And she's an active little kitty when she wants to be.

So the most likely scenario is that the vet misdiagnosed her and she recovered from what was probably just a bad cut with some tissue damage. But I like to think of it as a miracle cure. The way she just snapped out of it so quickly after so long ... I like to think that skill runs in the family.

Sometimes pictures reflect moods

I like the swirling storm clouds in this one. Especially since the reason I stopped to take it was that small window of sunlight in the center.