Buckley

 

“Oh…this isn’t going to work….” Crestfallen, LS gazed down at the huge round bulge in her big black bag mounted on the side of the bike. I couldn’t really see what she was talking about. It just looked like her bike bag. But when she tried to walk the bike a tiny bit in the street, it wobbled.

            We were standing outside the Richmond Swim Center after a horrendously crowded swim. I actually had to circle swim (swimmers will know what I mean; non-swimmers don’t need to know what this is other than it is something heinously undesirable.) And, I had to share the lane with The Creep! Fortunately, the third swimmer was The Nice Man, which is why I chose the lane in the first place. I knew he’d know how to circle swim.

            Oh, this isn’t really important to the story other than to let you know I was exhausted and a bit cranky after navigating the crowded pool for an hour.

            Now as I watched LS try to shift the round weight around in her bike bag to keep herself from toppling over once she got on the bike, I wondered how I could help.

“I don’t think Z understood how getting the watermelon home on the bike was going to be a challenge.” LS sighed softly, shaking her head.

 How did she end up with a watermelon at the pool you might ask? Z, another swimmer, had brought it to the pool and given it to LS. Which was very nice. But, now transport home was a dilemma.

            “Maybe you can put the watermelon in the Fiat and I can keep it for you till tomorrow. You could bring your truck then.”

            “That’s not going to work I don’t think….” Her voice trailed off.

            “I would just give you a ride home but I really have to work this afternoon.”

            “Oh, no, that’s okay. I understand. I’ll figure something out.”

            But we both just continued to stand there staring at her bike bag, stymied by a watermelon.

                        Then, I thought to myself, what the hell. I have till 5 pm to get the work done. It’s only 12:30 or so now. I could help!

            “Let’s just put the watermelon in the Fiat and I’ll drive it to your house,” I offered.

            “Oh, no….really?”
            “Sure, it won’t take long. Besides it’s a good story! Wish I could put you in the Fiat too but you have your bike.”

            “Oh, that’s okay.”

            “Let’s put it on the floor behind the driver’s seat,” I suggested.

            I attempted to push the seat forward. But it was stuck. When was the last time I’d put anything in the back? I couldn’t even remember.

            “Ummm…. okay, I know, let’s just put it on the seat of the passenger side.”

            “Great!” LS lifted the huge heavy dark green fruit out of her bike bag and put it on the front seat next to me.

            “Okay, I’ll just meet you at your house,” I called out as she got on her bike and I pulled out into the street.

 

            Driving down Potrero toward LS’s house in El Cerrito the car alert alarm suddenly went off. You know the sound the car makes when there’s something wrong. I checked my rearview mirror. Had I left the trunk open? I saw no evidence of this. I looked down at my gauges. Was I in Drive? (The other day, I think because of my broken wrist, I hadn’t gotten the car into gear and it has started beeping at me.) But today, I’m in Drive. Was the car overheating? I glanced down at the heat gauges. Nope. All seemed fine.

            As the signal changed, the car stopped beeping. Okay, maybe just a false alarm. But I was nervous now.

            What was wrong with my car?

            Maybe there was an issue with the car and I shouldn’t be driving a watermelon to El Cerrito!

            As I crossed San Pablo, the alarm went off again.

            Damn!

            I drove up a block and pulled over.  What was wrong?

            I glanced over at the watermelon, calmly reposing in the passenger seat. And then it hit me! The watermelon was so heavy that it had set off the seatbelt alert.

            I needed to buckle it in!

            Laughing, I reached around my ‘passenger’ to grab the seatbelt, then pulled it over and snapped in on.

            “There you go! We’re safe now!” I announced. The watermelon looked snug all buckled in.

            I headed down Potrero and made the left on Liberty. The alarm was silent.

            I continued to laugh to myself the 3 or 4 blocks down Liberty till I pulled up in front of LS’s house. Got out of the car and glanced down the street. Here she was, coming up on her bike. Good timing!

            When she got to her house, she walked her bike into the back, as I was bursting to tell her the story of the watermelon setting off the seatbelt sensor alarm.

            She cracked up. Of course. It was a hilarious story. “We should name it!” she suggested.

            As I unbuckled the watermelon, she reached in to retrieve it. “How about Buckley?” I offered.

            “Perfect!” she said, asking me if I wanted to come in for a slice.

            But now I had to go. Work called. But Buckley was home. The Fiat wasn’t broken. And I had plenty of time to do my work.

          In the end,  it had all worked out. Whew! 

         

Stronger?

 

"What doesn’t kill us makes us stronger.” I think the platitude was meant to ally my complaining about the cold. She even agreed, saying how it was so cold out. Nodding, I joke that it was the middle of August for chrissakes!

As I try to keep my teeth from chattering, I laugh, trying to keep a sense of humor about it. But I am so goddamn cold! The Plunge Pool is always cold, and frankly, I don’t need it. My entire body is shivering. My fingers are little white frozen popsicles. My brain is cranky!

She heads out of the locker-room into the Cold Zone. I wish her luck.

