Lifelong Swimmer

  

“How long have you been swimming?” Alice asks from under the thrust of the shower, tossing her turban on the wall behind her.

“All my life!” I exclaim.

 Even though I’m on my way out of the shower here at Kennedy, I can’t help but talk about swimming. Standing naked in the wet concrete square floor of the showers, wringing my too-long hair out, I continue. “I think I was thrown in the pool when I was three!” I joke. And then the memory hits me, visceral, real. I’m back at the Sunset Hills Club. In Hacienda Heights. The pool stretches out in blue splendor, huge as a football field. Or so it seemed to me.  Other kids are splashing and jumping in the water. I dive in? Was thrown in? Could this be? All that comes back to me now is sinking into the delicious buoyancy of the water, the blueness and the bubbles enveloping me. Then I pop up to the surface, treading water with my little legs, giggling and ecstatic.

            I’m home!

            I don’t tell Alice all of this of course. We are on a strict time limit here after the pool closes. 15 minutes or else?

            Or else what? They’re gonna throw all the old ladies, in various states of undress, out into the parking lot?

            But I digress. I ask Alice the same question, “How long have you been swimming?”

            Of course, it’s not a short answer. Alice likes to chat. “Well, let’s see. I used to swim in high school and college, but then I didn’t swim while I was working and raising a family, and then I was laid off when was that? 12 years ago? Could it be? Yes, 12 years ago. And so, I started swimming again then.”

            “12 years is a long time!” I call out from behind the wall, out of the shower now, still wringing my hair out. Fumbling with my mask, trying to get it behind my ears before I swirl the towel up and around my head.

            “Yes, it is!” she calls out, laughing loudly.

            I had told her how I really suffered during the Pandemic when all the pools were closed. How happy I was that Richmond had opened up their indoor pools a year ago. And even with the hassle of the masks and the limitations of the hours and lane assignments, I was so grateful to be swimming again. It really is something that I can’t live without.

            Or I can live without it. But it’s not pretty. I am cranky, cranky, CRANKY!

            When the Pandemic began and the pools were all closed, I didn’t swim for 90 days. 90 days!!!! All my life, I hadn’t gone more than 10 days without swimming and that was because of my hysterectomy! My doctor had told me I couldn’t swim for 6 weeks, but when I pressed her, she said I could go after 10 days as long as I was careful. “No one is going to kick you, right?”

            And no one did. I swam slowly and carefully. But I still remember how at home I felt in the water.

            That first dive into the pool at the Sunset Hills Club at the age of 3 or 4 or 5 or whatever young age it was delivered me into a watery world that  I haven’t left since. Now, 60 years later, I’m still swimming and while I can tell the difference because of my age—I’m slower, it’s harder, I get tired---I am still swimming.

            When I’d arrived today, the young woman at the desk exclaimed, “It’s almost your birthday!” after looking me up on the computer.

            “Yes, it is,” I said. “I hope I make it.” Why did I say this? It was a weird thing to say. I guess it’s because there is so much death around me. A friend and colleague of mine from FFU had died a couple weeks ago. I knew she was sick, but it was still a shock. The last time I had seen her it was before the Pandemic. She was fine. We were laughing and hanging out in the Learning Lab at the library, joking about who knows what.

            And now she’s gone.

            I miss her.

            We just don’t know how long we will be on this planet. But as I joked with the young woman today, “I’ll make it to my birthday as long as I keep swimming!”, we both laughed.

         “Yeah, you will!” she assured me as only a 20 something can.

            Alice is out of the shower now, sitting on the bench, beginning the drying process. Asks me if I’m retired.

            “No, I wish I were. Then I could just swim all the time!”

            She cracks up, rubbing her old tired feet as I pack up my stuff.

            “30 seconds to spare!” I holler, hefting my swim bag into my arms and grabbing my fins.

            Alice’s laugh floats after me as I march out of the locker room. The sky is a bright blue outside, the wind whips from the Diablo Range, and I’m starving as I head to out to the car, grinning to myself as I unlock the trunk.