Try to love everything that gets in your way: br the Chinese women in flowered bathing caps br murmuring together in Mandarin, doing leg exercises in your lane br while you execute thirty-six furious laps, br one for every item on your to-do list. br The heavy-bellied man who goes thrashing through the water br like a horse with a harpoon stuck in its side, br whose breathless tsunamis rock you from your course. br Teachers all. Learn to be small br and swim through obstacles like a minnow br without grudges or memory. Dart br toward your goal, sperm to egg. Thinking Obstacle br is another obstacle. Try to love the teenage girl br idly lounging against the ladder, showing off her new tattoo: br Cette vie est la mienne, This life is mine, br in thick blue-black letters on her ivory instep. br Be glad shell have that to look at all her life, br and keep going, keep going. Swim by an uncle br in the lane next to yours who is teaching his nephew br how to hold his breath underwater, br even though kids arent allowed at this hour. Someday, br years from now, this boy br who is kicking and flailing in the exact place br you want to touch and turn br will be a young man, at a wedding on a boat br raising his champagne glass in a toast br when a huge wave hits, washing everyone overboard. br He'll come up coughing and spitting like he is now, br but he'll come up like a cork, br alive. So your moment br of impatience must bow in service to a larger story, br because if something is in your way it is br going your way, the way br of all beings; towards darkness, towards light.