And then think, is it true? That what doesn’t kill us makes us stronger?

Not that I think I’m going to die from swimming at the Plunge, but I am miserable.

Does that make me stronger?

I think not.

I think it just makes me more frail, less robust.

Like my broken wrist this summer. Okay, honestly, there was one point in the emergency room where they had given me some heavy-duty painkillers and then wheeled me to a dark room. On the way, all I saw in my brain were florescent bright images of lime, lemon, and orange coral.

I thought I was dying.

Of course, I wasn’t. Yet, did this belief that I thought I was leaving the planet, and then surviving it, make me stronger?

Maybe. I know that if I hallucinate florescent coral reefs again that I’m not dying. That could be a help in the future if I go through this again.

Which I hope I don’t!

But another part of me is filled with fear and anxiety. I don’t want to go through another bone break. I am afraid of falling again. I walk with trepidation. I move my wrist with ginger care.

It’s not an attitude of strength.

Yet, are there other times where I thought I was going to die and then I reemerged stronger?

The ambulance ride to the Loretta Krankenhaus in Bavaria when I was sure the pain would kill me. It came out of nowhere. A lightning bolt of agony. A doctor came to my bed. Gave me a horse needle full of painkiller.

I survived.

Was I stronger? Perhaps. Years later I can look back on that experience and realize that I am a survivor. I have, at this point in my life, survived cancer and surgeries and other near misses. (Haven’t we all been driving on the freeway when a zooming car comes out of nowhere, cuts us off, and we have to hold our breath and hope they don’t crash?)

So, today, when Linda platitudes me, I have to smile and shrug. In a way, she’s right. After all, I’m still here.

But still. I think the Plunge could turn up the heat! Just a little. For Chrissakes, it is the middle of August!

 

The Struggle Bus

 

“How was your swim lesson?” We’re in the Kennedy High Pool locker room. The two women are bustling to remove their colorful suits: one bright pink with soft rose flowers, the other a vivid Prussian blue solid. I’d seen them in the pool earlier, their radiant suits standing out from everyone else’s black and navy ones. One had her hair piled up like a mountain inside a large black cap --a towering spectacle. The other had her matching fuchsia cap—only a small round hill atop her head.

            They climbed into the pool gingerly, squealing even though they were both at least 50 years old.

            Now we’re getting dressed next to each other in the mayhem that is Saturday morning post swim lesson: screaming children, frazzled moms, laps swimmers trying to get the hell out of there.

            “It was great,” one of the women answered me now, as she pulled on her yellow and orange striped sundress.

            “It looked like you all were having fun,” I respond.

            One of them gave me a look, then laughed. “Oh, we were on the Struggle Bus!” she exclaimed, laughing, her friend nodding.

            The Struggle Bus! I thought to myself. Wow! That is saying a lot about their experience.  It is not lost on me that here I am, a white woman, talking to two Black women, and the connection to Rosa Parks and the struggle for Civil Rights. Is this where the term comes from I wonder?

 But when I think about it, swimming can also be struggle, though of course not comparable to the henious kinds of bigotry and discrimination Black people went through and continue to go through in the US.

But if you're learning to swim as an adult, it’s not a natural thing to be doing; donning a swimsuit and cap and goggles, learning specific motions to move your body through the water. I see how hard it is for many of these learners. How their arms fall flat on the surface of the water, no airplane angle with elbow up whatsoever. And the kicking with its massive splashing starting at the knee instead of the moving from the hip and using your core.

            It is a struggle!

I forget this since the water is my home. I feel so natural in the water, moving through it easily and gratefully. My lightness and ease in the water is what I live for. But I’ve been swimming all my life.

            “Did you swim competitively?” a big tank of a man asked me the next day.

            “Yes.”

            “Me too. When did you learn how to swim?”
            “Oh, I don’t know. I was really little, 4, 5 or 6?”
            “Yeah, me too. Learned down at The Plunge in fact.”

            “I learned at the Sunset Hills Club in La Puente.” I don’t know if this is really true, but it sounds good.
            So when these two women ‘struggle’ to swim, I have so much admiration for them. It takes a lot of courage to learn something new as an adult, particularly something like swimming. There is an understandable fear involved. I mean, you could drown! Not at the Richmond Swim Center, but out in the ocean or the bay.

            Not that anyone goes swimming in the SF Bay except for crazy open water dolphin swimmers that have some sort of nonhuman layer of fat to keep them warm!

            Yet, it’s important to know how to swim, cuz you never know. It’s like all those things that we need to know how to do as an adult: swim, ride a bike, drive a car.

            The women are dressed now, gathering up their swim bags and heading for the door.

            “See you next week,” I call after them.

            “Yes, you will!” they both call back to me in unison.

            I’m sure they’ll be on the Struggle Bus for a few weeks, but I bet the end of the summer, they’ll be off that bus and boarded on another—the I Love to Swim Bus will be waiting for them to climb aboard and float away.

