The Search

“What are you looking for?”

“Oh, I lost my goggles…” Melvin dives again under the lane lines, skimming close to the bottom of the pool, before popping up again. He tosses a pair of pink rimmed goggles on the deck.

I’m standing on the deck, dripping and ready to exit the natatorium.  Super Swimmer man in the lime green cap and turquoise swim trunks stands next to me. I’ve swam with him in my lane a few times. He’s okay to swim with except that he’s BIG. Tall, maybe over 6 feet, and muscular. His great white core barreling through the water.

Now he just stands and watches Melvin.

Nodding toward the discarded goggles, I ask, “Are those what you were looking for?”

“Not really,” Melvin shrugs before diving back under the water, swimming close the bottom of the pool again, heading out to the middle. He’s the Super Swimmer of the pool. Sleek and muscular, fast, and furious. A lifeguard and a manly man. If he can’t find what he’s looking for, who can? I muse.

I gather up my stuff and start down the cold hallway to the locker room. Lime Cap man shakes his head, then says to me: “Do we ever really find what we are looking for?”

He chuckles. Pleased with his joke. I stare at him, then shake my head. “Depends,” I say, but before I can elaborate, he’s gone, striding down the hallway, leaving big man wet footprints in his wake.

Later, at home now, dry and hungry, I muse about Lime Cap Man’s question. Do we ever really find what we are looking for?

I suppose first, you have to know what you’re looking for. If it’s a lost pair of goggles, then that’s rather straightforward. You either find them or you don’t. But what if it’s something more abstract?

Like the meaning of life?

Hell, I’m never gonna find that! Has anyone? Of course, it’s a question that people have been asking for eons: philosophers, artists, writers. Socrates. Thoreau. Rodin. It’s a search that is eternal. And unanswerable. At least as far as I can figure.

So, I’ll stick to more mundane searches.

Right now, I’m searching for ways to stay warm besides running the heat 24 hours a day, which frankly, I can’t afford.

So, I hunker under the electric blanket with the heating pad behind me. Grab the cat and place her strategically on my ice-cold feet. Sometimes she cooperates. Other times, she’s looking for something else.

Who the hell knows what that could be!

So far, finding warmth has eluded me. It’s just not possible. I think I ‘run’ cold anyway. I talk to people who tell me they are always hot. What would that be like? They never seem happy about it.

            And, I guess, just to end with the cliché. It’s this ‘happiness’ that we are all searching for, right? I do believe that I can find this. Though it is fleeting.

            In the pool. At the piano. Snuggling with the cat. Hanging out with Ian.

            The search, though, continues. I’m always looking for something.

            Will I find it?

            I hope not. Cuz without a quest for that elusive ‘something’ would we have any purpose at all?

            Something to ponder.

            I do wonder, though, if Melvin ever found his goggles. I’ll have to ask him next time I see him. That is, if I can remember. I'm still searching for my brain. 

    Always!

           

 

The Memo

 

“We got a memo from the administration yesterday,” Jess says, rubbing the shampoo into a soapy lather. She’s a fellow English instructor, teaching at a local community college. Often, we chat about teaching after our swims, in the shower or getting dressed.

            Now, I stand shivering under the hot stream of water. I just can’t get warm lately. It doesn’t matter how hot the shower is or how warm the pool water is, I’m always freezing!

            “…they said that if ICE comes into our classroom, we don’t have to cooperate with them.” Jess rinses the shampoo out of her hair, ducking under the shower head to keep from knocking into it.

            “WOW!” I shake my head, thinking how that didn’t take long. Trump was just sworn into office the day before. He didn’t waste any time, though, signing all those executive orders, this one Jess is referring to is about rounding up all the ‘illegal aliens’ and deporting them back to their home countries.

I can’t imagine what I’d do if I were teaching and ICE agents came barging into my classroom while I was giving a lecture on the writing process.  I would be terrified. Not to mention my students. Some of whom may not be in the country legally. Even if the administration said that I didn’t have to comply with ICE’s demands, what would I do?

             Jess turns off the shower, shakes her wet hair.

            “I mean, I guess it’s good that the administration is on top of it. I just can’t believe that you’d have to contend with this,” I say.

            She nods, “Yeah, well, this is what they’re gonna do. Go into college classrooms, churches, places of business.”

            Jess grabs her towel and begins to dry off. And I think, damn. Isn’t our job hard enough? Trying to teach writing to a group of students who may not know anything about it? The time in the classroom is so valuable. Do we, as instructors, really have to worry about ICE agents barreling into our classrooms? Demanding we hand over students? And then what? The instructor has to stand there and go against their commands? Are they going to just go away? Or will they arrest us? Throw us in jail? Prosecute us for noncompliance with federal agents? And will the administration do anything to support us?

            I can’t imagine. And, this is the kind of fear that instructors will have to contend with, especially those like Jess who are teaching in the community colleges. Sure, we live in California, in the Bay Area. Our politics, like these put forth by Jess’ administration, don’t support Trump and his draconian policies, yet…. will these politics protect us? Will someone like Jess really be able to tell ICE agents, “NO, you’re not taking any of my students. Get out of my classroom!”

            I turn off my own shower, grab my towel, still shivering. Is it from the cold air or the hostile environment of fear and threat that we are all going to be living under for the next four years?

            “Your leggings are so cute! Where did you get them?” one of the other women asks, the question echoing up and into the air.

            “Ross. They have the best selection.”

            “Really? I’ll have to check it out,”

            I unlock my locker, grabbing my clothes and begin pulling on my tank top, sweatshirt, sweaters, thinking how our lives will go on. These women aren’t thinking about Trump. They are thinking about where to buy their next pair of sweatpants.

            Maybe this is the answer? Just go on with our lives? Don’t think about it?

            I wish I could. But right now, I can’t. All I can do is think about Jess and her students and ICE agents barging into her classroom in the middle of a discussion of Langston Hughes.

            Jess is dressed and headed out the door now. “Pray for me,” she jokes, halfheartedly. 

            “I will!” I call after her.

            Standing at the mirror near the doorway, I finish brushing the tangles out of my wet hair, turn around and gather up all my stuff littered all over the wide wooden bench. 

            I shiver again. 

            Then head out the door, the wind whipping my wet hair into my eyes, the screech of a seagull circling overhead piercing the air.