The Life Aquatic
But, like, the one without Steve Zissou or Wes Anderson. My one.
After spending a few too many nights eating jellybeans for dinner followed by an afterthought of carrots (which I realize, makes me sound like I'm the Easter Bunny), I finally did what I'd set out to do five and a half months ago: I joined a gym. It's just down the road, and I didn't realize it was there until I accidentally ran past it the other day. So obviously, it's close enough to run to, but I probably won't because I own a car and why would I exercise to the place where I exercise.
Since joining said gym, I've started swimming laps in the evening time, just right before going to bed, which, it turns out, is the perfect tonic for a harried and stressful day full of standing and brownie-eating. By this point at night, the loudy/rowdy kids are long gone, and it's just me with a couple of paunchy long-haired gentlemen stewing lazily in the hot tub over there. I forgot how much I love swimming and how I must be at least 3% chlorine, because it just feels right, righter than jogging and squats ever have. Whereas running always feels clunky and interminable and I step down from the treadmill with my body sore not from muscle strain but from jiggling, swimming makes me feel slick and lithe and powerful. Granted, it does involve donning my most unflattering of garments -- the infamous swim cap [which makes me feel like this Pachycephalosaurs] along with my high-necked one-piece swimsuit that I had to invest in after the lifeguard at the Smith Fieldhouse told me my polka-dotted suit was too "low cut" and made me wear a dingy over-sized gym shirt to cover up its scandalous deep-V, but, hey now, it's all for the love of the swim.
When I swim, I feel realigned and reoriented. It's my alone time to think/construct witty comebacks in my head/remember what a big part of growing up was spent all pruny in the pool. I think about swimming lessons when I was six and had a "crush" on my instructor Ron, and then had to repeat my course because I was too scared to dive. I think about being on the swim team all through middle school with my siblings and my friends, having to get out of the water and do push-ups because I stopped in the middle of a 50-yard jaunt, and all of those countless swim meets that tasted like watery Gatorade, sitting on a damp towel in the grass waiting for our heat to arrive. (Of course, there was also that incident when my fellow teammate accidentally punched me in face after an energetic lap of butterfly and broke my nose, and, while stunned, I still swam to the other side of the pool to complete the relay race, effectively bloodying it all up in the process. Dedication.)
It gives me time to think about all those summer Saturdays spent in the Olympic-sized pool at the Air Force Base, diving for torpedoes and challenging each other to hand-stand contests, stopping from our "Martha Washington hair-styling" only long enough for sunscreen lathering and (if we were lucky) a sticky popsicle, which was sure to melt all over our faces with reckless abandon. (And let's not forget the humorous case of the yellow swimsuit!) I think about going to practices on school nights back in Texas, after which my dad would rumble up to collect us in his legitimately German (and also gold) BMW that didn't have any armrests, and then we chattered all the way home together, our stringy wet hair dripping the last little bits of our swim down our arms as we cuddled in our beach towels on the slippery seats.
And now here I am, out of shape and breathing heavily after only 100 yards of languid freestyle, awkwardly reminded how I can't do a flip-turn to save my life. My half-hearted attempts repeatedly result in me hovering bum-side-up just a little too long in the deep end of the pool before collapsing to my side and pushing off from the wall like nothing happened. Whatevs. But after that, it's just me and the muffled silence of underwater, nothing but lane lines and those black mosaic floor tiles. Swimming is my running.
After spending a few too many nights eating jellybeans for dinner followed by an afterthought of carrots (which I realize, makes me sound like I'm the Easter Bunny), I finally did what I'd set out to do five and a half months ago: I joined a gym. It's just down the road, and I didn't realize it was there until I accidentally ran past it the other day. So obviously, it's close enough to run to, but I probably won't because I own a car and why would I exercise to the place where I exercise.
Since joining said gym, I've started swimming laps in the evening time, just right before going to bed, which, it turns out, is the perfect tonic for a harried and stressful day full of standing and brownie-eating. By this point at night, the loudy/rowdy kids are long gone, and it's just me with a couple of paunchy long-haired gentlemen stewing lazily in the hot tub over there. I forgot how much I love swimming and how I must be at least 3% chlorine, because it just feels right, righter than jogging and squats ever have. Whereas running always feels clunky and interminable and I step down from the treadmill with my body sore not from muscle strain but from jiggling, swimming makes me feel slick and lithe and powerful. Granted, it does involve donning my most unflattering of garments -- the infamous swim cap [which makes me feel like this Pachycephalosaurs] along with my high-necked one-piece swimsuit that I had to invest in after the lifeguard at the Smith Fieldhouse told me my polka-dotted suit was too "low cut" and made me wear a dingy over-sized gym shirt to cover up its scandalous deep-V, but, hey now, it's all for the love of the swim.
When I swim, I feel realigned and reoriented. It's my alone time to think/construct witty comebacks in my head/remember what a big part of growing up was spent all pruny in the pool. I think about swimming lessons when I was six and had a "crush" on my instructor Ron, and then had to repeat my course because I was too scared to dive. I think about being on the swim team all through middle school with my siblings and my friends, having to get out of the water and do push-ups because I stopped in the middle of a 50-yard jaunt, and all of those countless swim meets that tasted like watery Gatorade, sitting on a damp towel in the grass waiting for our heat to arrive. (Of course, there was also that incident when my fellow teammate accidentally punched me in face after an energetic lap of butterfly and broke my nose, and, while stunned, I still swam to the other side of the pool to complete the relay race, effectively bloodying it all up in the process. Dedication.)
It gives me time to think about all those summer Saturdays spent in the Olympic-sized pool at the Air Force Base, diving for torpedoes and challenging each other to hand-stand contests, stopping from our "Martha Washington hair-styling" only long enough for sunscreen lathering and (if we were lucky) a sticky popsicle, which was sure to melt all over our faces with reckless abandon. (And let's not forget the humorous case of the yellow swimsuit!) I think about going to practices on school nights back in Texas, after which my dad would rumble up to collect us in his legitimately German (and also gold) BMW that didn't have any armrests, and then we chattered all the way home together, our stringy wet hair dripping the last little bits of our swim down our arms as we cuddled in our beach towels on the slippery seats.
And now here I am, out of shape and breathing heavily after only 100 yards of languid freestyle, awkwardly reminded how I can't do a flip-turn to save my life. My half-hearted attempts repeatedly result in me hovering bum-side-up just a little too long in the deep end of the pool before collapsing to my side and pushing off from the wall like nothing happened. Whatevs. But after that, it's just me and the muffled silence of underwater, nothing but lane lines and those black mosaic floor tiles. Swimming is my running.
Oh no, the yellow swimsuit . . . thanks for not expanding on that. What about the time that Laura tried to do a jack knife dive and belly flopped and I laughed at her? And then she held that against me for 10 years :)
ReplyDeleteFun memories! I am so glad all of you kids learned how to swim well.
ReplyDeleteIn Vietnam, swimming is a rare skill. I didn't meet a single Vietnamese person that legitimately knew how to swim. A few could "float" for a few seconds without drowning (which people do find impressive). My whole time there, I only saw a handful of swimming pools (and the ones I saw were completely empty, or only occupied by a few foreigners). Whenever we went to the beach, my Vietnamese friends were always so impressed with my ability to swim. Thanks mom for getting us kids to learn how to swim!
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