Ammi Midstokke: The benefits of good enough

I read a thing this week that suggested our obsession with optimal may be distracting us from the pleasantly effective approach of beneficial. This is probably how water aerobics was born.

That was what I was thinking about while I splashed my way through the pool for an hour one morning, wishing I was enjoying the benefits of the water aerobics in the other half of the pool. They looked so happy there, with their foam weights, bouncing around on their toes and running in place.

Meanwhile, my swimming was less than optimal. I have never seen life guards so attentively watch a lane, or frequently stand at the pool’s edge with a flotation device and a vice grip on their whistle. Midday guard duty was boring for these guys until I started showing up.

I got lapped – several times – by a pregnant woman, who swam with the drag of an entire extra human strapped to her underside like some rotund freighter. While she gently caressed the water with each stroke, I attacked it with the ferocity of a drunk and confused crocodile, trying to remember everything my new swimming instructor taught me.

She said, “You swim like you’re riding a bike.”

It was the nicest possible way to acknowledge that I might be good at something, but it definitely was not swimming. Riding a bike through water seems an inefficient method, though potentially faster than my flailing, and thus we tried all sorts of things to convince my legs to stop pedaling. This only led me to sputtering and sinking.

In an act of mercy and risk management, she gave me a kick board. Suddenly, I was a 6-year-old bob-wobbling my way down the lanes at approximately 0.00067 mph, my feet churning like the back of a Mississippi riverboat. But then she told me to put my head under water and practice rhythmic breathing. This meant my right leg was doing a thing, my left leg was doing another thing, my knees were trying to not do a thing, and I needed to breathe, but not at the wrong time.

It is a lot of ingredients, as is pool water, incidentally. I later had cause to research the dangers of swallowing the pool water, which resulted in my phone asking if I needed the number for Poison Control. What I needed the number for was a friend who might talk me out of this charade. All it would take is one dubious study about chlorinated water making a person intolerant of coffee, and I would throw in the towel.

Undeterred by my internal exposure to chlorine, and overthinking the operation of each limb, I began some kind of water-bound dance ritual, easily mistook for a Pentecostal sermon in the sea. It will take more than prayer to keep me afloat. I tangled myself in the lane lines, bumped into the end of the pool, and plodded on, all the while considering stealing a pair of those floating dumbbells from an octogenarian in the water aerobics class.

I did not find my stride until I was actually striding on solid ground later that day. I needed some fresh air and nature after my regular dabble in drowning. Snow was falling in thick flakes and the world became muted grays and whites. My hair, now taking on a tinge of green, wafted with the warm scent of pool chemicals – such as diluted sweat and urine – and whatever it takes to, uh, “stabilize” all that. As I was contemplating my post-swim sterilization scrub, I realized I was walking the way I was supposed to be swimming. Complete with turning my head to breathe. Somehow, this made me hopeful.

The same thing happened once when I did too much yoga. I started growling every time I exhaled in a stressful meeting. It was effective for entirely unanticipated reasons.

Beyond noticing my new breathing rhythm, I noticed how pleased all my joints felt. Only in the weightlessness of water can one thrash about in an aquatic tantrum and cause no real bodily harm. Even my organs seemed grateful, as if buoyancy had temporarily relieved them of the burden of gravity and too much pie, and allowed them to settle back in their originally intended shape and space.

Biologically reorganized and physically exhausted, that night I collapsed into bed and the deepest of sleeps. I awoke rested, albeit still smelling of chlorine, and ready to paddle my way through the pool again.

In a world where perfectionism becomes a facade, or worse – an excuse to not attempt new things at all, this new adventure is proving to be an exercise in acceptance. Someday, I might learn to swim better, or even optimally; but for now, beneficial is optimal enough.

Ammi Midstokke can be contacted at ammim@spokesman.com