Swimming Stories

I learned to swim in my aunt's pool in Germany. She and my uncle have the most awesome house. Pool and sauna in the basement, huge backyard, lovely big fireplace, welcoming and warm dining room. I must have been five or six when I first got into the deep, deep water. Little water wings kept me afloat while my dad hovered nearby. They lived about a 45 minute drive from our townhouse in Hamburg so after a long weekend day visiting them and my cousins, my parents would bundle my brother and me up in our jammies, stick us in the car and head home. We'd be out cold by the time we hit the Autobahn. Years later, when I returned to visit them, I was so surprised at the size and depth of the pool. Somehow, it had shrunk and gotten shallower. But the water was still lovely.

Since those early days in Germany, I've always loved the water. Living in the Philippines, I fell in love with the ocean. The sound of it, the salty smell and taste, the certain heaviness that gets in the air on a hot, humid day, the cooling sensation of diving beneath the surface and the sting that you get when you open your eyes underwater just to see what's down there. Snorkeling has always been fun, drifting with the current, spying on the fish and the corals. Maybe someday I'll still get around to learning how to scuba dive. The couple of times that I've been on intro dives have been awesome. None of the claustrophobia that could have come but, instead, this elation at entering a formely forbidden and foreboding world. I don't think that I'll ever travel into outer space but I can imagine diving into the ocean and having a look around.

I haven't been swimming in the ocean in three and a half years. The Pacific Ocean here in Northern CA is just too cold! I guess I'm spoiled. But today, I got in a swimming pool and swam laps. It was a scorching day - 94 degrees outside. Getting into the cool of the pool at noon was absolutely delightful. Of course, I headed for the slowest lane out there and still found myself gasping for breath. Twenty minutes and I was done for. Everyone else in the pool was still busily churning away, steady as metronomes, lap after lap after lap. But that was just fine by me. I'd gotten some exercise, reassured myself that I did, after all, still know a couple of strokes and wallowed just a little bit in the feeling of buoyancy that you get in the water.

Next time, I'll need to figure out how to keep from bumping into the lane divider.