Survival

 

“I heard you say a couple of times that you’d survived….” a round, pasty middle-aged woman pauses on her way out of the locker room, her beady blue eyes questioning.

I’m at the mirror post swim and shower, trying to yank the tangles out of my hair. I glance over at her, my brush caught mid tangle, “Yeah… it was a battle out there in the pool today.”

She stares at me. Stupidly. She has no clue what I’m talking about. What was her swim like? I guess it wasn’t a battle. Or, she was one of the Clueless Ones. You know, those folks who jump into a lane without any idea how to swim, let alone circle swim.

This is what had happened to me today. I’m swimming along, in a nice rhythm, crowds all around me but so far, I’ve got my own lane. Then, turning at the wall, I stop to survey the family of 3 standing on deck staring down at me.

Damn! Do they all want to get into my lane?

“What’s going on?” I ask them.

Dad answers, “I think I can swim medium if I push it.” Oh, they’re reading the useless speed signs in front of each lane. No one pays attention to these. But I suppose if this is your first time here at Kennedy High Pool, you’d start with the sign in front of the lane.

I stare at him, then take in the wife and the teenager. “Are you all getting in this lane?”

“Yes,” he says, his goatee and gold earring belying his swimming ability. I am not sure why. He just doesn’t look like a swimmer. And, as it turns out, I was right.

“Well, then we need to circle swim,” I say, not asking if they know what this means. Everyone stays to the right side of the black line on the bottom of the pool, circling around it, letting faster swimmers pass at the wall.

“That sounds good,” he says, jumping in and starting a lazy sidestroke.

Shit, I think.

Then the wife gets in and starts a head out of the water breaststroke. She’s alone, in a warm lake. In the San Gabriel Mountains. The scenery is green and distracting. Jays flying overhead, the sun gentle on the water.

She is NOT in a crowded pool in Richmond!

I put on my fins and zoom past her, trying to splash her tranquility, but she is completely clueless, lost in a dream.

Now, when You Survived Woman queries me, I think of all the things I have survived: Adolescence, Cancer, Layoffs, Heartbreaks. Is today’s pool mayhem on par with these?

It feels like it. Or felt like it.

Laughing, I turn back to my brush, attempt to parse the wet strands from its teeth. “It was just a joke,” I say to her. “My swim was a bit crazy.”

“Well, all of the pools are closed around here. So, it is more crowded,” she offers, but her heart isn’t in it. I can tell that her swim was just hunky dory.

“Yeah, that’s a good point,” I agree, wishing she’d move on and stop staring at me like I had some secret story to divulge.

But I don’t. I was just voicing my frustration to my friends in the shower. They both knew what I was talking about, one laughing and nodding in agreement, the other rolling her eyes and sighing loudly.

Survival of the fittest? Darwin’s theory is common knowledge now. Am I going to survive the summer at the Richmond pools? Am I That Fit?

Only time will tell, in the meantime, Gloria Gaynor inspires me with her wailing refrain:

“I will SURVIVE!”

Gloria Gaynor, I Will Survive

Trumpers?

 

“Are they Trumpers over there? They don’t want to admit when they make a mistake?” Jess lathers up more suds as the shower pounds down on her back. The issue?

            A discrepancy in the summer pool schedule for the Richmond Swim Center. Evidently, the website says one time and the printed-out schedule says another. An hour’s difference. Which, of course, is huge when the hours are already so limited.

            “The website says that the pool will be open till 12 on Tuesdays and Thursdays,” Alice continues, dragging her big comb through her wet hair, “but the printed-out schedule says they’re only going to be open till 11.”

            “Can’t they fix that?” Jess asks?

            “You would think so,” Alice says. “But evidently the new management has their head up their asses!”

            We all crack up. And, I think, doesn’t management always have their head up their asses? I remember working at Woo Woo U under the management of Q, whose ineptitude and insanity was legendary. My colleague, J, would see her coming down the hall, juggling piles of files in her arms, car keys dangling from one hand, a cup of coffee in the other. J would whisper to me, “Look out! Her hair is on fire!”

            And it was. All red, oranges, bronzes standing atop her head, looking like the flames of hell.

            Her ineptitude running the Writing Center was beyond my credulity. A meeting with staff would devolve into actual shouting matches between instructors and Q. “I refuse to show up for a workshop at 10:00 am on a Saturday in fuckin Campbell when I have no guarantee that there will be any students there!” one of my colleagues had screeched. Q had dug her heels in. “You must show up, Dana. It’s your job!”

            Dana stood up from the table, fury steaming out of her ears and march out of the room.

            I couldn’t believe it! But then again, I could. Management is always so out of touch with the reality of what their staff, students, or patrons actually are doing or need.

            So, today, when the discrepancy about the pool schedule came up in the showers, I just shook my head, thinking, Trumpers? Maybe. I knew that Q NEVER admitted when she made a mistake or EVER changed her mind even when confronted with irrefutable evidence to the contrary of her position or directive.

            And Trump? Anyone with a brain knows that he is a lying, cheating, conniving crook. Would he admit that he made a mistake with dismantling the Dept of Education? That this is necessary to further the educational needs of students? Or that his choice of a Health Secretary in Kennedy is egregiously wrong. How can someone be in charge of the health of citizens without any medical background? Who believes that vaccines are the devil?

            Nope, Trump would never walk back any of these decisions. And these are just the tip of the iceberg as the saying goes. I could write a book about his ‘mistakes’ and still not be able to cover them all.

            So, today, when the pool schedule discrepancy arises, I am not surprised.

            This schedule’s shorter hours have been the hot topic all week. Everyone is writing letters of complaint to the management. They’re up in arms about who the management even is. It’s a revolution if such a thing could happen at the pool.

            And, yes, I too, have written a letter of protest, citing a recent non-interaction with the new pool manager when I ran into him after swimming at the Plunge this week. “Hi,” I’d smiled. He wouldn’t even make eye contact with me, let alone acknowledge me in any human way, mumbling a surly ‘hello’ before heading into the building.

            Is this guy a Trumper? Who knows. I suppose anything is possible even though this is the Bay Area and Trumpers are rare. Will the discrepancy in the pool schedule be fixed? We’ll have to wait and see.

            “It doesn’t seem like such a big deal to fix the discrepancy,” I comment to Jess after the shower as we’re throwing on our clothes.

            Shaking her head, she sighs, rolls her eyes. “No, it doesn’t. Or reverse it. Keep the schedule as it is. Not closing an hour earlier.”

            “That would be nice,” I agree. But think to myself. Would Q have reversed her decision to make her instructors drive all the way to Campbell, an hour plus drive from Unpleasant Hill campus, for a workshop that may not have any students?

            No.

            It never happened.

            And, I don’t like to be such a pessimist, but the reality is, no one in power wants to admit they made a mistake. Not Q. Not the Pool manager. And esp., not Donald Trump.

            Jess finishes dressing, calling out, “Goodbye Ladies!”

            I follow her, shrugging on my sweater and heaving my swim bag over my shoulder.

            Outside the facility, the day is windy and cold. Typical June. I spy LS at her bike and head over to chat.

            “Did you know that there’s a discrepancy between the schedule in the website and….”

            A gull screeches overhead. My wet hair blows in my face. The words tumble out.

            It’s another day at the pool.