Last night I went for my usual swim. This consists of sitting in the hot tub for half an hour -- contemplating the usual bluster of blackbirds who gather in the pines after first flying in swooping formations, scattering, landing everywhere, then bouncing to a branch and disappearing into the warm inner depths of the trunk area (note to self: come back as a blackbird next time) -- until I get too hot to deal, and then swimming 20 laps in the pool. From my post in the hot tub last night, though, I noticed that the pool-cleaning vacuum machine was going haywire -- it kept surfacing and spitting and hissing and then re-submerging and speeding up and down the pool's length, not at all like its usual slow and steady bottom heavy self. I have an innate, visceral fear of underwater thingies brushing up against me when I'm not paying attention, especially serpentine-corded ones that might suck your toes if you don't see it sneak up on you, but I figured what-the-hey, I like my swim.

I swam one lap -- back and forth -- and then the vacuum threw a fit and I had to stop in the deep end to time my next lap away from it. The deep end is only 5 feet, so I can stand and contemplate. As I watched the vacuum zoom down towards the other end in a fury, something along the pool's rim to my left caught my eye...

...it was a blackbird, swimming!!

My only theory is that in the fluster of its arrival it flew into one of the pool's gutters, and then since the lip of the gutter is recessed slightly under the rim of the pool, it must have gotten wet and been unable to fly back out. My presence -- or perhaps a particular fit of the vacuum -- must have led it to seek escape via swimming. It kept its wings spread out at its sides to give it some float and treaded with its teeny tiny legs towards the edge of the pool. Had I not been there this would have been futile and had depressing results. But I was there. I lifted my hand beneath it, but that only caused it to try to fly instantly, before my hand even broke the surface, and thus it hopped right back into the water. We tried again; it hopped again. But by then it had swum to the very edge of the pool, to where it could not hop forward, and I used both hands to lift it up and out.

The remarkable thing about this bird was its calm, and its enormous sense of dignity. Upon reaching solid ground -- never once struggling against me or lamenting my presence -- it kept its soaking wings out to its side and walked slowly and carefully -- like a courtier spreading her embroidered skirts out in their full glory to exit the room -- and then crossed into the bushes and hopped to the lowest brances of the pine tree. It then proceeded to hop and fall off several small branches -- too wet to keep its balance -- until it found a particularly fluffy one to support its weight and braced itself against the trunk. It then fluffed itself up and gave me a relieved look.

It never once gasped, hissed, panicked, fought, or rolled its eyes the way scared or hurt birds will. It just swam, rode the elevator, and left the lobby. It was charming.

It's those moments -- tiny toothpick bird feet on my submerged hands, supernatural dignity, human and beast together for 30 seconds of rare union -- that I absolutely live and breathe for.