All Wet - October, 2008

I smell like chlorine. I admit it. So do my pool shoes, towels and bathing suit. It is inescapable, and it will continue, because, after a summer of enjoying my own pool and getting the pain out of my arthritic knee at last, I bit the chlorine bullet and joined the local racquetball/swim club.

I enrolled in the Aqua Aerobics class at the local club, a mere 2.5 miles from my house, close enough to get there without a legitimate excuse. Now, on Monday-Wednesday-Friday, you can find me in the pool, a youngster amid the gray-haired seniors. For once, I feel young and strong. The ladies are probably in better shape than I am, but all the more reason to haul my arthritic knees, plantar fasciitis-afflicted feet and the rest of my sorry state into the pool and bounce around for an hour, commiserating with people older and more afflicted than me.

So now I am rocking side to side, doing jumping jacks, playing with a noodle and special weights, all with the buoyancy of water to protect those deteriorating joints. Not that this experience is bereft of its own problems.

First, I just about need a bag with wheels to haul all my gear to the swim club. There’s the three pairs of shoes I need for each class – one pair of pool shoes (which never seem to dry; as the days get colder, I can no longer tell if they are wet or just cold), one pair of flip flops to help me avoid any possible foot contact with the locker room floor and the pair of shoes and socks I wear to and from the club. Second, I have to admit that just getting dressed is a challenge. You get out of the pool and travel through a cold corridor to the locker room. Naturally, everything there is wet, from you to the floor. The mere act of finding a way to keep my feet from touching the floor while drying them and putting on my socks without getting them wet requires a balancing act that could be part of the exercise program. Then I have to go home immediately after class to hang my wet gear out to dry. I can picture myself forgetting the damp mess in the bag in the trunk of the car as I go about my errands and finding the petrified, moldy remains months later.

For someone who has managed to avoid all forms of exercise for years, moving in the water is definitely preferable (and easier) than any more conventional exercise. I can’t imagine standing on one leg with the other leg pointed straight out to the front without picturing myself in a heap on the floor. Yet, even in the water, some things just don’t seem doable. Sure, the young instructor seems to have no trouble leaping straight up out of the water, all the way to her thighs. But for the rest of us, certain body parts have, shall we say, permanently migrated south. In this class you’ll see no space between the water and certain parts of our anatomy. Trust me, it’s not a pretty sight. Luckily, I remove my glasses during the class so I am not subjected to a perfect view of my companions. I hope for their sake that their sight is equally impaired.

I feel sorry for the swimmers doing laps who occupy the one or two remaining lanes while our class is in session. All that jumping up and down creates enough waves to surf on. Wait, is that a white cap? No, just a bathing cap.

A few of the women – a friendly and pleasant group – have recommended I take the “Silver Sneakers” class, an exercise class that somehow gets you to exercise but requires no jumping, thrusting, lunging or any other activity that would make me resemble someone of my own age or younger. Hey, I might be the only person there without a walker. At least I would be dry, not have to haul the linen and shoe closets with me to class and not worry about a wet bathing suit, right? To say nothing about the lingering aroma of au de chlorine.

One of the women recommended a local store which carries chlorine resistant bathing suits, a place called Swim and Sweat. Sounds like a place I’d never go, but chlorine resistant has a certain appeal these days.

Got to go now and put on some perfume. Anything that doesn’t smell like chlorine would be an improvement.