Water Bubble

 

Rushing into the locker room at Kennedy High pool, I’m breathless and late. Thankfully, there is only one woman here today. Roxanne, in her wheelchair, trying to pull a large floral blouse over her head.

            “Hi, how ya doin’?” I ask.

            “Oh, I’m fine. Fine.”

            “How’s the water?”

            She grins, radiantly. “It’s wonderful. I come here and all of me just aches….”

I think how she must have some pretty severe pain to be wheelchair bound. Plus, she’s well over 300 lbs., I’m guessing. Carrying around all the weight must be painful.

            “I know what you mean,” I agree, though any of my aches must be nonexistent compared to hers. Yet who knows? Today, my knee hurts to walk. I’m looking forward to getting in the water to take the weight off it.

            “I get in the water though,” Roxanne continues, “and all those aches just go away. I was talkin’ to some other ladies here and they were saying the same thing.”

            “Yes,” I’m slamming the locker shut now after undressing and cramming my clothes into it. I glance up at the clock. 11:05. The pool closes in 55 minutes and I need to get out there if I’m going to get my swim in. Yet, there’s something about Roxanne today that slows me, pulls me toward her.

            “I need me a water bubble!” she announces, giggling. “I need to have that water around me everywhere I go. I need a water bubble for my life!”

            Delighted, I share her laughter. “A water bubble? Wow! What a great image! I wonder why I haven’t thought of that before.”

            She shrugs. “If I could just keep that water bubble around me all day then I wouldn’t be feeling no aches and pains, you know?”

            “Yes!” I agree. “The water takes them all away.”

            “Exactly!” she exclaims.

            I picture her motoring around the locker room in her wheelchair, the water bubble encasing her in round healing energy. How would this work, I wonder? Would we be able to breathe inside the water bubble or would we have to have a hole for our heads? Maybe we could wear a snorkel inside the water bubble and breathe out that way.

            And the bubble itself. How would it stay round and formed? How could we get it to not burst and flood wherever we are? That would be a mess if you walked into your house in your water bubble and then once you got inside, it burst, flooding the living room with huge gushing waves. Like pregnant women with their water breaking. Though a water bubble would be by its very nature bigger than a pregnant woman’s water.

            I so want a water bubble for my life! I would feel so much better all the time. Just floating inside the bubble would be so magical.

            But for now, I need to get into the pool before it closes. Roxanne has steered her wheelchair into the shower to collect her suit and shampoo. Our conversation done as we each go about our respective business.

            Yet, as I march out of the locker room down the long hallway to the Natatorium, I can help but feel my water bubble starting to form before I’m even on deck.
            My knee stops hurting. I’m feeling less rushed, stressed. The water bubble is working! 

            I wonder if Roxanne’s water bubble is working now too, taking away all of her pain.

            I think the water bubble must be working for her, too, as I float over to the pool, sit down on the deck and slip my fins onto my little watery feet.

   

           

The Conditioner Thief

 

The swim today was hard. I had no energy, but I plowed on. Post swim, I’m very tired, but the shower helped. It always does.  

    Now, I’ve just come out of the bathroom stall after taking my shower. I always leave my suit hanging on the hooks and my shampoo and conditioner bottles on the floor while I’m in the bathroom.

            But today, when I bend down to scoop the bottles off the floor, I notice that the conditioner bottle is ‘squeezed’ in the middle. What? I would never leave it like this. Did someone use some of my conditioner while I was peeing?

            Oh, yes! Of course, Conditioner Woman would! She’s in the shower now and she’s the only one left in the locker room.  

            It hasn’t happened in a while, but there was a period where she’d come into the communal shower and ask me if she could ‘borrow’ a little of my conditioner. At first, I just said, “I don’t have much to spare, so maybe someone else has some.” And she’d go on to the next unsuspecting soapy naked woman in the shower. “Hello? Would you mind if I use a little of your conditioner?”

            Sometimes, a generous patron, such as Alice, would laugh and hand over her big bottle of conditioner: “SURE! Help yourself. I’ve got plenty to spare.”

            But other times, Conditioner Woman had no luck with procuring some product.

            She’d repeat this with me every week: “Hi, do you have a little conditioner that I could borrow?”

            And I got to the point where I’d just glare at her through my soapy face and hiss, “NO!”

            So, today, when I found my conditioner bottle ‘used’ I knew who the culprit was: Conditioner Woman. She had actually waited for me to go to the bathroom and then had stolen some of my conditioner while I was gone!

            I just couldn’t believe it.

            To make it even more awkward, she’s a librarian at the Richmond Public Libraries and I’d talked to her colleague at the Main Branch about doing a reading of my forthcoming novel, Adam and Leonora, this summer. I’d mentioned this to Conditioner Woman a few weeks ago, asking her if she knew her colleague, Alicia Rodriguez, at the Main Branch.

            “Oh, yes, she’s really nice. Let me know what happens with your reading.”

            All perfectly normal and professional and friendly.

            But now, do I have to let her steal my conditioner without saying anything in order to get a reading at the local library?

            This seems a bit far-fetched!

