I’m sitting at a pool now trying to find the motivation to become a pool person. I can imagine being such a person. Me, sitting by this pool, reading a book. A book! My wife is reading a book right now, and she looks like she’s enjoying herself. The pool in the beyond, the shade dappling our lounge chars. Teak, the chairs say, all of the way from Virginia. But we’re closer to Virginia now and I still can’t imagine reading a book by a pool. How I long for the ability to read a book by the pool. But here I am, a book next to me, a pool at the edge of this stoney patio, and yet, I sit and write. Of course, I was sitting and eating, which is another one of my favorite things to do, and this time the lobster roll felt like the lobster maybe wanted to be cooked for a bit longer. Rare lobster; must I? I must and I did but the pool is right there and I’m sitting right here and I can’t help but wonder what’s so hard about reading a book for a few hours before dinner.
But as I type I’ve realized it. Pools are boring. The only thing on the other side of this pool is a person reading a book. There’s a couple eating lobster rolls and I feel like they’re trying to signal to each other, or maybe to me, that the lobster is too rare, but I can’t be sure. The pool is fine, but there’s nothing around it or beyond it except this patio and these white barns and the sea, somewhere behind so many trees. I sit and I think and I wonder, and I try so hard to be present, but I can’t bring myself to do it. Pools are boring. There’s nothing to see and nothing to do. How many times can I float around this pool while the other pool people watch me and wonder just where I learned that incredible form. I should not have been showing off as much as I did, but I had to do something. Lord knows I can’t just sit and read a book.