Minuet

Bob and I met Deb at our gym's swimming pool. She swam up and down one lane while we walked up and down the other. Occasionally she stopped swimming to talk with us or to bounce up and down, walk backwards or practice kicking. Bob performed various exercises with a pair of blue foam devices. Sometimes he held them in front of his chest, sometimes he pushed them down in the water and at one point he crossed his arms to execute some complicated move that involved a plunge between his knees. It's like he was inventing fancy dance steps. As for me, I just walked serenely up and down the lane. (I never try new routes while driving, either.) I walked for thirty minutes. I always expect this routine to get boring, but it never does. On the contrary, I gradually fall into an aquatic trance, soothed by the feel of water swirling against my limbs. After a while, I felt like the three of us were doing a dance, a stately minuet enclosed in a calm blue envelope of suspended time.