"I'm feeling scared but it's a good feeling!"

Thus exclaimed one of the kids in the pool the other day as his swimming instructor guided him and another boy into the deep end.

That's just how I feel!

DC has several pools throughout the city where residents can swim for free. I've been going to the pool a lot lately, 3 times this week. Lest you be unduly impressed, I mostly float. The floating seems to help the swelling in my feet and hands--my doctor told me take my wedding ring off last week. And it really helps my back. At our neighborhood pool, they allot about half of the pool for lanes and about half for just open water, where a variety of what seem mostly to be non-swimmers float, water walk, stand in the shallow end with arm weights, or hang onto the edge and kick. I have been one of their ranks for the past few weeks now. They are a friendly bunch, very non-judgmental.

The fun thing about floating is the people-watching. When I go in the mornings there is sometimes a water aerobics class in which mostly older, even elderly, people bop, kick and pump their arms to comically incongruous techno music. And the other afternoon I got to meet a gaggle of young girls in the locker room as they got ready for swim team practice. They were maybe 8-ish years old and were not shy about parading around completely naked or about openly staring at my belly.

Also, I have now twice been used as a biology lesson to toddlers, whose mothers, noting their child's wide-eyed peeks at my mid-section, explain, "She has a baby in her tummy!"

At this news the children always look somewhat doubtful and concerned.