            Today when she came out of the shower, she didn’t make eye contact me. Conditioner Theft Guilt?

            Or simply in a hurry.

            I thought, for a moment, of asking her if I could borrow some conditioner from her. But then thought better of it. I know my pointed humor would probably be lost on her. But it might make her squirm!

            Or could a Conditioner Thief feel remorse? I mean, what’s the big deal anyway? It’s only conditioner, right?

            Right. But it’s the history of this incident that is intriguing to me. I mean, what the hell is her deal? Does she forget it? Does she not have the money for it? Does she just like to steal? For the thrill of it? What if I had come out of the bathroom stall right at the moment she was taking it or putting it back? What would she have done? What would I have done?

            “Hey! PUT THAT DOWN! That’s my conditioner! You can’t have it!”

            Are we 5 years old?

            In any case, I’m not leaving my conditioner on the floor anymore when I go to the bathroom. I’m taking it with me into the stall.

            Does this seem a bit extreme?

            No. I have to protect my conditioner. After all it is expensive. And I don’t want it to disappear without my consent.

            Or as Kenny Rogers sang, “I have to keep track of the condition of my conditioner.”

            Esp when thieving librarians are on the prowl!

Kenny Rogers & The First Edition: Condition

BEAUTY

 

“For me, it’s all about Beauty. About being one with the water….”

LS’s voice drifts off, lost in thought? 

Our small after swim group had been talking about the various approaches to swimming: the zone, the techinique, the beauty?

Of course, this makes sense that LS would  say Beauty. She is, after all, an artist. And artists, at least the ones I know, are all about Beauty. Yet, how does Beauty translate to swimming?

            I think she puts it well—to be one with the water. Of course, this isn’t an uncommon claim. I think it’s the reason I swim---to be one with the water. To be the water. To feel its warm embrace. To float in its gravity free environ.

            Yet is this Beauty?

            I’m more about ‘cute’ than Beauty. In fact, this morning, as I was getting ready to head out to the pool, I was in the locker room, frantically tucking my too long hair in my bright pink cap when a little girl, maybe 4 or 5, and her mom emerged from one of the bathroom stalls.

            I didn’t really pay attention to them, just noticed them from the corner of my eye. But as I was about to put my mask on, the mom smiled over at me and said: “She said for me to tell you that she thinks you’re so cute.”

            OMG! Make my day little girl!

            I turned to her, grinning, and returned the compliment: “You’re so cute too!”
            She gave me a big bright smile and you know what? Here was beauty! The smile of a child that lights up a locker room. And, I was the cause of it!

            They headed out as I headed into the Natatorium, the noisy chaos of swim lessons echoing through the hallway. But I was floating. Even before I got in the pool.

            I couldn’t remember the last time someone had told me I was ‘cute’ except for Ian, of course, and he better!

            It used to be something that I took for granted. Being cute. I had cute hair. A cute nose. Cute feet.

            But beauty?

            I never thought of myself as a ‘beauty.’ There were women that I’ve known who are beautiful: DL, GP, my mom and sisters.

            And of course, when LS had mentioned the ‘beauty’ of swimming later, I don’t think she meant that it was a visual beauty---though, for me, this is part of it. The way the light hits the water as I stroke through it; the way the clouds float through the skylight as I swim backstroke.

            No, beauty in swimming is really that feeling of not being a separate being from the water, but to be the water.

            And sometimes, when I’m swimming (not all the time), I do feel this way. That I’m not separate from the water. My movement through it is easy and graceful and beautiful.

            But today, I’m happy with being ‘so cute’!

            Cuz, frankly, cute can beautiful too, esp when you're five years old and the world is a big beautiful so cute adventure!

Earthquake?

 

The blast of the whistle screams at me from above. Initially, I ignore it. They’ve been having lifeguard training at Kennedy High Pool for weeks now. Always blowing the whistle. Throwing bricks in the water. Lifeguards in training jumping in to save the brick.

            It’s alarming and distracting. And meaningless as far as what a whistle should mean: someone is in trouble and get in and save them. Or danger danger! There’s a shark in the pool!

            So, today, a calm and blissful Saturday morning with no screaming kids in swim lessons and my own quiet lane, when I hear the whistle blast, I don’t stop swimming.

            It screams again. This time accompanied by Juan’s yelling: “EVERYONE OUT OF THE POOL! NOW!!!! OUT OF THE POOL!”

            I stop swimming, stand in the shallow sun glittering water and stare up at him. I’d just gotten in 3 minutes ago. There was still a little less than an hour left to swim. What gives?

            “What’s going on?” I ask now, shaking my head. I do NOT want to get out. I can’t see what the reason would be, but the other few people that are swimming are heaving themselves out of the pool and onto the deck.

            “Earthquake,” Juan announces.

            “Are you serious?” I ask.

            “Yeah, everyone has to get out of the pool for 30 minutes.”

            “I didn’t feel anything,” I start to argue. I really need to swim. I had missed the day before. There were no kids in the pool today. I had my own lane. Besides! I had just gotten in! What good does swimming for 3 minutes do?

