Given the current situation in the world, if you buy one of my two self-published books, I will donate the proceeds to Hope for College. Buy Learning to Breathe which focuses on mental health, and Twist, Weave, Untangle about my becoming a critical digital pedagogue.

My kids’ school is out for the rest of the academic year. We’re still waiting to hear about what that exactly means for them moving forward, but in the meantime, my son has celebrated by…playing videogames with his friends which is what he had been doing anyway, and my daughter has been doing online end-of-school-year parties online. They’ve discovered the Netflix app that lets them watch together, so it’s been a veritable binge-fest around here.

USA Swimming released a statement pleading that this year’s scheduled Olympics be postponed at the very least. Swimming Canada backed that statement. And then the Canadian Olympic Committee released a statement saying that if the Games were to continue as scheduled, then they would not be sending any athletes. Dick Pound, Canadian Dick Pound, former Olympic swimmer Dick Pound, former founding director of WADA, finally was the one to announce that yes, the Olympics would be postponed.

One of these days, I’ll remember that postponed only has one “n” without needing it to be underlined in red first.

The NHL is on “pause.” MLB is delaying the opening of the season. Soccer is on hold, as is basketball. The NCAA has basically shot down everything, in spite of one of its most lucrative events being scheduled for exactly right now.

I just want to be able to go swimming. I dream of living somewhere remote and warm where I can slip into the water unbothered by the need for social distancing because there is no one else around. I want to put my head down and swim, stroke after stroke, I want it to burn my arms and lungs and legs, with the only sound being the water hitting my body, my breath entering and exiting my lungs. I want a private pool, my own lake, my own ocean to plunge myself into. If only for a moment of escape from everything right now.

Any other form of working out lends itself to distraction. Yoga at home is never peaceful as the house now is never silent. Running is too painful, and not in a good way. Pilates makes me cry ugly tears and causes me to spiral. I just want to swim, even if I haven’t swam in years, not really, but all my body wants to do is churn through the water, breathing every three strokes, doing a flip turn every 25 meters. There is a pace and predictability, and once my muscles remember, it becomes meditative, with the quiet of the water and nothing else.

I have a Catholic friend who always offers prayers while she works out to people, people who are struggling, people who need the prayers and God’s intercedance. I want to swim for all those who have lost their season, their year, their big meet, their last chance. For those who are missing their teammates. For those who did what they did, practiced what they practiced for so long that nothing makes sense without it. I swim for them because I know what’s that like, and that it gets better, eventually, and that life, however callously, keeps moving on.

Everything is canceled. Nothing stops.