A Simple Morning
By Gabi Daugherty
I’m not very good at waking up in the morning. The motivation when my alarm goes off is usually overtaken by the desire to stay within the warmth of my covers. This morning though I made a commitment to some friends that I don't want to miss. I peel myself from a full sprawl across my bed to silence my alarm. The sun is slowly waking with me, filtering through the tree branches outside my window and casting leaf-like shadows along my wall. I feel myself drift back into that state between sleep and wakefulness, so I urge myself out of bed, brush my teeth with eyes half closed, and throw on the swimsuit hanging from my bedroom door.
It’s a smidge past 7:30 a.m. and my car is already toasty inside, as is the case for the middle of a Texas summer. The morning air outside is heavy with humidity, and it seems the city is just as slow to wake up as I had been. I live far enough from where I was heading, Barton Springs Pool, to know there would be the stirrings of morning traffic. But with a sigh of relief I find that Google Maps shows I will get there with enough time before 8:00 a.m. to make it for free swim.
Barton Springs is our local spring fed pool here in Austin, Texas. It stays at a steady sixty-eight to seventy degrees year round, and serves as the local watering hole during the hot summers. Although we call it a pool, it is much greater than the image that word brings to mind. It’s fed by the local Edward’s Aquifer and is a refuge for the wildlife that call it home. At the mouth of the Springs you have a full view of the city skyline, the greenish-blue water cuts right between its two banks, a small hill on the left and a bigger one sloping up to the right. At the other end there’s a dam, and the spillway feeds into the city’s greenbelt that eventually joins Town Lake, which cuts Austin almost perfectly in half.
Barton is a special place for Austinites. On the weekends it explodes with the energy of the city, oftentimes a little too packed for my liking but essential to experience every now and then. Early mornings the water is clear and calm, broken mostly by people swimming their morning laps or jumping in for a quick dip before work.
I smile to myself and feel lucky for getting a parking spot up front. All I have with me is my towel, which I’ve stuffed into a tote bag that I decided just this morning was going to be my “Barton bag.” The gate is open with no attendant, so I stroll in and take a left away from the big hill sloping down to the water. From a distance I can see the sun is higher now and starting to glimmer off the water’s surface.
I head for the diving board, where I know my friend Nathan will have already gotten a few jumps in. He and his girlfriend Kelsey are the kind of friends you feel at ease with. No matter the amount of time that passes between seeing each other, we swing right back into the rhythm of our friendship. The two of them made it a habit to do Barton mornings on Mondays before work. They have always been good about having little rituals that add something special into their day-to-day life. Today is the first morning I’m joining them.
I see them in the distance on a ledge near the side of the pool, seated on their towels with coffees in hand. They haven't seen me yet, which I’m grateful for. It gives me a second to pause. The sun is bright near the skyline to their right, the water clearer and bluer than I have ever seen it. It’s quiet, calm. In the eight years I’ve lived in this city, I’ve never been to Barton this early, nor have I ever seen the pool like this before. I haven't really spent much time here at all. In fact, I’ve spent most of my time in Austin with one foot out the door.
My living here was always supposed to be temporary. I moved here for college with plans to leave as soon as I graduated. I was coming from Houston, a concrete locked city that I often dreamt about leaving too. Austin was the next step, and while the thought of moving closer to some of this state’s natural areas excited me, it was still Texas. I merely saw it as a jumping off point that would send me straight into where I really wanted to be at the time — somewhere out West and in the mountains.
I grew up with this idea that I always belonged somewhere else, not confined by the flat lands of Texas and the 12-hour drive it took to leave them. Growing up, the moments I felt happiest were away from home, on trips to visit friends and family in Colorado or hiking in Utah and Oregon. This was perpetuated after losing my dad, the person I spent a lot of these trips with, and for a long time it felt like I could only connect with him when I was in similar environments to the moments we shared in those wilder places.
In a way, I saw my life here in Texas, and subsequently Austin, through the lens that it wouldn’t really begin until I left. At least not the life I had spent so much thought laying out for myself. And after such a huge loss, I felt saddled with the responsibility to live that out, left with a fear that if I didn’t I was going to be stuck in one place forever.
But I stayed. That same year, right at the onset of COVID, I began a relationship and we would spend the next five and a half years building a life here. Each year that passed, I would talk extensively about wanting to move, traveling to different places and coming back with plans to “really do it this time.” But, one thing or another wouldn’t be quite right for us to make the leap. So I stayed.
It was cyclical, this oscillation between wanting to leave and deciding to stay put. If I learned anything about myself during that time, it’s that I’m a great dreamer. I love planning out different versions of my life that I feel a deep to the core excitement about. This isn’t inherently negative, but it does have the ability to stop me in my tracks, overwhelm me into inaction. And at the same time, it’s kept me always looking forward, never fully present where I was. I continued this back and forth all the way through the ending of my relationship.
A slow process of untethering occurs when you uncouple after five and a half years with a person, and as I began to shed the layers of intertwinedness I was met with what was left underneath, what was just mine. There is something about the aftermath of a big life change that hurtles you into the present moment. I was face-to-face with a wide open slate of not having to stay anymore.
For the first time since moving to Austin eight, I felt alone. Something I had admittedly wanted, but underestimated the breadth of what that meant until I was sat right in the middle of it. While I had built pieces of a life on my own, they had been so intertwined with another person, and kept ready to be moved at any moment, that when standing solo those pieces felt disconnected. I craved roots where I was standing. I longed for a community around me, one that I had previously touted I could create anywhere I moved, but over the years admittedly hadn’t made as much of an effort as I would’ve liked to foster. For the first time, I wanted nothing more than to settle in. When friends and family asked what was next I often caught myself responding, “One big life decision at a time.”
And so I stayed.
l pause and linger a moment longer before I let Nathan and Kelsey know I'm behind them. Walking slowly through the grass over to where they sit on the ledge, I set my things down and apologize for running a little behind.
Nathan hands me a warm cup of coffee from the home brew they made for themselves. This is a small gesture, but speaks volumes about the care we share for each other in our friendship. Embracing each of them, that warm feeling I get when I’m with the people I love washes over me. It was the right decision, as these things often are, to get up early before work so I could be here with them.
We catch up about our weekend and what we have planned for the week. More of the same for each of us. For the first time in a long time that thought doesn’t scare me.
Stepping toward the water, shifting from side-to-side, I prepare myself for the shock of cold I know is about to wash over my body. No matter how many times I’ve done this jump, it still takes my breath away before my body eases up.
Jumping in fully with both feet, I enjoy the shock of cold rather than hesitating one foot at a time.
Gabi Daugherty is an avid environmentalist, climber, and cyclist with a deep love for the outdoors. She is new to the world of writing, having freelanced for a little over a year. You can find more of her work at GearJunkie.
