Love Letter to Deep Eddy

By Brenda Bell

My love letter to Deep Eddy is written on the pictures on my phone. There are a few of Barton Springs. But there are dozens of Deep Eddy, in every season. Sometimes the old pecan trees have leafed out, sometimes their branches are still bare. Sometimes the sun sparkles on the water, other times -- my favorite times because that's when people abandon the pool -- the sky boils with thunderclouds. Yet all the pictures look pretty much the same -- peaceful lap lanes stretching toward the river, maybe one or two solitary swimmers. Right here in the middle of a city of a million people. Those days it feels like my own private pool.

I've been coming here for decades before I owned a cell phone. Before the dressing rooms were renovated and switched sides, before the blessed arrival of hot water in the showers. Before and after jobs, boyfriends, marriage, children, moving away, coming back, good times and bad. Now my daughters, who were still in diapers when they first crawled in the shallow end, bring their children here.

It's not complicated. It's easy to get to Deep Eddy, reasonably easy to park, with few of the tourists that flock to Barton's. I welcome the 100-foot length that lets me kick off the side 53 times to slowly paddle a mile. If I come here in a good mood, l leave feeling even better. It's guaranteed. If I come in a terrible frame of mind, cursing the lines for the lanes and a pool deck so hot you must wear sandals to stand on it, something magical will happen. By the time I'm done swimming, even before I step in the blissful shower, I feel better. A lot better. That's guaranteed too. God bless Deep Eddy.