Come On In, The Water's Fine

I can feel the water calling my name. Be it the beach, a creek or somebody's swimming hole, I need to get on over there. It's pretty scary, to expose these white, fluffy limbs to the sunshine, but I need some buoyancy in my life. 

When I was a child, I was horrified of the water. I had been thrown in a few times and also heard tales of drownings at Sun Valley Beach, the South's "biggest swimming pool," (it was a concrete lake) which was a half a mile from our house. We were always warned not to go in the water for at least thirty minutes after we ate, because supposedly you could get cramps and drown. (And just for good measure, don't swallow your chewing gum, because it won't pass through your digestive tract for seven years). I would splash at the edges, but there was no swimming for me. 

The summer I turned eleven (the other neighborhood kids were already tadpoles), our Uncle Lloyd decided we needed a pool. He bought a 3-foot deep model and slaved over it all week, to get us somewhere to cool off. Since we didn't have central air conditioning in our 60s brick ranch (oven), this was heavenly to us kids. And apparently to my parents too. Many a night, I would hear them giggling out there, taking a midnight "swim."   Having a pool that shallow gave me the confidence to put my head under the water and to push off and glide. I began to imagine myself a tadpole too.  

Then came 4-H camp at Rock Eagle in Eatonton, Georgia. I didn't know a soul when I got there, and on the very first day we had free time at the giant pool. There were two diving boards -- a tall one and a thirty-foot one (not really, but it seemed like it), impossibly deep water and about three hundred strangers. