Swimming

The summer before my senior year of high school I had a friend who had a friend who had some kids who needed tending. Eager to get out of the theater I called my primary place of work, I became a nanny. I drove thirty minutes out to the iron range to a two story house on lake property in the middle of nowhere.

While I had many interesting, life changing experiences there, (Like that one time when we drove into town to pick up the balloons for the birthday party and they didn't fit into my car, or that other time when I nannied the father too, when his back gave out picking berries. Then he collapsed upstairs trying to make a sandwich, so I drove his truck with he and several little girls without seat belts thirty minutes to the chiropractor because the poor lug couldn't move), none of these experiences compared to beach time.

While the girls lived on a lake, the public access beach had a water slide and a better access by foot. I'd load the girls up in my Mazda and we'd drive three minutes to the beach to enjoy the water. One summer day I lost myself in the water. The water wasn't very deep. It was warm. The sand at the bottom wasn't rocky. You could see the fish through the clear waves--or at least I remember it that way. I put my head under water and magic happened. I imagined myself a mermaid--A long glittery, green tail and long red wavy hair (Actually, I didn't have to imagine the hair) gliding through the sun soaked water. The littlest of the girls was learning to play the piano, and had me sing and play out of her beginner Disney classic tunes book daily. "Part of Your World" was her most frequent request. I got a kick out of how much she loved my voice. And, then there at the beach in the water, I was suddenly Ariel, literally. Something in my brain awoke, and then it was time to go. For a brief moment--the tweek in my brain-- was filled with joyful satisfaction.

That moment came back to me today as I lowered myself into the lap pool at the gym this afternoon for the second time in my life. It's a new year's resolution to learn to lap swim. I've been afraid of it for quite some time. Last week I bought myself goggles, put on my suit and jumped in the pool just so I could say I'd started to swim. Fortunately for me, there was a boy in the next lane who was friendly enough and taught me a  few things. I was late to wherever it was I needed to be that evening, because a piece of friendly advice turned into a full fledged swimming lesson. His name was Jake. I'll probably never see him again, and if I did, I wouldn't recognize him because I was blind at the time of my meeting him (I wear glasses).

Today I started out with a few exercises Jake had trained me in and then completed one length of the pool freestyle. I finished a second length, a third, and then, something clicked. Suddenly I was tackling the length of the pool in no time at all, breathing once every five strokes  (three times per length of the pool), and my hips knew exactly what to do. As I rolled my head out of the water to look back at my shoulder and open my mouth to let the air in I watched the arm attached to my shoulder lift from the water without a thought--I didn't even have to think. I just knew what to do, as if I was born to do it, and it was beautiful. It was unlike anything I've ever experienced, with the exception of that day on the beach.

It's a shame when a swimmer doesn't know that she's a swimmer, until she's 27 years behind on swimming.