            Nothing. Except for extreme frustration!

            “Yeah, well, trust me,” Juan says in answer to my not feeling anything, “it happened. We all felt it here on the deck.”

            I climb out of the pool, using the ladder, shaking in anger. I can’t yell at anyone. I can’t blame the lifeguard. If there really was an earthquake? Maybe if you’re swimming you can’t feel it? Evidently.

            But as I glance back at the beautiful empty pool, I’m livid. Why oh why? What are the chances of being in the pool when an earthquake happens? And to not even feel it?

            It feels so WRONG!

            “Why 30 minutes?” I ask another guard whom I don’t know. He’s young (they mostly all are) and cute—(again, they mostly all are) with a blonde streak through his shiny hair. “Is there some sort of evidence around this time limit to stay out?”

            He looks at me like I’m insane. “There must be….” he says softly, walking away from me.

            “You guys can come back and swim in 30 minutes,” Juan is announcing now, “but by then the pool will only be open for 15 more minutes. So, we can give you a FREE swim today and sorry about that.”

            “A free swim tomorrow doesn’t do me any good today,” I mutter under my breath, but probably a little too loudly.

            “We can have a pool party! We can go take showers for 30 minutes. Wash our hair. Sing and dance!” Wendy giggles, shaking her thick dark mass of hair in wild anticipation of the pool party.

            I can’t help but laugh. She isn’t fazed by being kicked out of the pool by a non-felt earthquake.

            And what would happen to us anyway if we stayed in the pool? It’s not like a tsunami is gonna sweep us away. Or a huge crack is going to appear in the bottom of the pool and we’ll be sucked under the concrete earth into a huge chasm of molten lava!

            I head into the locker room, behind Wendy, who’s still going on about the pool party to LS, who has given me a sweet look of empathy about being kicked out of the pool.

            “Aren’t you frustrated?” I ask her as we head into the showers.

            “I can’t complain,” she admitted. “I did swim for 3 hours at the Plunge yesterday!”

            “3 hours!” I can’t wrap my head around this right now. I just know that today I only got 3 minutes in the pool.

            And damn! I sure can complain!

            There’s nothing more frustrating than a Thwarted Swim. Esp if it’s thwarted by an imaginary earthquake.

            I still don’t believe it.

            I hear the whistle again. Or is it just my imagination?

            As I dry off after my shower, I sigh VERY loudly. I’ll just have to go for a walk. At least there won’t be any whistles blaring at me in my neighborhood.

            Unless, of course, there’s another earthquake?

Logorrhea

 

“Are you afraid of catching something?” I’m in the locker room, desperately trying to get out before the 15-minute deadline. I’ve got my black mask on, as usual, and guessing this is what this woman is asking me about.

            She’s not wearing a mask. Obviously. I’ve talked to her before, but she doesn’t remember me. She likes to talk. A lot! Older white woman with scrawny legs and pot belly. You know the body type, right? And, she’s got logorrhea. Diarrhea of the mouth. I learned this word in a Netflix film called, Wedding Season, where the protagonist won spelling bees in his youth and his prospective love interest quizzed him with the word, Logorrhea.

            “Logorrhea. L….O…..G….O….R….R…..H….E…..A. Logorrhea. Otherwise known as diarrhea of the mouth.”

            This woman had extreme logorrhea. I wanted to avoid getting into a conversation with her, but I had to at least respond to her idiotic question about mask wearing.

            “Yes,” I shouted through my mask as she stood waiting in the doorway.

            “What are you afraid of getting?” she asked. “The flu…or a cold…. or???”

            “COVID.” I said, turning toward my swim bag to stuff more shit in it.

            “COVID?” she repeated puzzled.

            “Yes,” I sighed loudly but she probably didn’t hear me since I had my mask on. “People are still getting it and getting sick and dying from it….”
            “Oh, yeah.” She didn’t make a move to leave. “I had it at Thanksgiving. I went to my brother-in-law’s house for dinner and I got it then. And no one else was wearing a mask and when I….”

            I tuned her out. I really had to get out of there before the lifeguard’s started shouting at me to leave: “Are there any Ladies LEFT?????!!!!!!”

            But I had to wonder, if she had gotten COVID and she knew that it was still around, then why was she questioning me about my mask.

            I told Ian about this exchange and he said that if people have already gotten it and didn’t get very sick, then they think it’s no big deal. Why wear a mask? “But people are still getting sick and dying,” Ian continued, “and they’re not all just old frail sick people. Young people are getting it too.”
            “Yes,” I agreed. “And I have so many friends who have been SO desperately sick from it, with long covid and multiple instances of contraction of it and work missed and debilitating loss of energy. It’s frightening.”

            I do think Ian is right though. People who have gotten it and not gotten sick just don’t get the mask wearing. Little do they know that they might get it again and get sick. Or they might be carrying it and give it to someone who is immune compromised and kill them!

            I’m not being dramatic here. It could (and I’m sure it has) happened.

