When we need to clean ourselves, we use water to wash away the dirt from a day’s hard labor. When our bodies ache, when they are weary, or when they are in need or relaxation or play, we turn to water. We submerge our bodies in a bath or in a swimming pool. When we thirst, we turn to water. When our bodies are hot with sweat, our mouths dry, we take a glass full of ice and water and fill our mouths with water and use it to cool us, fulfilling our bodies need to replenish what it has lost. It refreshes us. It nourishes us. It sustains life.
Water is a wonderful thing. It soothes our souls, it cleanses, refreshes, it sustains life. But, it can also take away life. And that is what almost happened to me on a hot summer day in my seventh year of life.
Swimming lessons were always something my sister Elana and I looked forward to each summer. They were one of the few things we actually got to do “for fun” since neither of us took any other type of lessons like some of our friends did. I had always been envious of Missy Witte and her fanciful sequined and beaded dance costumes. Her parent’s let her take not just one type of dance lesson but THREE: ballet, tap, and jazz. I was so enthralled with her dress-up wardrobe of old dance costumes it made it difficult to ever take them off. There were even times when I would put two or three on at a time.
But, swimming lessons were what I got to do and I would have to be grateful for that. Each summer, my mom would take Elana and me shopping for a new swimsuit and towel for swimming lessons. I can’t specifically recall what my swimsuits were like from summer to summer but I do know that I always picked a swimsuit that was pink because pink was my favorite color back then. And, I am sure that I tried to pick out something as fancy as possible—something with lace, sequins, or fake rhinestones (Better yet, all three)—just like my friend’s dance costumes. I am sure that it was a one piece swimsuit. Mother never let my sister or I wear anything other than that—it would be indecent to have done so. My mother went to Catholic schools in the 1930’s and 1940’s when the nuns were indubitably strict and she still clung to those “old-fashioned values” often reminding Elana and I that back then if girls did not wear skirts or dresses that covered their knees they were just “asking for trouble” and telling us stories about how in those days when she went swimming, girls only went with other girls so that no parts of their bodies were exposed to other boys. However, Mother also recognized that we were now living in the 1970’s and change was constant but uncomfortable. So, she took us to swimming lessons, in our one piece swim suits and I was happy to go even though I still wished I could have dance lessons because I would rather have had beautiful satin and sequined dresses with tulle, lace, and fringes.
The summer when I was seven, I swam one level below my sister’s level. This put me two summers away from getting to jump off the diving board…the grand prize of swimming lessons. Being in the highest level, you got to swim in the deep end and jump off the diving board. I remember my sister and me longing for the day when we would get to jump off the diving board like the big kids. I was two levels away and my sister was one level away. I always felt one step behind my sister but that summer, I had my shining moment! My swim instructor thought I was so accomplished in my level that she decided to promote me early. I didn’t have to finish out the summer where I started but got to move up to my sister’s group! I was so excited! To be two years younger than Elana and in the same swimming level was a big deal to me. “I’m not the ‘little sister’ as far as swimming lessons are concerned,” I thought to myself. I was so filled with pride. But one must be careful of pride. With it comes a price. “The only problem is that my feet barely touch the bottom of the pool here but over in the other area my head stayed above water easily,” I worried. For me to stand in this area, I had to stand on my tippy toes. I could barely touch bottom. Despite my excitement over thinking I was my sister’s equal in one way, I knew she stood inches above me.
One particular day, we were practicing a back stroke. Those of us waiting for our turn hung onto the side of the pool bobbing up and down while we half paid attention watching the swimmer practicing and half giggled and played amongst ourselves dipping our heads under water and popping back up again as if our heads were bobbins and our bodies fishing hooks with giant worms attached. It was a fun time hanging on the wall and popping up and down having wet hair come down over my face clinging like a damp curtain. The water ran down that curtain, down over my shoulders, rolling in streams and in beads back into the basin from which it came—the pool that soothed and relaxed me, that gave me pleasure, that game me my first time of being “my sister’s equal.”
My turn finally came. I held onto the wall with my wrinkly fingers and my toes curled, knees bent, face to the sun. I pushed off the wall. Arms and feet kicking, each stroke took me away from the wall of security where I had just bobbed like a fishing bobbin close to the shore of a lake. Now, I was propelling myself into the middle of the pool but what I didn’t know, what I could not see with my face to the sun, the sun that was warming me, was that as I swam my strokes took me towards deeper waters. When I heard my swim instructor call from the edge of the pool, “Ok! That’s good work!” I stopped my strokes. I lowered my legs. I tried to stand on my tippy toes like I always did in the newer area of the pool where I was my sister’s equal except for that she stood inches above me. But when my feet touched bottom, my head was well below the surface of the water.
My heart started pounding. I felt my pulse race as the blood pumped faster through my veins in my panicked state. I pushed myself up with my toes from the bottom of the pool and when my head popped through the surface of the water, I yelled, “HELP!” but it did not come out that way because as soon as I got to the top, I was going down again and as I went down, mouth open from my plea for help, I took in a mouthful of water. I touched bottom again. Panicked still, I pushed up again! Again, I yelled, “HELP!” . But the same thing happened, I inhaled and swallowed mouthful after mouthful of chlorinated water into my lungs and stomach. I yelled for help while under water. Those cries for help were muted by the water. Fear and panic was overtaking me. On one trip to the surface of the water, I could hear someone shout, “She’s drowning!” and I turned my head to see my mom standing up putting a newspaper down.
My arms and feet kicked and flailed and from the first moment my feet touched the bottom with my head inches, maybe even feet—I really don’t know—under water, I forgot everything I knew about swimming and I knew I was not my sister’s equal because the inches she stood above me in that area of the pool made all the difference in the world in that moment.
No one bothered to try to save me that day. No swim instructor. No lifeguard. No mother. No other adult. I saved myself. My pushes to the surface launched me towards the edge of the pool. Maybe they didn’t try to save me because they could see that I was making progress on my own—but I didn’t know that. I was seven. I was scared. I thought that I was drowning. I thought I was going to die. And, I was waiting for help—help that never came.
When I made it to the edge of the pool, I climbed out, exhausted, gasping for breath. I sobbed, “Why didn’t you help me?” When I said “you” I wasn’t referring to anyone in particular but to everyone—everyone who stood by and watched—everyone who I thought should have helped me. The swim instructor. The lifeguard. My mom. Other bystanders. I was seven and I was alone in that pool and I was drowning and the only one I had to count on was me.
After that day, I went back down to my previous level of swimming. I was not going back to that group again. I wanted to be where my feet touched the bottom because I would never be fooled into thinking I could trust anyone other than myself to save me if I ever needed it again. With some things, it only takes one time to destroy trust and feelings of abandonment when I thought I was going to drown were a deal breaker for me.
I never went back to swimming lessons after that summer. I never did fully lean how to swim. I don’t like to get my face wet anymore—not even in the shower. As soon as my face gets wet, I immediately grab a towel and dry my face. I refuse to go in water deeper than my shoulders without holding on to the edge and taking a cruise for a vacation is not an option.
That summer the water which nourishes us, relaxes us, gives us a place to enjoy our hot summer days—that water gave me my first opportunity at being equal to my sister and it took it away. But when it took it away, it also took away bits and pieces of trust that I had in others. It took away trust I had in the way I thought things were supposed to work. From fancy dance costumes that I wanted to a one piece swimsuit that had to substitute for those costumes, I started to lose my trust in others the summer my sister stood inches above me.
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