I figured out that until the season is over, I should try to incorporate the early morning swimming into my schedule at least twice a week, and Monday was a very convenient day to try. I was out of the house as planned. It was cloudy, but there shouldn’t have been any problem with that. However, Just a couple of minutes after I started walking, I heard the thunder. There was not a drop of rain, but I thought it still didn’t sound like a good idea and returned home.
I took a shower, got dressed, and thought if wearing shorts to the office was a good idea (and decided against it). At the very last moment, I decided to take an umbrella with me, just in case.
When I was in the courtyard, some drops of rain fell, and five minutes later, it started raining for real. In two more minutes, it was a legit Chicago rain, and it made absolutely no difference whether I had an umbrella or not! I didn’t take my sandals off right away, and in a minute, it made no difference either – I walked in the water to my ankle level. By the time I reached the train station, the only dry piece of clothing I had was my underwater. When I got on a train, I didn’t even think I should sit down. A passenger in front of me was making space, and I told him: I am all wet! He said it was not a problem, so I sat down, trying to maintain the distance.
I pulled my reading glasses out of a wet backpack pocket, only to realize there was not a single piece of dry clothes on me or in my backpack to clean them. And then, I heard the sounds of raindrops on the car window, and it sounded like they were made of iron (and no, it was not hail!).
When I came to the office, I realized I had made a mistake not trying to dry myself up at the train station bathroom: we do not have dryers! Fortunately, I had a change of gym clothes in my drawer, so throughout the day, I changed different pieces of my clothes to activewear pieces and hung the wet pieces on my chair to dry them up. I also put some paper inside my sandals and changed them often before finally letting them air dry.
I thought that I still had time at least to dip myself into the lake after work (although I had a number of other things to do!) But when I came to the beach, there were high waves, and the red flag was up, and the lifeguards were on duty!
I still sat there on the beach, and I even walked into the water to meet the waves by the shore, and got myself as wet as it was possible! I am proud of myself that I didn’t get upset about things not turning us as planned:)
Hettie's Reflections 