Bath, Pools and Swimming | Quiet Thoughts by the Water for Sleep

Looking out onto a stretch of water, Marco Timpano and special guest Amanda Barker wade into a calm and gently meandering conversation about all things water. From the simple comfort of a bath to memories of swimming pools, snorkeling adventures, and peaceful drives along the ocean, this episode flows through everyday experiences connected to water. Their relaxed chat moves slowly from topic to topic, creating the kind of quiet, low-stakes conversation that listeners of The Insomnia Project rely on when they need help unwinding.
If you’re searching for a relaxing sleep podcast, bedtime listening, or a calming sleepcast to help quiet your mind, this episode is designed to help you settle in. Marco and Amanda’s easygoing storytelling makes it perfect for those moments when you’re trying to fall asleep, decompress after a busy day, or simply soften anxious thoughts. Many listeners also enjoy the show as gentle background listening while working, relaxing at home, or winding down before bed.
The Insomnia Project is known as a top sleep podcast built around slow, mundane conversations meant to ease you into a relaxed state. Not every episode will put you to sleep, but the goal is always to help you feel calmer and more at ease by the time the conversation drifts along.

​Baths, Pools & Swimming
(Original airdate: May 29, 2016)

Marco: Welcome to the Insomnia Project. Sit back, relax and listen as we have a conversation about the mundane.

Marco: One thing that we can promise you

Marco: is that our conversation will be less than fascinating so that you can feel free to just drift off. Thank you for joining us. We hope you will listen and sleep and follow us on Twitter. Uh, listen and sleep.


Marco Timpano welcomes Amanda Barker on today's podcast

I'm your host, Marco Timpano, and joining me on today's podcast is Amanda Barker. Welcome, Amanda.

Amanda:  Hi. Thanks for having me.

Marco: Amanda. Um, many of our listeners know you because I mention you on a lot of our shows. Amanda is my wife. And Amanda, I know that you like to take long drives.

Amanda:  I do like to take long drives, but I generally like to go somewhere. So for me, a long drive is fun if there is a destination at the other end.

Marco: What is it about drives that you like? Or driving in particular.

Amanda:  Uh, there's a freedom involved in just driving through the country. I know for myself when I haven't had a car, I haven't been as happy as I have been in the moments when I do. And so I just enjoy the freedom of getting behind the wheel or being a passenger, going for a drive and just exploring new places.

Marco: Tell me a time when you drove and it took you somewhere.

Amanda:  Well, I um, was working on a cruise ship and um, I needed to get to a wedding in Newfoundland from the Virgin Islands. So I had a connection in Washington D.C. but unfortunately even though it was August, all the planes were grounded so. So I rented a car and drove 13 hours to Toronto which was my next connection so that I could make it in time for the wedding in Newfoundland.

Marco: So. But that's not how you had planned the trip to be, right? You missed your connection or they uh,

Amanda:  grounded it Originally there was no car involved.

Marco: I see.

Amanda:  But with all the flights grounded for at least 24 hours, the, the car became a necessity for you to get

Marco: all the way to Newfoundland. So you had to drive to Toronto. To Toronto. Wow. What are the things that you like to have with you when you drive? Do you have any sort of like.

Amanda:  I like fruit if it's a long drive because the sugar in the fruit wakes me up more than any caffeine could. I see it's fun to have snacks. Um, I was driving quite a bit when I was on the road with a tour for a few years so my go to's were nuts and jerky. Just nice protein that fills you up as you drive.

Marco: I like to have the windows down when I drive. I find the fresh air on my

Amanda:  face very easy but it's difficult in the window fair.

Marco: And uh, Amanda, so what's the prettiest drive you've ever done?

Amanda:  I think the Maritimes is really pretty. I grew up on the St. John river, so, so uh, drives along there were necessity. There isn't much that's close to each other so we spent a lot of time driving. I ah, have a great love for that river and the drives along.

Marco: It's a very hypnotic drive driving through New Brunswick I find because you're constantly going in a similar sort of motion or a pattern and there's so many trees that sort of pass you by as you're driving and more and more trees. It's a very relaxing and beautiful drive.

