Try Not to Drown

Now that the rain is really starting in earnest (I'm not even sad because I know that it's snowing in the mountains), I really have to say goodbye to swimming in the sun until next summer. I'm not sure there is anything better than jumping into water, cold or not, on a hot day when you have nothing else to do. It's a way to measure good times. It adds pomp and circumstance to otherwise typical events.

Once, when visiting Gisborne, my friends Elizabeth, Belinda, Tyler, and I went to a bar and drank beer and danced to the Clash and on our way home we decided to jump off the bridge in the center of town. We left our clothing in little bundles under some trees near the water's edge, and ran out on the bridge in the dark in our underwear. Cars honked at us. We stood on the concrete railing, giggling. Elizabeth jumped first, before the countdown had ended, and we followed blindly into black water. An otherwise typical night transformed.

From top: Lake Crescent on the Olympic Peninsula, Shi Shi Beach, Siouxon Creek