            So, not to be a paranoid anti germ person, but in crowded inside areas with no ventilation like locker rooms or the grocery store, wear your mask!

            You could just save your life.

            Or someone else’s….

YoooouWhoooo!

 

“YooooWhoooo!”

        I hear the call above me, like a great horned owl, but it can't be. I'm in the pool. Through the fog of my mask, I see Alice climbing down the ladder into my lane. Okay, this is fine. I can swim on one side; she can walk on the other.

            But it’s a crowded Sunday. I’m anxious about this development. Technically, Alice needs to be in the designated ‘walking’ lane instead of my designated ‘shallow lap’ lane. But since it’s crowded, I think how it’ll be okay to have one swimmer and one walker.

I was wrong!

            Here comes Bella. She’s the wife of The Creep. We call him that because of his vibe. It’s creepy. What can I say? There is something about him that is a little pervy, a little suspect. He’s never done anything to me, like The Perv, but still….he gives me the creeps!  But, I like her fine. She’s always friendly and she’s okay to swim with cuz she doesn’t splash a lot. But today? What is she doing climbing into the lane with Alice and me here already? How can we circle swim with Alice walking?

            It’s not going to work!

            “Hello, Carol,” she smiles at me calmly.

            “Hey, Bella.” I glance down the lane at Alice, chugging away in the center.

            “She says that she can walk down the middle between us,” Bella nods, still smiling.

            “Really?” I shake my head. How the hell is that going to work? There isn’t room for 3 people to move up and down a lane without crashing into each other. Esp if Bella is doing her wide breaststroke (okay, she doesn’t splash, but she does take up a lot of room)

            Why isn’t she swimming with her creepy husband?

            “We’ll figure it out,” Bella says serenely as she takes off down the lane.

            I just stand at the wall, shaking my head. This is NOT going to work. What the hell are these women thinking?

            Obviously, they don’t care about swimming!

            “CAROL!!!! CAROOOOLLLL!!”

            I hear someone hollering my name. I can’t see a damn thing because of my foggy mask, but the voice sounds like it’s coming from the other side of the deep pool.

            I climb out of the insane lane and head toward the sound of the shouting.

            Now I spy my friend, Liv, springy strawberry curls out of her cap. She’s finished swimming it looks like.

            “You done?” I ask, plopping into the water before she answers.

            “Yes, it’s all yours,” she nods knowingly. Somehow, she saw the disaster waiting to happen back where I was and hollered to the rescue!

            “Thank you SO much!” I gush, before diving under the water and heading toward the opposite wall. The lane free and clear for me. What a narrow escape!

            As I swim, I think about how stupid the two women were. Think about what I will say when I inevitably see them in the locker room. Do I call them idiots? Ask them what was going through their brains to think that the three of us could share the lane in that dynamic? Two swimmers and one walker?

            I swim a few hundred yards, then pause to take off my fins. Trade them in for the pull buoy. Notice how Bella has moved too. She is in the middle lane now with her Creep Husband. They are partaking of gross face kissing in the pool! Ugh! They always do this and it’s so yucky! But at least I’m not swimming with them.

            Later, when I am back in the locker room and, of course, it’s just Alice and Bella, I refrain from taking them to task.

            “Oh, darn!” Alice harrumphs! “I forgot my underwear!”

            We all chuckle.

            “But at least I have my bra! Can’t live without that!”

            “I don’t have to worry about a bra,” Bella observes as she pulls her gray sweatshirt over her head with a strange black image on it that looks like a spade with a devil tail on it. “I am so flat. I just use those pasties. I feel so free!” she proclaims.

            Alice lets out a guffaw! “You’re lucky! Mine would be hitting the floor by now if I didn’t wear a bra!”

            I can’t help but laugh at them. Who could be mad at these two women? They’re hilarious!

            I pull my big parka on over my layers of sweaters before heading out the door.

“You ladies have a great rest of your Sunday,” I call out.

            “You too, Carol!” they both answer.

            As I rush out of the facility into the windy winter afternoon, I can’t help but grin to myself. Yoooouwhoooo indeed!

             

She’s Chinese

 

 

“You’re just like my wife. Hafta get your laps in!”

Pineapple Swim Trunks Man, too tan white guy, middle aged, eyes that wander without focus, eases himself into the hot tub where I’m recovering from a rather invigorating swim in the unheated pool. A zebra dove calls in the background as the palm trees whisper overhead. Puffy white clouds drift lazily in front of the emerald crags of Kaneohe’s mountains. I was relaxing, beginning to warm my frozen hands, but now?

Not knowing his wife, I just nod, agree that getting my laps in is a priority. But his tone had been disparaging. Like getting in your laps is somehow a waste of time or something that is beneath him. I can’t gauge what the issue is with his wife…. yet…

“She’s at Costco now.”

I frown, shake my head. “That sounds awful!” I sink a little further into the hot water, watching as a redheaded cardinal swoops down and lights atop the fence. Costco would be the last place I’d wanna be at any time, let alone in Hawaii.