Amanda:  Much more windy than somewhere like Ontario or ah, middle America. Sure, there's many more hills

Marco: Now Amanda, uh, through your driving through the U.S. have you ever encountered any interesting vegetation?

Amanda:  Uh, yeah, there's cactuses. Cacti, right? Sure. Throughout Aruba, although I didn't see as many in the southern states. But I haven't really driven as much into places like Arizona or Texas. I've more just flown in and flown out of the cities. Uh, in the Dakotas I did see tumbleweed quite a bit.

Marco: What's that like?

Amanda:  Well, it's weed that tumbles.

Marco: So is it like dried straw? It always looks like in movies and whatnot. It always looks like dried straw tumbling by.

Amanda:  I think it is. But there's a particular weed, um, that survives in the air. Ah, so similar to air plants that you can find in say, a farmer's market or even in a grocery store. Um, they're meant to just hang without any dirt.

Marco: Okay.

Amanda:  Um, tumbleweed is, I think, a version of that that kind of looks like a moss of some kind that lives in the air and then as it tumbles with the wind, it spreads pollen

Marco: or seeds or whatnot.

Amanda:  Yes. And also it collects dirt along the way.

Marco: Oh, there you go. That must have been interesting to see.

Amanda:  It certainly was. The first one was interesting. And then we saw so much more in Wyoming.

Marco: Sure.

Amanda:  I think I saw my first one in Wyoming and then when I went to the Dakotas, it wasn't an anomaly anymore.

Marco: You always picture tumbleweed with like stage coaches and sort of, uh, that. Have you ever been on a stagecoach?

Amanda:  A proper stagecoach? Uh, I think when I was young I was in one. There's a carousel in Cape Cod.

Marco: This is Massachusetts, of course.

Amanda:  Yeah. In a place called Sturbridge Village. That's in Sandwich, Massachusetts, which is the first town you hit in Cape Cod. And it is, I think, the oldest carousel in the United States. And they have some old stage coaches there that you can hop in and ride.

Marco: Tell me about this carousel. Did you hop on the oldest?

Amanda:  Uh, ah, many times.

Marco: Oh really?

Amanda:  We would go to the carousel. We would get ice cream. Often we would go to Plymouth Plantation, which is not in Cape Cod, but not far.

Marco: Cool.

Marco: Mhm.


Amanda loves taking baths. What is it about a bath that relaxes you

Marco: Now the coolest drive I've ever taken would have to be the drive in California from San Francisco to Los Angeles.

Amanda:  I've done that drive.

Marco: It's a beautiful drive with the Pacific Ocean on your shoulder. And you hit all these sort of towns that you've heard of in California. Pretty places. Mhm.

Amanda:  Uh, and some not so pretty.

Marco: Sure as you would Fresno. Fresno's not a pretty fan.

Amanda:  Not to my recollection. When I did that drive Most of it I did at night, so.

Marco: Okay. Wow. Monterey.

Amanda:  Monterey is beautiful.

Marco: San Simeon, like there's all these places that you drive by that are just so gorgeous.

Amanda:  Monterey is beautiful.

Marco: Also did the um. I think it's a 101 highway in Florida.

Amanda:  Sure.

Marco: That you're by the Atlantic oceans on your shoulder, I believe as you're driving to the caves.

Amanda:  Yeah, yeah, we did that together.

Marco: It was quite, quite beautiful.

Marco: Mhm.

Amanda:  Remember we had Dungeness crab?

Marco: Yes.

Amanda:  Was it Dungeness?

Marco: No, it wasn't. Because Dungeness crab is a crab from the west coast. It was stone crab was in season. That's the crab that has the black tips on their. Just the black claws. Yep, on their claws. And uh, they were quite tasty. I'm a big fan of crabs. But you like lobster?

Amanda:  I do. Remember what, what island that was it that we had that grass?

Marco: Yeah, I do. Marathon. No, um, Key Largo.

Amanda:  Key Largo.

