Of those 43 things...

Once upon a time, I was a devotee of 43things. Haven't been there in ...wow, maybe a couple of years. Thinking about going back to check it out.

What prompted this? Well - the thought occurred to me a couple of times in Mexico, and I've also mentioned it in some of the courses I teach for the corporate masters as a handy-dandy way of visualizing real-life "Evo" at a personal, rather than software (or silicon) development project level. Pretty nifty.

But it came to mind again today as I flailed in the pool over at the condo where the Student and the Teacher live. Once upon a time, I took swim lessons for a bit. At six, the kid was terrified of water, terrified of doing something that he wasn't really good at, and our astute pediatrician noted that he really needed to see me struggle with something, so he'd get the idea that it's OK for things to be really hard sometimes, and that even failure is OK - it's perseverance that's essential.

So - we both took swimming lessons. He stuck with it, and swims fairly well. Once he was off being a little fishy, I stopped. (OK, his soccer games also conflicted with the adult swim class, but still...)

The Student was on swim team in HS (I think), and is an excellent swimmer. The Teacher & I are his students now - although the Teacher's further along than I am. I was going to go down and hang out and watch them swim, and then at the last minute decided, no, I'd get in the pool. Terrified, not wanting to make a fool of myself, hating my cyclists-body-gone-slack-from-no-riding ... even with all of that, I'd do it.

So I did. It was a blast - enough so that we didn't make it out of the pool in time for dinner before I needed to leave to catch my flight back to Portland, but that's OK. It was cutting it close, but I'm through security, and in the amazingly wifi-enabled SJC now, waiting for the flight home. I get to see me my kidlet tonight, which makes me happy. I miss him when I travel...

I'm sure there's all sorts of lessons in this little swim experience, and it's one I'll probably spend time meditating on over the next week or so. It was good. It was fun.

(And no. No photos. :) )