New Neural Pathways

“It’s good to swim in different pools,” the Lovely I beams over at Penelope as she adjusts her goggles. “It carves out New Neural Pathways.”

Penelope grins, delighted. It’s so wonderful to have the Lovely I here at the Hilltopia pool with her. Just like old times. What with the Lovely I’s pronouncements echoing across the lanes as the Rusty Hinges start to fill up the walking lane.

“What are the Rusty Hinges?” The Lovely I had asked Penelope earlier.
“You’ll see,” Penelope had teased. Later she’d explained how she thought, at first glance of the pool schedule, that Rusty Hinges was the name of some aquatics instructor. It was only later that she’d learned that it was a special class for arthritis sufferers.

“That is so great,” The Lovely I had giggled when she’d told this story, sincerely appreciative of the different interpretations of a pool schedule.

Penelope still remembers taking the Lovely I to water therapy at the Albany pool after her fall from a horse. Broken pelvis. Penelope can’t imagine the pain. Gallbladder surgery is nothing compared to some kinds of pain.

And water therapy did the trick then for the Lovely I and was doing the trick for Penelope now after her surgery. Today was the first day that she’d felt no ‘pulling’ at her wounds. (She didn’t know how else to describe it. It wasn’t pain exactly but a strange tightness around the small incisions in her midsection.) She’d adjusted her swims accordingly. More kicking with the fins (no butterfly kicks yet though); less freestyle without the paddles; more backstroke of all things. (Penelope is a horrid backstroker but for some reason this stroke didn’t ‘pull’ the way the freestyle did)

Was she carving out New Neural Pathways as a result of these ‘adjustments’?

What did the Lovely I mean by this anyway? That when one is in a new pool, the old habits had to be adjusted? At Mills, the Lovely I had one routine, and here in Hilltopia she was being forced to create a new one?

How different could it be?

You got in the lane. You swam up and down. You counted your laps or timed your swim.
How did this change your neural pathways?
Of course, being the Lovely I, her Neural Pathways are very sensitive and creative. They must notice any teeny weeny difference in routine or situation. And this ‘difference’ was a good thing.
Penelope gets this. Her new routine with adjusting her swim was Neurally Challenged.

She had to THINK.
And this is what she wanted to avoid when swimming.
Usually.
So, maybe this idea of it being a good thing to swim in different pools has to be tempered. It isn’t something you’d want to try all the time.

At least not if you’re a creature of swimming habit like Penelope.

Or the Lovely I.