Monday, September 08, 2008

Only Round Pools?



You know how when you fly over LA, you see all of these backyard blue squares, rectangles and kidneys from the plane? All those pools!

Today, flying over the Chicago Suburbs before landing at Midway Airport, PP gazed out the window at the dreary gray rain and rows of suburban homes with only Round Pools!

What does it mean?

That the Chicago-ites only swim in circles? And the LA-ites swim in boxes?
That the Midwest is all about connections and roundness while the West is all about rigidity and squares?

Or now that PP looks up round pools on google, it's all those 'above ground' portable pools. The ones that are like large blow up pools but not.




So, it's a class thing then? The working class families of Chicago splash about in these 'above ground' pools, while the upper middle class LA families build their own cement rectangular ones? Or is it a space thing? LA just has bigger backyards, cuz it's that West Largeness, while the Midwest is packed tighter.

But do round pools take up less space than rectangular ones?

Okay, maybe it's just PP's memory. Of the bulldozer in the backyard at Hacienda Heights, digging the giant hole for the pool. Then the cement mixer pouring the bottom. And finally the day that they put all the garden hoses into the new pool and waited and waited and waited, PP and her sisters, lying flat on the newly poured deck, the heat and scratchiness of it, watching with so much impatience as the water level rose ever so slowly.....







It must all mean something, but PP is way too tired to figure it out. Yet it is something to ponder, esp in a weary sleep deprived haze to the tune of a 10,000 Cicadas here at the enchanting Mary Anderson Center for the Arts.

1 comment:

poetowen said...

Glad you made it!

I think it's a weather thing--they take the blow-up pools down when the freezes come. My relatives in Boston all have those hoaky round pools.

Happy writing to you--keep
the posts coming.

Menacing

  “That was magical….” LS sighs, turning on the shower, letting the hot water cascade over her after our swim. “Yeah, it was…” I agree… “e...