Cultural Immersion Swimming

For the first time today, I went to the 'women only' fitness swimming time slot at the Bedford Metropolitan pool. I never really thought about what exactly to expect, I just thought about how it would be nice to be free from feeling stared at under the water.
When I got to the gym, the window that faces into the pool from the lobby was covered up with
vertical blinds. I briefly wondered if they were swimming naked.
Then I got inside.
I have never seen such a panoply of women swimming!
First of all, there were people that appeared to be fully clothed. One was wearing tights; plenty were wearing oversized t-shirts; many were wearing the old style flowery swim caps; and then there were others with other types of head coverings, not usually worn for swimming.

The slow - medium - fast lanes were still labeled as such, and the signs were posted at both ends of the pool seemingly in an effort to remind people that swimming is happening in the pool.. The lanes should have had other names: first would be the "Gossiping Lane"; next is "Gossiping While Doggy Daddling Together Lane"; and then the "Sort Of Swimming Lane".
Ordinarily, I would get irritated a this sort of blatant disregard for the social mores of fitness swimming.
Ordinarily, I would probably start arguing with someone. For some reason though, I didn't feel irritated or annoyed. I swam around the gossipers; swam through the lane blocks and actually enjoyed my own slowness. I focused on my swimming technique, which I can never do because I am always worried about going fast enough for my lane. These ladies did not seem to be worried about going fast enough; did not move to the side as I approached. I did not glare, I smiled. It was nice for me to feel relaxed. For a good half hour, I practiced open water swimming by closing my eyes while my head was under water, and only opening them up to sight. It was great practice and very peaceful. I felt I swam better; I sighted my target ( the other side of the pool) as well as my obstacles and swam around them. There were some near horrendous accidents like swimming straight into somebody's crotch who was doing the backstroke with a breaststroke style leg kicking... Fortunately I opened my eyes just before impact!

At the end of the Women Only lap swim, everyone left to the showers and locker room. I had to wait a while to get in the shower because the gossiping continued in the shower area. A square area with 5 running shower heads, filled with about 8 women talking. Another bunch of more modest women used the toilet stalls to change and the closed curtain areas to change. As these women got dressed, I finally realized that they were all Orthodox Jewish women.

As they got dressed, I felt I needed to be respectful of my own body covering. They were not standing around naked, and neither would I - although, in fact, I never do. Somehow, I felt honored to be among these women that showed themselves in a way I had never seen before.

-- lemmefineout - Brooklyn