Summer is my fourth favorite season, I have almost no use for it.

But after yet another oppressive day in what will be coolest summer for the rest of our lives, there is truly no better feeling to me than the moment I push off the ladder backwards into the water at my community pool.

People seem surprised when I tell them this is one of my favorite parts about living here. (If you’re trying to find a pleasant and affordable swimming pool in Manhattan, here’s a tip: move to Pittsburgh.)

This region has extraordinary elevation changes — sort of San Francisco-ish— so the pool I frequent sits with hills both above and below it, meaning that trees are visible from nearly every angle and at varying distances.

Picture 360 degrees of green, capped with a blue dome and white puffy clouds, over clear blue water, all set to a soundtrack provided by a “classic rock” stream, a category that now somehow includes songs from ten years before I was born and also from when I was in high school. (The Beach Boys followed then Guns N’ Roses? Deeply weird! But also fine.) I quickly enter a meditative place, supported by the water and moving through it, doing head above water strokes only, face to the sun, sun trees tiny rainbows refracted in the water, sweet child o’ mine.

My contemplation is only enhanced by the vibe of others, altogether unserious. (This is in contrast to the indoor pool I go to in Not Summer, where the vibe is more grim determination— a story for another time.) Whether it’s cannonball competitions off the diving board, underwater tea parties, or working on a future skin cancer diagnosis while posing for imagined paparazzi — it’s all contributing to the summer sacred atmosphere, we each worship in our own way.

Until last week. As I recorded eloquently in my journal:

It was stupid Family Swim night, and so the pool was full of floaties.

[One evening a week, otherwise banned inflatables — think rafts, inner tubes — are allowed into much of the pool. This is called Family Swim for some reason, even though families are always swimming save for one hour a day reserved for adults. I don’t love it because it makes the parking lot more crowded, but I also don’t hate it because it doesn’t affect the lap lanes. It’s kid heaven and it’s usually pretty cute. However on this day…]

Two adults on floating rafts with their phones and headphones in their ears. They weren’t a couple, weren’t together.

That it made my journal at all indicates now much of a record scratch moment it was, and yet couldn’t immediately put my finger on why

They really bothered me.

After all, what other adults do in a pool is none of my actual business, yet it did definitely affect me and diminished that day’s communion with the chlorine. But why?

My mind immediately went into a lament about people being unable to cope for even a few moments without digital distraction. Understandable on the subway or something otherwise unpleasant, but here in the temple of summer? It just struck me as sad, to be immersed in what I surmised was social media looking at photos of someone’s summer while tuning out your own.

Although sad wasn’t my overriding feeling to be honest. I was irritated.

Maybe it was also because, Paradoxically to the previous, I also felt vicariously stressed about the proximity of electronics to water. I didn’t see either floater get in or out of the pool or and I don’t really understand how they managed it without dropping the phones into the drink.

Mostly, I realize now, I felt vulnerable. I was in the lap lane closest to the open area, and these two floaters were totally checked out of reality. They were bumping against the lane ropes, apparently unaware and unconcerned they were doing so. Now, they couldn’t actually literally run into me because of said rope, but a randomly outstretched limb could have easily clocked me.

Pair this with the fact that they were also looming over me, up atop the water as I was swimming in it.

Of course they weren’t menacing me or even aware of my presence, as previously note. But some animal part of my brain felt unsettled by this each time I passed them, twice on each lap.

It wouldn’t have felt good to have been hovered over by anyone regardless of what they were doing, but I’m pretty sure if they had full use of their faculties (and both hands), they’d have steered themselves to a more appropriate distance. Being around people who are totally checked out damned unsettling.

Glad I got to the bottom of that! I am henceforth avoiding Family Swim so as not to feel like an aquatic prey species.