Marco: There you go.

Amanda:  Well, I like lobster a lot. To me the best lobster is fresh from the east coast. I'm not a fan so much of rock lobster. Although if it's fresh, it's delicious.

Marco: Right.

Amanda:  I had some in the Philippines once that was really fresh. But generally speaking, if you're going to eat lobster, you better eat it on the east coast if you eating it from frozen. Not quite the same loss in the translations.

Marco: Sure, sure. Uh, lobsters like to, or they don't like to, but they take a hot water bath before you chomp in the into them. And I know Amanda, you like taking baths.

Amanda:  Yeah. Not quite as hot as uh, lobster boil, but certainly I do like.

Marco: What is it about a bath that relaxes you?

Amanda:  Uh, just being surrounded in water sometimes. Think I heard once that we all come from water and we spend our whole life trying to get back to it. And uh, I think that resonates for me, certainly. So I'm happiest when I'm in water and living in the city bath is sometimes as close as I can get

Marco: a little splish splash in the tub. Mhm.

Amanda:  Reading a magazine, having a nice coffee or a glass of wine, depending on the time of day.

Marco: Sure.

Amanda:  Those especially if it's a fresh new magazine that I'm cracking the spine on. That to me is the greatest joy.

Marco: There you go in a bath. Sure, sure. I'm more of a shower person. I like to take a hot shower and just let the shower be called shower head. Just spray the spray just sort of relax me. And uh, I could stay there for hours.

Amanda:  Mhm.


Do you like A lot of water pressure when you take a shower

Marco: Do you like A lot of water pressure when you take a shower or do you prefer a light sort of, you know, gentle sort of rain type shower?

Amanda:  I like both.

Marco: Okay.

Amanda:  I like having the ability to get both. So if I have sore muscles, if it's the end of a day, then I definitely like um, a pulse of some kind, um, some sort of water pressure, uh, so that I can target it to certain areas muscles. If it's the beginning of the day, then a rain shower is particularly refreshing. And I feel lucky because in this house we have two bathrooms. One has now, now that we have renovated rain shower, the other has the pulse. So it's a nice um, option that I have depending on where I want to take a shower in the morning.

Marco: I've never been a fan of the sort of handheld shower heads that are kind of like almost like a phone. You see them a lot in Europe. That's not my preference. I prefer one that has a stronger sort of jet stream. That's my personal preference. Although I have taken showers where they have jets on the side versus up high, coming down, they sort of hit you from all sides.

Amanda:  We have a version of that here. Um, body jets.

Marco: Yes.

Amanda:  Um, so it can go rain shower, it can go body jets, or you can get a combination of both, which is usually too much water, but kind of nice if that's what you'd like. In terms of the telephone shower head, the. They're quite popular in Asia as well. And I think um, there's something very useful about being able to hold the nozzle. If you have a pet, they're very, very useful.

Marco: Or child.

Amanda:  Or child. Uh, washing feet is particularly useful with a telephone shower. So if you live in a beachy or sanded area, they're very helpful. So they do serve a purpose. They're also very helpful when you have an old fashioned tub and no space to properly put a shower head. Then you can fashion one of those. It's easier.

Marco: There you go.

Amanda:  Mhm.


Do you prefer a saltwater pool or traditional sort of chlorinated pool

Marco: You're a big fan of pools too. Do you prefer a saltwater pool or traditional sort of chlorinated pool?

Amanda:  I don't know if I can choose. I like any pool. A clean pool is the pool that I like. I do enjoy salt water. Um, but there is a nostalgic love for chlorinated pools because that's what I grew up with. And so I have sweet memories of the chlorine on my skin and my hair, my bathing suit.

Marco: What is important for you when it comes to a pool other than cleanliness or whatever? If you had a Pool in your backyard right now, what would be some of the top priorities you would ensure

Amanda:  that pool had if it wasn't an in ground pool? If it was an above ground pool, then I'd make sure there was a really lovely deck around it.

Marco: Okay.

