Today....It’s more quiet around here. Paul and I needed to slow things down for medical and aging needs. But on occasion ( minus covid), we host events on holidays.

Telling the stories of those who swim—for survival, for competition, well-being, fitness or creativity—is what drives Tsui’s latest book Why We Swim, a thoughtful and meditative contemplation, and an exploration and memoir about her own relationship with water. But especially, I loved Bonnie Tsui’s description of the thrill of knowing a thermos of hot ginger tea was waiting for her after a cold swim in the San Francisco Bay. I can definitely relate. Carl Zimmer, author of She Has Her Mother's Laugh: The Powers, Perversions, and Potential of Heredity The restlessness of the seascape is captivating. You don’t know what’s swimming underneath you. The seals are all around, and the birds. You know you’re not supposed to be there, and a shark could come out of nowhere. It’s tantalizing to be on that edge, to be that connected.” Where swimming is concerned, the third law is perhaps the most important. It says that when you apply a force to anAn] enthusiastic and thoughtful work mixing history, journalism and elements of memoir . . . Tsui sets out to answer her title’s question with a compassionate understanding of how that mind game stops some and a curiosity about how and why it seduces others . . . Tsui endears herself to the reader as well. Her universal query is also one of self, and her articulations of what she learns are moving.” Artwork: Water is much more dense than air (has many more molecules per unit of volume), which is why it's harder to swim through and why it feels cold, even when it's the same temperature as the

To Tsui] that's the sublime: the awe and the terror, together. Those moments of panic, the electric flashes of fear, are elucidating, exhilarating.Anybody who is an avid swimmer can read this quote and nod in agreement. What else is there to say? Well, Tsui organized Why We Swim into five sections: survival, well-being, community, competition, and flow. Coined by psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, "flow" describes the experience when people are so utterly engaged by or immersed into an activity, that nothing else matters but the continued pursuit of this joy. Your own body shape also plays a part in how much drag you create, and a well-fitting swim suit or wet suit Why do we swim? Tsui takes us from ponds to pools to surfers, racers and a few who have survived icy currents, seeking the answer in her new book, Why We Swim. Interview Highlights Some chapters are more scientific, among others about the benefits of swimming compared to other activities. I wish there are more like this but 40% of the book was more about personal reflection of the author, who seemed like an accomplished swimmer herself. Here is a delightful and informative examination of that impulse, less about deep sea diving or big wave surfing than the ingredients of swimming and how they contribute to emotional and physical well-being, how water is an unfriendly habitat we nonetheless can mostly master, and what sort of people become the champions of swimming.

Why We Swim is a celebration of the many varieties of joy that swimming brings to our oxygen-breathing species.” Charlotte Epstein, for example, a court stenographer who in 1903 formed the Women's Swimming Association. By 1920 she was managing the US Olympic Team's female swimmers, who were collecting gold medals by the handful. She also personally trained a woman who went on to set 29 national and world records, won three medals in the '24 olympics, and swam the English Channel with a time two hours faster than the men's record.to teaching aqua yoga (I’m certified to teach yoga and a Aqua yoga), to giving *Watsu* therapeutic sessions to others in our saline water garden pool, ( if you don’t know what *Watsu* is, visit google), to soaking in cold-plunges in ice cold winter mornings, to swimming in lakes - to warm water soaking while listening to Audiobooks, ( great treat during our pandemic lifestyle), to long distant swims at Emerald Bay in Lake Tahoe, to our Candle lightening-Community Friday Night Warm-Water-Soaks & Social, we hosted every week for 5 years at our house .....