From Ocean to Cloud
Every few lengths of the pool, I flip to my back. Cedar rafters in the ceiling guide my strokes—until I reach a cascade of sunlight spilling from a small, high window, and everything disappears. Whoa, I think. Then my arms reach skyward and back, pulling me through tiny glimmers of fuzzy light.
Earlier, a text from my youngest brother came through. He’d jumped into an ice-cold lake, having remembered my advice to immerse yourself whenever a body of water presents itself. My cheeks flushed. This brother’s smart. Like we’d have him race calculators to solve math problems smart. Like he came out of the womb taking care of business smart. Plus, he’s thoughtful and kind. I picture him, states away, wife with a smile like a hug, corralling three kids under 6, looking at this lake and thinking of me.
Growing up, I grew distant from my five kid siblings. When we were young, I made up dance routines to the Supremes for my sister and me to perform, orchestrated mini rebellions against squash dinners with my brother, changed the babies’ diapers and crooned love songs into their velvet ears. By my teens, a rift—between the path laid out for me and the one I wanted to follow that would take me, well, somewhere new—had widened. That me influencing my younger siblings to follow would be unwelcome didn’t have to be said out loud. So, I stepped back. By the time the youngest two arrived, I was nearly out of the house.
Water has always beckoned me. My dad recalls how, as a toddler playing in the surf, a wave pulled me seaward. He jumped in to rescue me, bringing me to shore with a grin on my face. On my honeymoon, I convinced my then husband to bathe with me in a river while ice chunks flowed by us. I’ve stripped to bare skin and slipped or leapt or dove into lakes and rivers and oceans (and one glacier pool) wherever I’ve been. But I’ve rarely been to an indoor pool since high school swim team days.
We swam laps both before and after school. The pool building was in an upper parking lot dubbed “burnout,” looking down on the rest of campus. Kids who were thrashing against something, the ones with their heads barely above whatever life had handed them went there to smoke cigarettes or get high. After second practice, I’d sometimes wait till the lot cleared. As the sun angled toward its rendezvous with the horizon, sliding way out behind the school and the highway beyond it, I’d light up. The smoke billowing from my lungs would disperse into the golden light like a promise; I’ll follow.
I don’t know when I first felt split. It wasn’t then. Then it was not a feeling but, rather, a decision: Show the face that says, I’m good. I’m good. It meant, I’m still pretty much on the path. Let me be. I hadn’t meant to teach myself the bits I kept hidden were bad. But years later, a full-grown adult who’d (believed she’d) set herself free, I found myself often hiding parts, turning a demure smile that said, I’m good. I’m good. It meant, I’m not a bad person.
On my stomach, I follow the line on the bottom of the pool. Back in high school, I raced the long-distance 500-yard freestyle. Now, at the YMCA, I secretly race the swimmers in the lanes next to me, most a couple decades my senior. Dig dip, I tell myself when I see their hips or legs in my peripheral, delighting at the burn in my muscles. After a marvelous victory, I inwardly raise my arms and fake punk the swimmer to my right. Booyah, old man.
In the lot, I spread my towel and suit over my dashboard to dry. I lean against my heated bumper.
“Were you glad you jumped in?” I text my brother.
“Not at first but in the end, yes,” he says.
Exactly, I think.
I’m not always particularly brave about getting in. I’ve stood at many an edge, toes lapped by icy tongue or hanging above sparkling aqua, counting to three again and again. I think my fear before makes it better. Water holds you. You come out with fresh skin. Like how sunlight pouring from a small, high window that seems to blind you lets you see particles of warmed water detaching themselves and flying away into the air.
I scroll to the next response in an exchange I’m having with a writer whose work I adore about how terrifying it can be to publicly share words or audio/video you’ve crafted. “I’ve learned that the more me I am, the comfier I am with putting it out there,” I say. Which means, the more I let go the face meant to convey I’m good, the more I unloose the full of me that says, I am. I am.
A Brief Update
I’m back in the pool after all these years because a recent medical challenge (I wrote about it here) has prevented me from my usual forms of exercise, hiking, jogging, and cycling. I am overjoyed—and aware of my great fortune—to be able to move my body, to feel my muscles engage and my heart race with effort. This, along with other improvements, is in part thanks to a new medication that seems like it will be a great tool to manage the chronic illness I’ve been diagnosed with (ankylosing spondylitis) going forward. In short, the pain and inflammation have lessened. Again, I’m grateful and know how lucky I am.
Wanna read more about me and my escapades in a swimming pool? Check out “The Day I Swam Like Michael Phelps.”
Notes
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I Love reading you
Beautifully written. Heart on the page. That's our Holly!