Trying New Things

In her most recent blog post Evelyn Krieger asked if readers were trying new things, and it reminded me, that yeah, the kids and I are in the midst of that!

We've taken up an unfamiliar sport—Bay swimming in San Francisco—wrapped in a familiar one from when I wa a kid—competitive lap swimming in a pool. It was one of the kids here, the seven year-old aka Tawnse who got me back into the water. On a trip to a beach at one of our coves, she fell into the water. She did what we’d talked about a dozen or so times before, and she’d practiced once or twice before—she stood back up—and all was well. Right after that though, she declared that she wanted to learn to swim at that beach.

And, since we unschool, that’s exactly what we’ve been doing! It’s been kinda cold—the water temperature this month has hovered around 65 degrees—but it’s been a lot of fun! The learning’s been small on some days, and immense on others. In general, everything is moving along rather swimmingly, (yeah… I went there.)

In the meantime, I discovered I really enjoyed the challenge of getting out into the Bay, so I’ve taken to swimming on my own in the morning four times a week. It’s been a little spooky at times—I have no idea what animal my hand brushed across the other day when things were a little crowded with other swimmers and boats—but also challenging in new, good ways that are waking me up—I had no idea that coves in bays have currents that push whatever direction they want and leave you to deal with them.

As usual, unschooling is at least as helpful to me as to the kids. Swimming has pulled me out of the funk-ridden rut that I was having a hard time jumping the walls of.

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