Swimming Squid

Swimming is like a daily ritual for me, especially on mornings when the world feels too loud. It's not just exercise; it's this quiet time where I can think or not think at all, just move through the water like it's a language I'm learning. Sometimes I imagine I'm a fish trying to remember what life was before the pond.

In my family, every Sunday after dinner, someone would say, 'Let’s go to the zoo.' It didn’t really matter if we were going to the zoo. It meant hanging out together, seeing familiar faces, maybe even getting a snack we didn’t plan on. The zoo was a code for time with each other, and it felt like we were keeping some old tradition alive.

At work, when someone says, 'We need to think outside the sea,' they’re not talking about marine biology. It means we have to get creative, break free from our usual routines and assumptions. I used to get confused because it sounded like we were talking about fish, but it turned out it was just another way of saying, 'Don’t be so literal.

My kids use the word ‘swim’ like it means anything that moves in the internet world. ‘I swam into TikTok and now I can’t swim back out.’ For them, swimming isn’t just about water,it’s about getting lost in a bunch of things at once and hoping they come together in the end.

My older sister and I get into these little battles over who invented what first. Last time, it was about who came up with the idea of putting the zoo on the menu. She said it was her, I said mine. We still talk about it, but with a smile and a shrug, like we both know we’re just swimming in the same sea.