Lyme
Earlier this month, I let go of Post Pond.
Around this time of year — after weeks and months of swimming in its waters, back and forth and end to end — I stopped appearing at Chase Beach with my goggles, swimming cap and lifeguard buoy.
It simply has become too cold to swim there anymore. Once the night temperatures consistently reach 40 degrees, there are only a handful of committed swimmers who keep returning to these clean, beautiful waters.
Meg told me her final day swimming last year was Oct. 18. I know Mike and his buddy have swum into November. One year, in the midst of unusual thaw, Walter and Celeste swam on Christmas Day.
I’ve always had a more modest (and certain) end to the swimming season: Oct. 1.
Post Pond is not very deep, maybe 40 feet at its deepest. Ponds and lakes are defined by their depth and not their breadth, and this particular body of water heats and cools quickly. Even if mid-September is riotously hot, as it was this year, with kids and parents barbecuing and eating pizza at the Chase Beach pavilion at dusk in the weeks after school started, the end of September always brings a bitter turn. I can usually depend on the leaves turning and the night air becoming consistently chilly by Oct. 1.
The next-to-last weekend in September, I swam my usual mile-and-a-quarter route in just a swimsuit. I felt fine, but when I got out of the water, my body was cold enough to need a hot shower and a long nap before it could resume any activity. The last weekend of September saw me swimming in my full-length wetsuit, which protected me completely in the water — and which I dared not remove until I got home.
During the warm season from late May until mid-September, Post Pond is heaven for swimmers, with its manageable distances and clear water. Triathletes come nearly every day to train. Another crew of more relaxed swimmers meander to the middle of the pond, talking and gossiping as they swim, resting as much as they strive forward.
Each beach or departure zone has its own contingent of swimmers. The guests at Loch Lyme Lodge paddle and kayak around the lake, but rarely go much beyond the rafts owned by the resort some 100 yards offshore. At the public landing there are the hardcore tri-geeks like me who round the pond once and sometimes twice in a workout, but there are also the mellow citizens who wade and float much closer to shore. At Chase Beach, no one can officially swim beyond the roped boundaries when the lifeguards are watching, but as soon as they leave, there’s a rush of swimmers young and old who venture beyond the boundaries to explore the deeper waters.
I think of us as a secret society. So secret, in fact, that there is no name for our group. There are no dues either. We know each other as much by our nearly naked bodies as by our names.
We also know the true residents of the pond.
There are the fish, of course, and the birds that fly overhead. This year, during a workout, I surprised a deer at the edge of the pond. But all of us who come to Post Pond to swim also know the loons.
Long before and long after we are done swimming, the loons silently and certainly swim its waters. Their reptilian eyes, distinct necks and lonesome cries dominate this watershed. All of us have had our own swimming encounters with the loons. My encounters have been uneventful, but this year one swimmer had a loon swim under and around her.
Soon, though, the air will turn colder and the water will freeze and a whole new crew will call Post Pond home. Hockey players, anglers and even the occasional cross-country skier will turn the surface of the pond into a landscape dotted with rinks, huts and tracks. But by mid-April, they too will have to let go of Post Pond.
Throughout the swimming season, after a quick dip, I find myself sitting atop the lifeguard tower at Chase Beach almost every evening at sunset, able to see most of the entire pond as the light fades and the shadows approach.
All of that — the immersion in water at the end of a hot day, the setting sun and fading light, the view of both land and pond in front of me — brings enormous pleasure and perspective.
As much as I love swimming in Post Pond, maybe these moments mean the most to me. I am then in the arms of this small watershed. All of it is before and around me, and as I listen to the crickets and birds and happy, giggling children, I am refreshed by seeing life so simple and good and clean.
Peter Glenshaw lives in Lyme, where he is the chair of the Lyme Foundation and an age-group triathlete. He can be reached at pglenshaw@gmail.com.