Amanda:  Not a big fan of just a metal tub plumped in the middle of a backyard. So if it had some sort of landscaping around it, which some above ground pools have, which is really lovely, that's great. Otherwise I prefer an in ground pool. Another more expensive.

Marco: The shape factor in there. Shape of the pool. I know that kidney shape personally.

Amanda:  For me, were I to get a pool, I would get a, ah, straight. A nice long rectangle.

Marco: Okay.

Amanda:  A thin rectangle in fact.

Marco: Oh.

Amanda:  Almost like a brick. Um, for me, I like to do laps.

Marco: I see.

Amanda:  And it's harder to lapse in a rounded or kidney shaped pool. Not impossible, but harder.

Marco: I see.

Amanda:  Mhm. And I grew up with kidney, um, shaped pools. The pool my parents have now in their house in Florida is more of an hourglass type of shape.

Marco: Oh, cool. What about uh, public pools? Like you know, the Olympic sized public pools. Do you enjoy those?

Amanda:  I do. It's a different type of enjoyment. There's one close to our house that is only open for two months in the summer. So I try to go to it as much as I can.

Marco: Take advantage.

Amanda:  Sure. Um, I do enjoy a public pool. But um.

Marco: What's your earliest pool memory?

Amanda:  My earliest pool memory is my parents. The construction, coming over to dig the pool. In terms of playing in the pool and swimming in the pool. I remember I had to wear a flotation device in the shallow end. I wasn't allowed to go in the deep end for a long time. There's always the um, rope made of plastic. And that rope, the chlorine would eat away at it so it always kind of scratch you when you plastic. But I remember perfecting my somersaults as I got a bit older in the shallow end and I got up to 22 somersaults I could do in a row without coming up m for air. I would use my arms. They were not a proper somersault, but I would use my arms to propel my little body underwater. So as my arms went in circles, my body would whip around faster. 22 was my max, but said I wasn't good with numbers, so it could have been closer to 11.

Marco: Okay, fair enough.


Have you ever snorkeled? I have. I love it. The silence underwater is something I really love

Now, from pools to the ocean. Have you ever snorkeled?

Amanda:  I have.

Marco: And what do you think of snorkeling? Do you enjoy it?

Amanda:  I do. I love it. The first time I snorkeled was in the Philippines and I loved it. I fell instantly in love. The silence underwater is something I really, really love. My family talked a lot. I talk a lot. I certainly love, uh, a life filled with noise and chatter and discussion and music. But the serenity of being underwater is something you can't match. And being able to just be part of that life, even just for a short window in time, is quite lovely.

Marco: Have you seen any interesting sea creatures as you snorkel?

Amanda:  I have. I've snorkeled with stingrays, the Cayman Islands. I saw gorgeous fish and coral in Thailand and the Philippines. Um, Bermuda had really fascinating fish, although it was much more difficult to snorkel unless you were in a bay there because it is surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean. It's pretty intense water.

Marco: I remember uh, finding a conch shell. Mhm. With the animal still in it while I was snorkeling. I was able to sort of look at it and pick it up and really examine what it looks like. Because when you see them in the water, they blend in so well because there's a lot of algae on them. They're not as like, mhm. Shiny and pink as you see them. Once they sell the shells on the beach since they've been used for food or whatnot. But um, that was neat. And I once saw squid.

Amanda:  Mhm.

Marco: A school of squid as I was, uh, snorkeling.

Amanda:  Speaking of delicious sea creatures. Conch and squid. Very delicious. Mm.

Marco: Conch salads, conch fritters, conch, um, sandwich.

Amanda:  There is.

Marco: I think I've had all three of those. There you go.

Amanda:  And of course squid is delicious. When I lived in Korea, squid was the number one seafood eaten there. Very much love squid. You can go into a shop of nothing but dried squid. Almost as though it's clothing and racks dry.

Marco: Are you a fan of dried squid?

Amanda:  I am.

Marco: Ah.

Amanda:  But I'm a much bigger fan of fresh squid. I see dried squid is very, it's almost like a jerky, a salty kind of leathery product. So it's. You kind of get used to it, but it's not. If you're not used to it, it's something that takes a while, I think.

