Thursday, March 18, 2004
Last week, on the first real day of my break, I drove to the Queen Anne community pool, determined to walk in the water. My doctor and physical therapist had recommended it weeks before, saying I could strengthen my back and not have to worry about injuring myself. But between all day at school and an after-school therapeutic appointment every day, I just couldn’t muster up the energy to go to the pool in the evening. But here I was, on a Monday morning, ten hours of sleep behind my eyes, and nowhere in particular to go. So I walked into the community center with my bathing suit in my bag, wanting my solitary trudge through water.
But the woman at the front desk shook her head when I said I wanted to walk. “Come back at noon for lap swim. Now, there’s Hydro-fit.” She gestured through the glass windows into the pool, where I saw dozens of gray-haired heads bobbing in clear blue water. Oh, the old person’s class. My back wouldn’t let me take any gym classes yet, but how hard could this be? Sure. Why not?
I walked into the locker room, the smell of chlorine-soaked bathing suits on wet cement taking me back immediately. To being a kid, in Southern California swimming pools, my body like a seal beneath the water trying to escape the enormous heat of the sun. To feeling buoyant. Everything possible. I ducked my head and grinned to myself, then tried to figure out how the lockers worked. There’s always that tentative feeling when I first enter into a new situation, whatever it might be. Meeting a new person. Tackling a new task. Being somewhere I’ve never been. I’m equal parts excitement and sudden shyness. Like being a kid again. Ussually, I start talking and joking, and the diffidence slips off my shoulders. But here, I stayed silent, listening. It was clear, immediately, that I had walked into a fully formed community. Older women called to each other from across the locker room: “Mabel, is that a new suit? It’s beautiful on you.” They chatted and laughed with ease. They were clearly here together every day. I was the only person under 60.
At the poolside, I tried to watch what everyone else was doing instead of asking what to do, so I grabbed some styrofoam dumbbells and some weird ankle floats. I snapped them on me and put my feet in the water. Warmth. Slowly, I descended the steps in the shallow end and closed my eyes in the pleasure.
I love water. I love being in it, floating in it, not talking in it. It’s something primal, something deep in my limbic system, autonomic. Years ago, when some friends and I went to Jones Beach on Long Island for a day at the ocean, they all spent their first hour arranging their blankets and dabbing on sunblock. But I had arrived with my bathing suit beneath my clothes, slathered in sunblock already. I threw off my clothes and ran into the waves, exulting. I didn’t come out for an hour, as I jumped over waves and did handstands under the water, the sand falling away from my palms. They were amazed. I ate, then went back in.
But in some weird way, I prefer pools. I know that’s absurd, but it’s bred in me. When you fly over Los Angeles, descending into LAX, you can’t even count the dots of turquoise blue spread out across the suburbs. Pools meant relief from the sun. A bit of affluence. Long summer days spread out before us. We only had a pool in one of the houses we rented, when I was 14. But I used it every day, practicing back dives and perfect strokes.
No back dives in this pool, however. Everything still hurts. It’s more localized pain, and the muscles are starting to soften. Now, especially, after my week and a half off. But on that Monday, I was tentative and tender. However, I could feel the headache lift the lower I went into the water.
I made my way toward the deep end, the only dark-haired head among the white and grey. It was me and 28 senior citizens. You know me--I was laughing internally, immediately. Then, the instructor, a muscled young woman who worked as a lifeguard, started softly shouting physical cues. Running underwater. Jumping jacks underwater. Side steps. Criss crosses. Crunches. Twists.
I was exhausted.
The old people were kicking my ass.
It turns out that Hydro-fit is one of the best physical activities I’ve ever done. It’s right up there with yoga for deep muscle work and wonderful relaxation of the mind. Because, the longer I stayed in the pool, trying to move, the more the headache dissipated. And the more I stretched out my limbs, letting my fingers play on the surface of the water. I moved in ways I haven’t been able to move since early December. I could feel the blood rushing back into my body, my muscles joyful for the use. I had to stop a lot, because I haven’t been able to exercise concertedly since the accident. And I felt humbled, again.