“Yeah, well, if you’re gonna do it, I guess today is as good a day as any. Like she needs more stuff! The other day we were cleaning out a pile of junk and I found a receipt from Radio Shack from 1972! And I said to her, ‘I don’t think we need this anymore.’ But she never throws anything away.  What do you expect? She’s Chinese.”

I’m still processing the receipt from 1972 and agreeing with him in my mind that it probably can be thrown away when he tosses in the line about her being Chinese and that’s why she’s a hoarder.

Later, as Ian and I are strolling down the lovely shore of Kahana Bay, the sand a smooth caramel color, the aqua water lapping at our feet in languid warm waves, Ian mentions this comment and I say how racist it was and how sorry I felt for this poor woman that’s married to this jerk.

I have never heard of this derogatory bias against the Chinese---that they are hoarders. But I live in the Bay Area and even if somebody thought this, they would never utter it aloud. Sometimes, I forget that the area I live in is sensitive and respectful of other cultures more so than other parts of the world, even Hawaii. Here in Kaneohe, even though the environment is paradise, the military culture had taken over. Nothing against the military---well, maybe I have a little bias against the military, but that’s a whole other blog. I do, however, think that there may be a lot of derogatory biases against other races in the military, particularly women, and women of color doubly so. Of course, I don’t have any proof that Racist Guy is in the military or is ex-military. It’s just a vibe. One of narrow-minded dismissiveness. Of swimming. Of women. Of other races than himself.

As Ian and I continue our stroll down the beach, we spy a little girl, busy in the sand, building something. As we walk past, she calls out to her mom: “Mommy! Look! I’m making pizza!”

Ian and I laugh, delighted by her imagination, but another part of me thinks how, of course she’s ‘cooking’ something. Preparing a meal for her family. It’s woman’s work starting at an early age.

Let’s just hope that when she grows up, she doesn’t marry someone like Racist Guy who belittles her to total strangers in the hot tub. That her industry is rewarded instead of ridiculed. That even though she comes from the white privileged class, she learns to accept and respect other races and cultures.

How will this happen?

One pizza at a time. One pizza at a time…

 

 

 

 

Mustang!

 

The line was a mass of static disgruntlement. Packed into the stuffy waiting room of the Dollar Rent-a-Car at Honolulu airport were at least a hundred travelers, their luggage stuffed, their phones in hand, their children running and jumping underneath the useless line markers, their faces full of resignation and frustration.

            “This can’t be right!” I exclaimed to Ian. “We’re going to be here all afternoon!” I’d had visions of landing at Honolulu airport at 12:05 pm, taking the rental car shuttle and then whisking away 20 minutes later to Kalama Beach where the warm embrace of the Hawaii’s sea awaited me.

            Talk about a fantasy!

            “I think we should try to call Dollar and find out if we’re in the right place,” I said to Ian.

            “I think this is right,” he said, squeezing into the stuffy too-lit room for a place in line.

            “But where are the cars? Shouldn’t there be a garage where the cars are?” I stared at the 2 beleaguered clerks at computers, blocked by the black mass of travelers. No way could I walk up and ask one of them.

            A couple behind us shook their heads, the man muttered, “She thinks were in the wrong place too.” He pointed to a pale, blue slacked older woman on the phone outside the waiting room. “She’s calling now.”

            “I think I should call, too,” I say to Ian, the claustrophobia hitting me hard suddenly. Between the too early wake up at 5 am and the long flight with only a strange sausage sandwich for a snack, I was starting to feel peckish.

            “I need to get out of here,” I said, staggering through the crowd and out into the bright Honolulu sunshine.

            “Hello, Dollar Rent a Car—How may I help today?” I’d waited for 10 minutes to talk to a person after finally finding the 800 number on the website.

            “Hello, yes, a person…. thanks…. I just wondered if you can tell me if I’m in the right place to pick up my rental car?”

            “Yes, Ma’am, of course. Where are you?”

            Here was a question. I knew I was at the Honolulu airport, but where exactly? I had no clue. I told her how we’d taken a shuttle. How it’d dropped us off at this structure. How the line for getting our car was enormous and non-moving.

            “Can you tell me if the structure is facing east?”

            I am so tired and cranky. I can’t tell what direction is east on the best of days when I’m able to orient myself. Now? No way.

            “No, I can’t. Can you just tell me if it’s normal to have 100 people in line to pick up a car?

            “Today is a holiday, Ma’am. There is a higher percentage of travelers.”

            I could tell that this phone call was going to get me nowhere. “Okay, thanks for your help.”

            “Thank you for choosing Dolar Rent a Car. Have a nice day.”

            I head back into the 9^th circle of hell. “Did you get ahold of someone?” Ian asks.

            “Yes, but she was no help.”

            “I think we’re in the right place.”

            “Well, I guess we’ll find out in 2 hours.”

            The White man behind us, (oh the entitlement of the Patriarchy!) was now crinkling and uncrinkling a plastic snack bag of granola. Then chomping on it with his mouth open. Needless to say, he had no mask on. In fact, no one did except for me and Ian.

