I don’t recall how old I am, but I’m huddled in the shallow end of a big swimming pool
at North Central College, I think, staring into the green water, wearing a
rubbery, coral swim cap with ridges etched into the surface meant to mimic
curls. I’m sure my mother drags me here, I
can’t imagine I ask for swimming
lessons. My recollection is fuzzy after
all these years, but I’m pretty
certain I never make it out of the beginning group. I remember how surreal it all feels, the
stench of the chlorine, the unnatural echo of our voices, and tracing the
pattern on that bathing cap with my fingers.
Pools aren’t meant to
be indoors and we don’t cover our
hair. It is me and an overweight little girl named Olga. We never advance.
I can taste my dread and fear and
smallness as I dredge up this experience.
Maybe I cry about it, and I’m sure I feel
ashamed, like I am too old for this reaction. I am supposed to suck it up, put my head
underwater and swim. But I can’t. And I can’t for many
years.
Life is full of these kinds of
moments. We’re thrown into them against our will, and we fight
like hell to maintain some kind of control.
We’re often given teachers, coaches,
guides to talk us through. We think they’re here to explain the technical terms and steps of
the process, but what they really do is help us access the faith in ourselves required
to put our faces in the water and move forward.
If we’re going to do this, whatever it
is, we have no choice but to believe it is possible and we are strong enough to
endure. And so we take direction and make hard decisions pressed upon us by
experts we barely know. We put faith in the
unfamiliar. We figure out how to heal
ourselves where we’re broken,
and to live peacefully in uncertainty. It’s a tall
order and I wonder sometimes how we ever get through.
“The best way out is always
through,” poet Robert Frost says. And he’s right. There
will never be any hope of a life with the right person if you can’t get through the hard work of ending a marriage
with the wrong person. There is no room
on your team for stellar performers if you can’t have the conversation needed to move on poor
performers. It’s impossible
to leave behind your parents’ house and start
the life you imagine for yourself if you don’t enroll in the training needed for a good paying
job. We get through by addressing what we fear, by actually doing what it is we’re afraid of.
And we do it over and over again in every aspect of our lives.
She’s talking about the inspiration for writing her
song. She sees artwork of diving girls,
and admires their strength. She recalls
the hard times of her own life, and thinks to herself what a strong swimmer she
is. She plays this song, at first for members of her family, and then to
audiences of strangers. Everybody
cries.
You’ve been here before, whether you realize it or not,
on the edge of many different pools, tugging nervously on that ugly bathing cap,
diving into unfriendly waters and cutting through, one stroke at a time, to the
other side. You can do this. Whatever is in your way you can push aside,
you can push through.
You are a strong swimmer.