Marco: I like a lot of lemon with.

Marco: Mhm.

Marco: My seafood in particular with calamari.

Amanda:  Me too.

Marco: Have you ever picked a lemon off a tree?

Amanda:  Um, my parents used to have a home that had a sort of lemon, orange, citrus combination fruit. So one time I pick all of it off a tree and attempted to make a lemonade.

Marco: Right.

Amanda:  It was pretty bitter.

Marco: Okay. Do you know what the fruit was? Like a quince or more like a.

Amanda:  No. Um, I think it was a type of orange.

Marco: Okay.

Amanda:  But not an orange known for juicing.

Marco: It could be like a, like a wild, a wild orange of some sort. Uh, I know whenever I'm in uh, Florida at your parents place, we go to this one place called Hales that has m all kinds of uh, citrus and they sell it and you can order it by mail through them as well and get packages delivered to you.

Amanda:  I think they are one of Oprah's favorite things.

Marco: Oh really?

Amanda:  I think so. I know they're in lots of Oprah magazines.

Marco: Oh, there you go. Well, if they're not one of her favorite things, they're certainly one of my favorite things. I love um, grapefruit and oranges and lemon and once and I was in southern Italy in uh, the Campagna area by Amalfi. They have this lemon that is so huge. The size of a small football almost. I couldn't believe how large it was. I had to buy one to really sort of see peel back the skin. It had so much pith that it was like mainly skin. The fruit inside wasn't as uh, big as you would have expected it to be based on the size of the actual lemon. And I love candied peel. Like orange peel or lemon peel.

Amanda:  Sure.

Marco: How about you?

Amanda:  Uh, yeah, I love um, a candied ginger. Ah. In particular. But uh, yeah, candied orange is lovely too. I know my favorite cannoli has a candied orange peel on it which with

Marco: pistachios is pretty different and pretty traditional as well.

Amanda:  Mhm.

Marco: I once uh, picked a pomegranate off of tree.


The number one fruit eaten in the United States is bananas followed by apples

Yeah, that's not something you see very often.

Amanda:  Very messy to eat in an office environment.

Marco: I would, I would say.

Amanda:  Yeah, I've ruined many blouses trying to eat a pomegranate in an office environment.

Marco: And that juice stains really, it does really well. Um, now you can buy sort of pre peeled pomegranates in little cups.

Amanda:  How lazy are we that we have to do that?

Marco: Well, um, I don't know if it's so much laziness as it is trying not to get the stain on you at work. It's a sort of compact way of doing it.

Amanda:  I have a fundamental issue with buying something encased in plastic. When nature doesn't do that, we do.

Marco: Right. That's why I like banana. It's one of the simplest sort of fruits because it's in its own sort of packaging. You just gotta peel it from there.

Amanda:  It's the number one fruit eaten in the United States.

Marco: Oh, really?

Amanda:  Yeah. The number one fruit is bananas, followed by apples.

Marco: Oh, I didn't know that.

Amanda:  Which is pretty fun. You can't really get bananas in most places in the States, but apples would grow pretty much in every state.

Marco: You mean you can't get them to grow in most states?

Amanda:  It's not, um, you know, I'm sure in California and Hawaii, parts of Florida, maybe Texas, they would have bananas, but really they're more of a Central American fruit.

Marco: And.

Amanda:  Yeah, that's the number one fruit consumed in the United States.

Marco: I love pears. Pears. My favorite pears.

Amanda:  Pears are very wonderful. There's so many different kinds. Um, yeah, Bosque, Bartlett. Those are the two that I know that I'm sure, Andrew.

Marco: Yes.

Amanda:  Do you know the difference?

Marco: I know that they're all delicious. I know Bartlett is my favorite.

Amanda:  Oh, really?

Marco: Yeah.

Amanda:  Those are the greenier pears. Yeah, Bosque. Browner skin, Andrew. I don't know.

Marco: Just a little bit more pale in color, I believe. Yeah.

