Day 1: Not Exactly as Planned, But That’s Okay

I drove to Montreal to meet up with my swim buddy Nadine’s Facebook friend Susan, who was in town from Victoria. It was a nice drive, and I came close to finishing knitting a mitten as we caught up after a couple of months. It turned out to be unsafe to get into the water at any of the spots that had been open just a few days ago, so we settled for sitting at the water’s edge and splashing a bit. There had been discussion of making snow angels, but we sensibly repaired to a pub for lunch instead.

On the drive back, we had a long conversation about if and when separate spaces for women’s sports are necessary, sparked largely by news of some women we know who have run into difficulties getting their swims accredited by organizations that are often little more than one guy with a website. Sometimes separate spaces, at least for now as is the case in Kabul Afghanistan: (https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/22/world/asia/afghanistan-kabul-women-swimming.html). In other cases, we hate the idea because men and women should be able to participate on an equal basis, but the reality is that relatively few women seem to have leadership roles in sports federations, and we still feel uncomfortable sometimes when working out with men in the room. I would love to see some serious gender-based analysis around these questions, to use the data in order to make changes.

I finished off my day with Day 1 of a 30 day Yoga with Adriene challenge on YouTube. I haven’t one yoga for many years, so this was hard work for me. I have definitely completed my first at of the 220 days of intentional movement in 2020.




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