In Deep Water
“I want to be a mermaid,” I answered when Janey, our swimming teacher, asked why we were at this extraordinary class, Adults Afraid In Water. I perched on the bleachers playing with the rubber strap of my new water goggles. Why here, why now? True, every year I attempt to conquer at least one thing that scares the pants off of me. But this? I’d been afraid of water most of my life, now at fifty, it was time. I glanced around the circle at the fearful folks who had joined me in my quest for amphibian aptitude.
“My buddies make fun of me,” mumbled Kyle, the fuchsia-faced teen. We heard the unspoken, so do the girls.
Forty and fit, Jim confessed he’d been marooned on a sandbar in the Caribbean while his girlfriend jeered at him from the shore. He’d flailed to safety in chin-deep seawater and never put on swim trunks again.
There were others: a Korean War veteran; a cop who encountered real dangers every day, but feared the swimming pool at the family reunion; Maryann, victim of a tipped canoe at Girl Scout camp, now with young children eager to swim.
All had colorful, traumatic stories, and mine ranked right up there.
Where I grew up, we had no municipal pool, only a swimming hole, complete with patched floating inner tubes and a dangling rope swing. But when I was nine, I discovered something bad was in that water. I cannot forget the sodden ragdoll body of the neighbor girl lying on the creek bank, mud smearing her cheeks and chest after the shrieking adults failed to revive her.
The screech of chalk on blackboard brought me back to our impromptu classroom at the edge of the indoor pool. Janey illustrated our fears with stick figures and ovals. She explained that as our “bubble” of comfort grows smaller and smaller, it rises up our bodies revealing symptoms of fear: weakened knees, fluttering stomach, pounding heart, lightheadedness. Then there was me. The abandoned stick figure might appear to be in the pool, but my tiny bubble and I were over by the lockers, headed toward my warm, dry, living room.
Filling out disclaimer forms, I was utterly and urgently aware of the shimmering expanse of water, throwing waves of reflected light over our tense faces. I kept imagining the monsters from the deep—the ones on the margins of ancient mariners’ maps designating the edge of the world. In southern creeks there might not be sea monsters, but their second cousins, poisonous water snakes, proliferate. Clearly, water wasn’t safe.
Once again the teacher returned me to the present. “Change, then join me at the pool in fifteen minutes.”
The talking part was over. We were now going to get wet.
No one moved.
“C’mon, no one gets tossed in the pool. If all you do is sit on the side, stick your feet in and stay comfortable, that is a win. Just stay in your bubble.”
Personally I wanted my bubble to be inflatable and tied with a big rope to the pool ladder, or better still lifting me out of here and across town to a nice fish dinner.
Returning from the lockers, one person fled and I almost followed. Then the old Korean guy encouraged me with a nervous smile. Terrified, I clutched and scooted my way down the ladder into the bathtub warm water, letting it slowly inch up my legs and torso taking my bubble with it.
“Just move around, get used to the resistance of the water, the temperature.”
That afternoon Janey taught us to play again, to become the children we’d lost. We weren’t allowed to do anything, whether it was float, or put our heads underwater, stroke or kick, none of it, until we really really wanted to do it. And not one person made fun of me, shoved me, or tried to dunk me. I watched my classmates floating, gracefully moving underwater and rising through the surface like dolphins. With a lissome sweep, I ran my hand through the water, turning in a circle. Mermaids were graceful. Maryann giggled after opening her eyes underwater. I wanted that. Nine again, excited, I wanted to try.
Later at home, I gushed to my adult daughter, who’d swum like a guppy at six.
“I floated on my back! I even picked up a penny from the bottom of the pool!”
“Ah, my MerMom,” Jennifer beamed.
We celebrated with pizza and Disney’s Little Mermaid.
Next morning I took the trip down the “deep end” ladder. With a white knuckled grip, I pulled myself rung by rung underwater to the bottom. Turning, cheeks puffed full of air, I searched anxiously for the creatures that had taunted and haunted me. No monsters, just a cracked tile next to the drain. I peered far overhead at my classmates kicking feet. Unclenching my hold, I shot to the surface like a rocket. The water didn’t want to keep me at all. The blast to the top was so much fun I did it over and over again, like an enthusiastic otter.
At the end of the day the instructor smiled at us.
“Now, anyone who wants can walk over to the edge and jump in, but only if you really have to.”
Oh, I had to. I stood for a moment, my toes curling over the tile and took a deep breath. Then I leapt. Plunging beneath the surface, in a torpedo of bubbles, I plummeted to the depths. At the bottom of my descent, the iridescent fins of my feet flipped and sent me surging to the surface, arms arched over my head. To the cheers of my classmates, I emerged, laughing, in a triumphant fountain. Some of the liquid streaming from my face was salty.
Did confronting one of my biggest fears change me? Maybe. I now wait until I’m in my comfort zone to act. Since the class I’ve asked for a raise, entered my art in an exhibit, and tried online dating.
When I feel like I’m getting in over my head, no matter how deep the water seems I remember I can always float.
Actually, even better, I’m MerMom. I swim.