Amanda:  Ah, we have all three kinds in the fridge, so.

Marco: Oh, then I guess I better start eating them before they. They turn. I also love watermelon.

Amanda:  M. I love watermelon.

Marco: There's something about watermelon, I think we had a conversation about this, uh, Nidhi and I, with regards to the fact that you find now that when you get watermelon, you don't see so many seeds in it. And I kind of miss the little black seeds that you get used to get watermelon.

Amanda:  I guess they're being homogenized and bred out of the watermelon. I don't know if homogenized is the right word, but you know what I mean.

Marco: Now, what about, um. This is always proven to be a bit controversial amongst, uh, our friends. The difference between a cantaloupe and a

Amanda:  musk melon, I wouldn't know. I've never had a musk melon.

Marco: You've actually had a musk melon, but you think it's a, uh, cantaloupe, because in North America, they tend. We tend to eat more musk melons, but they're disguised as cantaloupe because they are so similar in nature. So there's a good chance you've had muskmelon thinking it was cantaloupe, which is sweeter? I believe the cantaloupe is sweeter than the muskmelon, but I would have to ask our friend Dale because she's quite the sort of expert on muskmelons versus cantaloupe. So it was through her that I discovered that there was an actual foreshadowing,

Amanda:  um, for another broadcast.

Marco: Yeah. Another episode with Dale and her knowledge on the muskmelon.


Amanda grew up in a small town, so swimming wasn't offered

Have you ever been in a. In a store where they spray perfume on you?

Amanda:  Yeah.

Marco: I hate that.

Amanda:  Yeah. I don't know if they're allowed to do it anymore because so many people have allergies now.

Marco: I had a job once where I had to spray perfume on people on Father's Day.

Amanda:  That's horrible.

Marco: Yeah. Ah, it was a horrible job. I know. I hated every minute of it. But I'd have to be like, would you like to try a new scent? Would you like to try a new scent? It was, um, probably the worst job ever. I wouldn't.

Amanda:  I grew up in a small town, so that was definitely not one of the jobs on offer. There was nowhere big enough to spray perfume on people. We didn't have a department store, really, or anything like that.

Marco: No.

Amanda:  It would have been an hour away.

Marco: Wow.

Amanda:  Our big summer jobs were working in a factory or water slides, being a lifeguard.

Marco: Oh, that was, like, the good job. Were you ever an unlifeguard?

Amanda:  No, I wasn't. I didn't have any formal training in swimming until I was 16 and then did all my levels in a month. Wow. Yeah, I was 16. So could, you know, knock off the stuff that kids do pretty quickly, you know, bubbles in the water and things like that.

Marco: Right, right.

Amanda:  But, um, yeah, so it's just perfecting a lot of the strokes I was able to do. I just didn't have any technique. So it would be like if a kid had a pair of ice skates and skated on a pond behind their house and did all the stuff on their own without ever having any formal training. That was the way I was with swimming.

Marco: My sister is a lifeguard, and she worked at one of those big sort of amusement pool parks. And, uh, I remember her, like, always, sort of with her hair back and wearing a white shirt that said the name of the location. And she'd be going off to the lifeguard. And, uh, she never had to save anyone, but she did have to yell at kids to get them out of the sort of deep end when they were.

Amanda:  When I first moved to the city the first year, we took a bus to that location because we didn't have access to water at all. We dreamt about going to this water park. So we hopped on a bus north of to go north of the city to go. So I often wonder if your sister was a lifeguard when I was there that one time.

Marco: Well, we'll have to figure it out.

Amanda:  I think we went on a Wednesday or something.

Marco: Well, we hope you enjoyed this podcast and all our sort of water talk. Right, Amanda? We talked a lot about.

Amanda:  Absolutely.

Marco: You jump from baths to pools to

Amanda:  oceans, things that you eat in the water to things you see snorkeling.

Marco: As always, boys, the Insomnia Project is produced by Drunk Cast Productions, and we hope you had the opportunity to listen and sleep.

Amanda:  Sa mhm.