The Summer I Feared the Water

Now that we are halfway into the season, I have an even greater awareness of all things summer—long days, eye-squinting sun high overhead, lawn mowers, bicycles and bugs, ice cream and . . . water. I think of summer as the season of being a kid and tell stories about what they did on their summer vacations. This story is about one summer, a swimming pool, and a fear of water that has stayed with me.

Little kiddos piled into a car dressed in shorts, t-shirts, and flip-flops. A mom threaded an overloaded tote of towels and floaties through an arm while hurrying to the car. I could almost hear their hearty laughs and high-pitched screeches as they splashed in the clear blue water, squinting against the sun reflecting off the white concrete.

Their pink-skinned bodies would redden from their hours under the high sun and their fingers and toes would become wrinkled from playing in the swimming pool too long. They appeared fearless, ready to dive into whatever adventure awaited them.

But I was not to be like one of them when one summer I had to take swimming lessons.

I thought back to when I was that age. Summer vacation in the sixties meant freedom. My spirit let loose after sitting in a classroom among organized rows of desks, listening to a teacher, and following her index finger as it skimmed a blackboard. Nothing required of me was my definition of a summer vacation.

Most would think kids that age would be eager to dive into cool blue water. But for me, this was one world I feared. I feared the pool’s large body that pushed and pulled with a force too big for me. The water was sloshy and unpredictable. Yet, I would reason as long as my toes could skim the rough cement of the bottom of a shallow end and a hand could slide along the stainless-steel rail, I was safe. I could be in control.

Swimming lessons at Exmoor Country Club weren’t part of my definition of a summer vacation. But the kiddie cocktail, cold shrimp hooked over the rim of a short glass, and an ice cream sundae encased in a chocolate shell was. The club was where my father could get lost on the weekends playing golf and where my mother could get busy with me and my brother while we had our lessons.

I had no interest in them. I loved being near water, whether a swimming pool, lake, river, or ocean, but I didn't love being in it. It wasn’t just a body of water; it was an oasis, a peaceful place for calm and mental solitude when listening to its movement, or lack thereof. From the chlorine to the saltwater to muddy rivers, the scent was identifiable. What lived below the seas and oceans and lakes put the imagination and curiosity into overdrive. I thought it best to experience all of this when standing outside of it, looking in.

The morning of lesson day was in full color and motion with bright sun, a Wedgewood blue sky and cotton clouds. “Okay, go ahead, you can take off your robe,” my mother said when we arrived (always early) poolside, ushering me while pulling a pair of lounge chairs together to set up a base camp. Standing exposed and clothed in fear, I trembled.

While waiting for my instructor, I sat at the pool’s edge with my feet dipping in color that matched the sky. The visual chant of dancing ripples was mesmerizing, and I welcomed the flirtation inching toward me as if an invitation to join.

My hypnotic stare into the pool made me lose my sense of place. I believed I could see a bottomless depth far greater than it truly was. I inched closer to the edge, entranced.

And then I was under water.

The gurgling in my water-filled ears was relentless. The water in them muffled everything, adding to the confusion of not knowing up from down. I panicked. I felt topsy-turvy and my limbs were uncoordinated. Was I near the top or at the bottom?

A beacon of light cut the water’s surface, and instinct sent me toward it. I waved my arms and kicked my legs, surfacing until a force grabbed my flapping body. I landed on dry cement, swaying as if still in the water. My savior wrapped me in a towel and rushed me into the arms of my unsuspecting mother.

The underwater chaos still swirled in my head as I sat on the edge of the lounge chair, unable to answer my mother’s calls for an answer to what happened. I wasn’t upset or coughing from unwanted water in my lungs. I didn’t even cry.

To this day, I wonder how I came to be in the water. Did someone push me? There was no one else around that early morning. Or was I so allured by the bright vision and no longer fearful that I just let myself fall in?

Knowing how it happened was one thing, but how could someone who feared water become so hypnotized by it?

I may never know just how I came to be underwater, but I know that the fear I carried was about what could happen or what was sure to happen. And it did. I lost control to fear that had held me. Once I was beneath the water’s surface, fear gave way to doing what came instinctually—kicking feet and waving arms.

It’s kind of ironic. The fear I had of ending up there vanished when I slipped beneath the surface. The panic that had gripped me gave way to instinct. My body did what it needed to do to reach the surface.

I didn’t take many lessons thereafter. And I never progressed to learning how to actually swim, though I learned to be comfortable in the water, as long as I was in the shallower end. I no longer fought the idea of being carried away with its movement, but to succumb to it.

Now, when I watch little ones scramble onto a pool deck, drawn to the sparkling water with leaps and skips, there may be one or two who hesitate. The fearless ones are clear, but the one who carries a fear is a secret only to them.

Fear doesn’t tell us the entire story. Fear imagines what might happen while telling us we have to always be in control. Yet when the moment finally comes, we often discover instinct overpowers fear, and that we are resilient only when we let go of an illusion of control.

MERCY TOWN TRAVELS TO DUBLIN, Ireland!

Unfortunately, I won’t be there. But Fortunately, MERCY TOWN will!

An Independent Press Award’s Distinguished Favorite, Mercy Town will be on display at Trinity College in Dublin. I am sure to be there in spirit!