Keeping my head above water

We learned four new tunes yesterday (birthday from hell day) and today’s summer concert in the park was nice. I’m not as emotional as I was yesterday though I did bend Mike (sax player & vocals) & Brady’s (drummer-only original Shiver) ear all the way to Calumet City!! Brady has decided that I am cursed. He reminded me of a past birthday where my beautifully planned party (for 80) had to be moved from one venue to the House of Blues Foundation Room because the first venue’s AC was broken. It was 90 degrees inside. Everyone was sweating. I was crying…OY!

I don’t know when my birthdays became stressful…I used to plan big parties for myself but had the most fun after the party when there were just a few friends left. I think next year will find me out of town, in a spa, or at a pool.

Now that I know how to swim (kinda) I can actually get in the pool and float and dive and not just walk around moving the water with my hands. I took private swimming lessons last year. It was fun even though the 10:30AM lesson was killing me. That was in the height of my partying days. And I’m just not a morning person. I am a true night owl as I am awake until 4AM on a regular basis.

I had a real issue with the “immersing my head underwater” thing. And I still haven’t mastered the deep end. Not touching bottom is still kinda scarey for me but I’m gonna work on it. I just never learned how to swim. Neither my mother nor my brothers could swim!! My mama didn’t encourage anything “dangerous” which included learning how to drive…more on that later. But it really wasn’t unusual for me and many of my peers to be “non swimmers”. First of all there was the: “adolescent black girl can’t get her hair wet thing” and the simple: “I can’t swim – I’m gonna drown thing.” But I decided that I love the water too much and I wanted to learn how to swim damnit!

My instructor was teaching me how to swim for real. The first thing she told me to do was to go underwater (in the shallow end) under the rope to get into the lane. That was traumatic. I had never gone underwater in my life. Why would I? But I did it immediately without hesitation. She assumed that I was, at least, a bit experienced in the water because she told me later that most people just refuse to do it. I was just foolhardy.

The next thing I learned of significance was floating! Yippee! My favorite! I got the floating thing immediately. It was so freeing. I could really be content to just float on my back all day…ah… I always knew I could float if I could just remove that one hand from the side of the pool!!

I also learned the butterfly stroke or is it the frog? Anyway, she started teaching me a basic breast stroke: one arm up & forward the other down and back with face in the water blowing out, arm comes up, turn head take a breath on opposite side…and then the kicking thing! And yall know I can’t see – so it was very problematic. I bought prescription goggles (the diva in me) Phew! Lots of co ordination and that was just a basic stroke. ha! This was all in the shallow end. The deep end was the scarey part. Never quite mastered that! In fact, I think I will start swimming lessons again!

My biggest challenge will be to swim in the lake. The thought of being in deep water is scarey. There! I said it. I just need practice and confidence. I was surprised to learn that so many people dont know how to swim. And many have problems with the face in the water thing! How about you? Give me your thoughts!!