I stayed toward the shallow end, because whenever I wandered over to where my feet couldn’t touch, I’d feel as though I was starting to drown, and I’d begin to flail. There’s still a lot of fear left in my muscles from the accident, I guess. After all, they’re still guarding against it, three months later. Also, I couldn’t figure out the floaters, and they kept coming loose. Or, more accurately, they worked too well, and suddenly I’d find myself with my feet at the surface, unable to move, looking foolish. Except no one was looking. They were all chatting with each other, their flowered bathing suits bright beneath the water, their hair perfectly coiffed and dry. Meanwhile, I was drenched and still not able to control this.
By the end of the class, however, I had stopped worrying about control. I just floated. I moved in the poses as I could. Other than that, I remembered to feel the water on my body. I relaxed. And by the time I climbed out of the pool, I knew I’d be coming back on Wednesday.
I’ve been going back every chance I have, ever since. I’ve found my body yearning for the pool. Nothing hurts underwater. In that pale blue pool in Queen Anne, my back is powerful enough to move my legs, my shoulders open fully, and my headache is a memory. For an hour, I’m not in pain. And there’s no way to describe my gratitude.
And more than that, I’ve come to love this community I stumbled into. I’ve found myself jealous of the 70-year-olds. These women and men have it set. They wake up at 9 in the morning. They move when they want. They float in the pool with their friends, talking about good books and good food and good memories. They don’t have to push or struggle or be better than they are. They simply are. And they’re characters. Mary has a broad Irish face, a dark blue suit, and a knowing smile. She’s the major doyenne of that place, apparently. I knew I was in when she handed me my dumbbells, rather than making me swim to them. There’s a man who looks like Joseph Campbell who dives into the pool before class, rather than slipping in like the rest of us. Maybe he’s trying to impress the ladies. There’s the woman who wears a turquoise turban, trying to keep her hairdo in place. And dozens of other happy chatterers whom I want to know.
When I told my mother about taking the class, she said, “Did you strike...?” and then started to laugh.
“What?” I said.
“I was going to ask you if you had struck up a conversation with anyone there, but I know you. You did.”
I did.
There’s Sonora, the lovely woman from India who teaches journalism at Seattle U. She’s only a few years older than me, and she has been coming to these classes for months. There’s a sub-community within the larger one--we younger ones who have been in accidents. She was in a terrible car accident several years ago, which smashed her leg. She’s had several surgeries since, and she has to have ankle replacement surgery this summer. Above water, she still limps. But under the water, she has easy grace. We’ve been talking for a week now. I gave her the names of my acupuncturist and massage therapist, since she hadn’t tried either. We might go out for Indian food soon.
There’s another young woman there, with a slender body, a bathing cap, and sunglasses. For the first couple of classes, I thought she was too cool, wearing sunglasses. I imagined her haughty. I was wrong. Sonora introduced me to Casey, and we started talking. She took a bad fall at work two and a half years ago, tumbling down some stairs, then bouncing her skull against concrete at the bottom. She has not been able to work since. Her nerve damage is so extensive that she has had a crippling headache every day since. Her left side is so injured that she feels pain if someone stands too near to her. And she wears the sunglasses because the light hurts her eyes. I felt instantly chastened, not only for misjudging her, but also because my three-month headache felt blessedly brief in comparison. She talked about how long it takes for her to hang up a sweater, because her memory loss sometimes prevents her from remembering what it is. I felt childish in ever complaining.
And so I’m making friends, people bound together by suffering and good attitudes. We all agree--we love the water. Nothing hurts underwater. “It’s like returning to the womb,” Sonora said, and I laughed, because I had been thinking the same thing. (I’m glad for my mother’s sake that the womb is not as large as the Queen Anne pool, however.) And I’ve been listening to how all the people there care about each other. One of the older women had brought some food for Casey’s lunch that day, since they know she can’t cook for herself. They remember each other’s stories and ask about their days. “Did you choose that tile yet, Mary?” It’s people being kind to each other. They just call it Hydro-fit.
But actually, that class kicks my ass. I’m starting to notice differences in my muscles for doing it. My triceps are aching from the curls under the water. (Turns out that the flimsy dumbbells take on enormous weight when they’re soaked with water. That, plus the natural resistance of the water means I’m lifting weights again.) Everything feels more alive for it. And the endorphins that have kicked in from the class, my long walks around Greenlake, and the return to yoga (yay!), have elevated my mood. I’ve found my joy again. I feel like I’m back.
Yesterday, I returned to school. 6 am hurt my head, and for a few moments, I thought I couldn’t do it. But I did my shoulder, neck, and back exercises, drank my coffee, and forced myself out of the house. All the students at school were thrilled to see me. Plenty of hugs. And lots of noise. The main hallways thronged with teenagers is louder than an airplane hanger to me. I endured two periods, talked my juniors into relaxing about the test today, and then I left. I drove home, because I had a couple of periods off before I taught the seniors how to write. And I drove to Hydro-fit.
This time, I walked into the locker room confident of where to go, what to do. I greeted people and ambled to the pool feeling decadent. Playing hooky in the middle of the day (Well, not really. The head of the upper school gave me permission.) I put on the purple waist belt (I recognize my lack of strength now. I’m not ready for the ankle floaters yet) and slipped into the deep end. I gave up my clinging to the shallow end, on the edges of the experience, days ago. Chatted with Sonora, asked Casey how she was feeling. Smiled with Mary. Talked with a woman in her 80s with a plastic bathing cap who had just undergone bladder surgery four weeks ago. And there she was, back in the pool.
Just before the class began, I looked down at my feet. There I was, floating, my perfect red pedicure chipped from the chlorine, and I didn’t care. It’s the strangest, most peaceful feeling, to see the deep water beneath you clearly, and know that you’re not going to drown. That you can just bob and float, throw back your arms and trust the warm water. I feel like a kid again in the pool. I just play. And nothing hurts.
When I returned to school later in the afternoon, I talked with my seniors, these 18 kids, about-to-be-adults, who have been working hard (and laughing hard) with me all year. They were jubilant at my return, and we just told stories for awhile. I told them that I feel like I found my joy with this time off, and that they should never just succumb to the American ideal of push, push, push. And then I told them about my experiences at the pool. They laughed, of course, but they also looked a little jealous. And I told them, “For the rest of the year, I just want this class to be the pool for you. In your writing, I want you to trust the feeling of being here, try out new sentences you never would have dared before like you’re kicking your legs underwater, and play. And I don’t want anything to hurt.” They looked grateful. They looked even more grateful when I told them I’m never going to give them another grade. I’ll edit their writing. I’ll listen to their stories. But fuck grades. They just make us push. And I just want to play.
So if you need to find me, come by the Queen Anne community pool. I’ll be one of the few dark-haired heads among the grey and white. But I’ll be playing, rolling around the water like an otter, at home in my body for the first time in months. Maybe years. And I’ll have a peaceful smile on my face.
But the woman at the front desk shook her head when I said I wanted to walk. “Come back at noon for lap swim. Now, there’s Hydro-fit.” She gestured through the glass windows into the pool, where I saw dozens of gray-haired heads bobbing in clear blue water. Oh, the old person’s class. My back wouldn’t let me take any gym classes yet, but how hard could this be? Sure. Why not?
I walked into the locker room, the smell of chlorine-soaked bathing suits on wet cement taking me back immediately. To being a kid, in Southern California swimming pools, my body like a seal beneath the water trying to escape the enormous heat of the sun. To feeling buoyant. Everything possible. I ducked my head and grinned to myself, then tried to figure out how the lockers worked. There’s always that tentative feeling when I first enter into a new situation, whatever it might be. Meeting a new person. Tackling a new task. Being somewhere I’ve never been. I’m equal parts excitement and sudden shyness. Like being a kid again. Ussually, I start talking and joking, and the diffidence slips off my shoulders. But here, I stayed silent, listening. It was clear, immediately, that I had walked into a fully formed community. Older women called to each other from across the locker room: “Mabel, is that a new suit? It’s beautiful on you.” They chatted and laughed with ease. They were clearly here together every day. I was the only person under 60.
At the poolside, I tried to watch what everyone else was doing instead of asking what to do, so I grabbed some styrofoam dumbbells and some weird ankle floats. I snapped them on me and put my feet in the water. Warmth. Slowly, I descended the steps in the shallow end and closed my eyes in the pleasure.
I love water. I love being in it, floating in it, not talking in it. It’s something primal, something deep in my limbic system, autonomic. Years ago, when some friends and I went to Jones Beach on Long Island for a day at the ocean, they all spent their first hour arranging their blankets and dabbing on sunblock. But I had arrived with my bathing suit beneath my clothes, slathered in sunblock already. I threw off my clothes and ran into the waves, exulting. I didn’t come out for an hour, as I jumped over waves and did handstands under the water, the sand falling away from my palms. They were amazed. I ate, then went back in.