            I was near a nervous breakdown. With hours to go before we got our car.

            “MOM! I’m hungry!”

            “Okay, baby, me too. Can you find your daddy and see if he can buy us some snacks?”
            “I have to go to the bathroom too!”

            Mom rolled her eyes, pushed a lank curl out of her eyes. Earlier she’d been near a nervous breakdown too. In the shuttle. Asking if she could borrow a fellow traveler’s cell phone.  “We got separated from my husband. He has my phone and my wallet.”

            Evidently, the husband was still missing as the line inched forward.

            “Ian, I’m going to scream.”

            “Don’t scream.”

            I nod. Of course, I wasn’t going to scream, but I felt like it. It’s hard not to sometimes. But I try to avoid outbursts in public.

            A half hour goes by. We inch forward. An hour goes by. We’re still not at the counters.

The waiting is so boring. Do I tell instead of show? I’ll show a little: Woman behind me in line, her lank dark hair exposing a tender pink part, squats down and sighs deeply. On the verge. Three young Asian Women, huddled together in a triangle, draped with colorful beach towels, chattering for a moment, then dully silent. Two tall Black women, dressed in golden and ruby finery, animating their discussion with waves of silver pointed fingernails and spangly bracelets.

            The waiting continues. And continues. And continues. Will we ever move? Let alone speak to a clerk and get our car?

            But the line does move. Slowly oh so slowly until…. finally, after an hour and a half, we reach the clerk.

            “Wow, I never thought we’d be talking to you,” I exclaim.

            She doesn’t even crack a smile. “Name?”

            I give her the info. She types it into her computer. The rigamarole of renting takes no more than 5 minutes.

            Now what?

            “Go out and turn to the right, down the elevators to the garage to pick up your vehicle.”

            “Great!” I am so relieved. It’s now 2:30, but maybe there’s still time for a swim in the sea.

            As we step off the elevator to the vast empty garage a box of an office is in front of us. We give the young woman our info. “How long before we get a car?” Ian asks.

            “We’ll try to get one for you within an hour.”
            “An HOUR!” I can’t keep the horror out of my voice. “Do you know what we’ve been through upstairs?”

            She nods, shrugs. “Oh, yeah. Take a seat.”

            Resigned, we do. Rolling our bags over to the concrete bench. “At least we can sit down,” Ian says.

            I don’t answer. Sitting down is NOT what I want to do. I should have been in the ocean by now. Floating under the bright blue sky with puffy clouds floating overhead as the warm water embraces me with its Aloha warmth.

            I watch as the couple that had been in line behind us climbs into an oversized brown Jeep Cherokee. “Why did they get a car before us?” I ask Ian.

            “They must have ordered that car and it was available. We’ll just have to wait till our car that we ordered arrives.”

            “Minnie!!! MINNIE CHAN!!!!”  The Man in charge is striding around, waving a paper over his bald head, his wire-rimmed glasses sitting atop his bulbous nose.

            “Ian!” I whisper. “Doesn’t that guy who’s in charge look like that actor who was in that movie about the mean drum teacher?”
            Ian gives me a blank stare.

            “Do you know who I mean?”

            “I’m not sure.”

            “I can’t remember his name.” I have a phone. I have time. I google ‘mean drum teacher film’ and up pops “Whiplash” starring J.K. Simmons.

            “J.K. Simmons!” I announce, pleased to have accomplished something easily.

            “Oh, yeah, you’re right,” Ian nods.

            “Minnie Chan?” JK has found her. She’s 90 pounds in a pale green mini skirt, her frail bare legs ending in pink flip flops. “You can take this vehicle, but you’re responsible for it.”

            He points to an enormous SUV black monstrosity. Minnie nods, but I can sense her fear. Could she really drive such a vehicle?

            Yet, how long has Minnie been waiting? Hours.

            She takes it.

            JK yells for the next customer.

            A plump, exhausted woman motions at our bench. “May I?”

            Ian moves over, “Of course.”

            She plops down. “Wow. It’s a zoo here today.”

            “You can say that again,” I agree.

            “Where you from?” she asks.

            We tell her the SF Bay Area. Turns out she’s from Concord. We trade banalities about geography.

            “LAMBTON!!! IAN! LAMBTON!!!” JK bellows.

            “Here, here!” Ian rises, waving his arm.

            JK approaches. “Listen, I don’t have the economy car you ordered, but I tell you what I’m gonna do.”

            He points to a beautiful white convertible Mustang.

            “You want it?”

            We both break into big grins. “YES!!!” I cry.

            Concord Woman whoops. “Look at you! A Mustang convertible for Paradise!”

            And as we roll our bags over to the Mustang my grin grows wider and wider. My father immediately pops into my mind; he was such a Mustang man --he would have loved this car! 

          And a Mustang convertible!

            We plop our luggage in the trunk and climb into the car. Ian presses a button. The top floats up and down. And we’re off. Out of the reality of Dollar Rent a Car and into the fantasy of Hawaii!

            Alooohaaaa!