In the Swing: Mid-life romances are the hottest

Discovering the joy of masters rowing

I grew up in Philly, the kind of place where Boathouse Row lights up the river like a string of Christmas lights all year long. But rowing? With my economic background, wanting to row would have been like asking my parents for a pony. It never even occurred to me to want it. Rowing was something other people did.

Later, I went to Georgetown, where the Potomac glittered with shells slicing the water at dawn. The rowers were headed out as we theater kids were headed home from late-night rehearsals. They were clean-cut and disciplined, up before the sun. We were barefoot and caffeinated, rehearsing monologues — and rebellion. Our lives moved in parallel but never touched. Like trains on separate tracks, close enough to glimpse but never collide.

Rowing stayed in the background, like one of those almost-lovers you never make eye contact with, until decades later, you do. Then, at 55, I saw a flyer taped to a coffee shop wall: Masters Learn to Row. And something in me said yes. Finally, yes!

Author Maureen Elyse Gilbert

For the record, in case you were confused like me, “Masters” doesn’t mean expert. It means old. It means pack the ibuprofen. It means make sure the ice packs are chilled. I joined because I thought it’d be good exercise. I joined to meet new people. What I wasn’t prepared for was to fall in love. With the rhythm. With the language. With the silence between strokes. Catch. Pull. Feather. Release. Catch. Pull. Feather. Release.

There are moments — brief, fleeting — when eight people move in sync, and you feel it. What it’s like to fly without leaving the earth. What it’s like to lose yourself in something larger where harmony matters more than ego, and the rhythm belongs to everyone. And then someone catches a crab, the oar jerks sideways, and the spell is broken — a reminder that your spirit might feel twenty, but your shoulder girdle absolutely does not.

But it doesn’t matter. Because by then, you’ve been seduced. By the glide. By the stillness inside the effort. By the promise that even brief alignment is worth every awkward moment.

Midlife can be a quiet heartbreak. So many doors closing. So many things behind you. It’s easy to think the best surprises are already over. But I’m here to tell you: they’re not. The heart is still capable of wonder. Even if you have to squint through your reading glasses to see it.

I signed up for that class because I wanted to learn something new. What I didn’t expect was to remember something old. That I’m still alive. That joy is a muscle, and it needs movement. That presence has a pulse if you’re willing to meet it.

So, here's to the thing that hovered just outside the frame. The sidelong dream you never let yourself want. Say yes to that thing. Take the class. Learn the stroke. Fall in love with the rhythm of your own life again. You’re not too late. You’re just on time.

Reprinted with permission from Tideland magazine in Bainbridge Island at tidelandmag.com