But in some weird way, I prefer pools. I know that’s absurd, but it’s bred in me. When you fly over Los Angeles, descending into LAX, you can’t even count the dots of turquoise blue spread out across the suburbs. Pools meant relief from the sun. A bit of affluence. Long summer days spread out before us. We only had a pool in one of the houses we rented, when I was 14. But I used it every day, practicing back dives and perfect strokes.
No back dives in this pool, however. Everything still hurts. It’s more localized pain, and the muscles are starting to soften. Now, especially, after my week and a half off. But on that Monday, I was tentative and tender. However, I could feel the headache lift the lower I went into the water.
I made my way toward the deep end, the only dark-haired head among the white and grey. It was me and 28 senior citizens. You know me--I was laughing internally, immediately. Then, the instructor, a muscled young woman who worked as a lifeguard, started softly shouting physical cues. Running underwater. Jumping jacks underwater. Side steps. Criss crosses. Crunches. Twists.
I was exhausted.
The old people were kicking my ass.
It turns out that Hydro-fit is one of the best physical activities I’ve ever done. It’s right up there with yoga for deep muscle work and wonderful relaxation of the mind. Because, the longer I stayed in the pool, trying to move, the more the headache dissipated. And the more I stretched out my limbs, letting my fingers play on the surface of the water. I moved in ways I haven’t been able to move since early December. I could feel the blood rushing back into my body, my muscles joyful for the use. I had to stop a lot, because I haven’t been able to exercise concertedly since the accident. And I felt humbled, again.
I stayed toward the shallow end, because whenever I wandered over to where my feet couldn’t touch, I’d feel as though I was starting to drown, and I’d begin to flail. There’s still a lot of fear left in my muscles from the accident, I guess. After all, they’re still guarding against it, three months later. Also, I couldn’t figure out the floaters, and they kept coming loose. Or, more accurately, they worked too well, and suddenly I’d find myself with my feet at the surface, unable to move, looking foolish. Except no one was looking. They were all chatting with each other, their flowered bathing suits bright beneath the water, their hair perfectly coiffed and dry. Meanwhile, I was drenched and still not able to control this.
By the end of the class, however, I had stopped worrying about control. I just floated. I moved in the poses as I could. Other than that, I remembered to feel the water on my body. I relaxed. And by the time I climbed out of the pool, I knew I’d be coming back on Wednesday.
I’ve been going back every chance I have, ever since. I’ve found my body yearning for the pool. Nothing hurts underwater. In that pale blue pool in Queen Anne, my back is powerful enough to move my legs, my shoulders open fully, and my headache is a memory. For an hour, I’m not in pain. And there’s no way to describe my gratitude.
And more than that, I’ve come to love this community I stumbled into. I’ve found myself jealous of the 70-year-olds. These women and men have it set. They wake up at 9 in the morning. They move when they want. They float in the pool with their friends, talking about good books and good food and good memories. They don’t have to push or struggle or be better than they are. They simply are. And they’re characters. Mary has a broad Irish face, a dark blue suit, and a knowing smile. She’s the major doyenne of that place, apparently. I knew I was in when she handed me my dumbbells, rather than making me swim to them. There’s a man who looks like Joseph Campbell who dives into the pool before class, rather than slipping in like the rest of us. Maybe he’s trying to impress the ladies. There’s the woman who wears a turquoise turban, trying to keep her hairdo in place. And dozens of other happy chatterers whom I want to know.
When I told my mother about taking the class, she said, “Did you strike...?” and then started to laugh.
“What?” I said.
“I was going to ask you if you had struck up a conversation with anyone there, but I know you. You did.”
I did.
There’s Sonora, the lovely woman from India who teaches journalism at Seattle U. She’s only a few years older than me, and she has been coming to these classes for months. There’s a sub-community within the larger one--we younger ones who have been in accidents. She was in a terrible car accident several years ago, which smashed her leg. She’s had several surgeries since, and she has to have ankle replacement surgery this summer. Above water, she still limps. But under the water, she has easy grace. We’ve been talking for a week now. I gave her the names of my acupuncturist and massage therapist, since she hadn’t tried either. We might go out for Indian food soon.
