Smooth

 I’m sure that Noodles is correct and from an objective, scientific standpoint, there’s nothing molecularly aberrant about the water in Haller Lake compared to the H2O in Lake Washington or Lake Union, but I’ll nevertheless maintain that from the perspective of subjective experience, it really does feel different.

It’s smoother, I swear.  

You simply have to get in and breastroke with your eyes just above water level like an alligator and you can tell: you glide a little faster; the ripples ripple off you with softer undulations; every kick of your legs and pull of your arms propels you a tiny bit faster than normal.

It makes no sense, but there’s no denying it—as long as you’re willing to fully immerse yourself.

Which is, of course, generally true of many things in life, including Thursday night bike rides with plenty of the usual (and somewhat unusual) suspects.

I had a hankering for a two-lake evening, so after completing step one in the wake of the converted ferry party boat disgorging and engorging rich people at SLU, I was delighted to have a neighborhood guide for the northeastern reaches of our fair city to that once-a-year-or-so body of fresh water I knew was up there somewhere but certainly couldn’t have located on my own—at least not via such a pleasant route.

It turns out swimmers and fishermen can coexist happily since, as we’ve learned, it’s not the creatures in the water that are bothered by the shouts and murmurs of excitable humans, but rather, the beings living on the land surrounding it, especially those who wonder how long the noise is going to last.

The answer to that, we know, is: as long as it can!  Which is why a change in scenery is reasonably called for.

And once again, there’s surely no objective, scientific reason upon which to make this determination, but again again, there’s no denying what our feelings really feel.