The Swimmers

by Julie Otsuka

there are those who would call our devotion to the pool excessive, if not pathological. I’m sorry about your compulsion to swim exactly sixty-eight laps. Too many hours spent down below, our critics tell us, is a diversion, a distraction, a dereliction of our duties on land, not to mention unhealthy. We are reminded of the dangers of swimmer’s ear, pinkeye, waterborne microbes, shallow-water blackout, the irreparable damage the chlorine does to our hair. It feels like straw. Is it really necessary, we are asked, to do the same thing, at the same time, every day, week after week, year after year, without fail?