There’s another young woman there, with a slender body, a bathing cap, and sunglasses. For the first couple of classes, I thought she was too cool, wearing sunglasses. I imagined her haughty. I was wrong. Sonora introduced me to Casey, and we started talking. She took a bad fall at work two and a half years ago, tumbling down some stairs, then bouncing her skull against concrete at the bottom. She has not been able to work since. Her nerve damage is so extensive that she has had a crippling headache every day since. Her left side is so injured that she feels pain if someone stands too near to her. And she wears the sunglasses because the light hurts her eyes. I felt instantly chastened, not only for misjudging her, but also because my three-month headache felt blessedly brief in comparison. She talked about how long it takes for her to hang up a sweater, because her memory loss sometimes prevents her from remembering what it is. I felt childish in ever complaining.
And so I’m making friends, people bound together by suffering and good attitudes. We all agree--we love the water. Nothing hurts underwater. “It’s like returning to the womb,” Sonora said, and I laughed, because I had been thinking the same thing. (I’m glad for my mother’s sake that the womb is not as large as the Queen Anne pool, however.) And I’ve been listening to how all the people there care about each other. One of the older women had brought some food for Casey’s lunch that day, since they know she can’t cook for herself. They remember each other’s stories and ask about their days. “Did you choose that tile yet, Mary?” It’s people being kind to each other. They just call it Hydro-fit.
But actually, that class kicks my ass. I’m starting to notice differences in my muscles for doing it. My triceps are aching from the curls under the water. (Turns out that the flimsy dumbbells take on enormous weight when they’re soaked with water. That, plus the natural resistance of the water means I’m lifting weights again.) Everything feels more alive for it. And the endorphins that have kicked in from the class, my long walks around Greenlake, and the return to yoga (yay!), have elevated my mood. I’ve found my joy again. I feel like I’m back.
Yesterday, I returned to school. 6 am hurt my head, and for a few moments, I thought I couldn’t do it. But I did my shoulder, neck, and back exercises, drank my coffee, and forced myself out of the house. All the students at school were thrilled to see me. Plenty of hugs. And lots of noise. The main hallways thronged with teenagers is louder than an airplane hanger to me. I endured two periods, talked my juniors into relaxing about the test today, and then I left. I drove home, because I had a couple of periods off before I taught the seniors how to write. And I drove to Hydro-fit.
This time, I walked into the locker room confident of where to go, what to do. I greeted people and ambled to the pool feeling decadent. Playing hooky in the middle of the day (Well, not really. The head of the upper school gave me permission.) I put on the purple waist belt (I recognize my lack of strength now. I’m not ready for the ankle floaters yet) and slipped into the deep end. I gave up my clinging to the shallow end, on the edges of the experience, days ago. Chatted with Sonora, asked Casey how she was feeling. Smiled with Mary. Talked with a woman in her 80s with a plastic bathing cap who had just undergone bladder surgery four weeks ago. And there she was, back in the pool.
Just before the class began, I looked down at my feet. There I was, floating, my perfect red pedicure chipped from the chlorine, and I didn’t care. It’s the strangest, most peaceful feeling, to see the deep water beneath you clearly, and know that you’re not going to drown. That you can just bob and float, throw back your arms and trust the warm water. I feel like a kid again in the pool. I just play. And nothing hurts.
When I returned to school later in the afternoon, I talked with my seniors, these 18 kids, about-to-be-adults, who have been working hard (and laughing hard) with me all year. They were jubilant at my return, and we just told stories for awhile. I told them that I feel like I found my joy with this time off, and that they should never just succumb to the American ideal of push, push, push. And then I told them about my experiences at the pool. They laughed, of course, but they also looked a little jealous. And I told them, “For the rest of the year, I just want this class to be the pool for you. In your writing, I want you to trust the feeling of being here, try out new sentences you never would have dared before like you’re kicking your legs underwater, and play. And I don’t want anything to hurt.” They looked grateful. They looked even more grateful when I told them I’m never going to give them another grade. I’ll edit their writing. I’ll listen to their stories. But fuck grades. They just make us push. And I just want to play.
So if you need to find me, come by the Queen Anne community pool. I’ll be one of the few dark-haired heads among the grey and white. But I’ll be playing, rolling around the water like an otter, at home in my body for the first time in months. Maybe years. And I’ll have a peaceful smile on my face.
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