I have to let a few of you in on something: I just learned how to swim. Well, actually, I have been taking private lessons (off & on) for months. I’d get to a certain point in my aquatic progress and then: POOF! I disappeared. Sometimes it was legit. I would cancel swimming lessons cause I had a gig, or I partied so late that I just couldn’t see leaving my house before…well…midnight! it just seem as hard as I tried I could not co ordinate the one arm up & forward, the other down and back, with face in the water blowing out bubbles, arm comes up, turn head take a breath on opposite side…and then the kicking thing! And I’m blind as hell so – so it was very problematic.
I don’t know what my deal was. I am not one of those people who is terrified of the water, well except for the drowning part. I had a real issue with the “immersing my head underwater” thing. 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!
At my initial lesson, the first thing the instructor asked me to do was to go underwater (in the shallow end) under the rope, to get into the correct lane. That was traumatic. I had never gone underwater in my life. Why would I? But I did it immediately without hesitation. I just took a deep breath, held it, closed my eyes and went under and up. 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. Ha! I was just being foolhardy.
The next thing I learned of significance was floating! Yippee! My favorite! Even my dolls were rejoicing!
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!!
Those two big steps really carried me quite a ways. I discovered the joy of being in water: under it and on top of it. I was no longer just walking around the bottom faking it, moving my hands thru the surface.
But the real challenge was the…gulp! swallow…DEEP END!!! I had never – until TONIGHT- knowingly and willingly gone into an area of water that was above my head. I have always searched (with my two feet) frantically for the bottom. And because of my height (at five foot ten and one half inches) I’ve been able to venture fairly far out in most pools. If I ever found myself drifting towards the deep end I would fill with such panic and fear (imagine me trying to stay calm on the outside while below the water line I am feeling for the bottom with my toes) that of course I would dip below the surface. Actually, let me rephrase that: I never ventured beyond the shallow end and thus never had my face sink below the surface. But I just knew it would just suck if I did!!
BUT TONIGHT: my instructor lulled me to the deep end. She gently instructed me to keep bobbing (with one hand on the side, another on a noodle) until I could not touch bottom with even the tip of my toes. And before I knew it, there I was: just bobbin’ and treading water. I didn’t even know I was in the deep end because: Damnit! I couldn’t sink to the bottom to save my life – funny that! My instructor said: “You are extremely buoyant” She may have well said: You are very brilliant, You are very beautiful! I went home and hung my suits to dry!
If I’d been in therapy I would have had called it a breakthrough.
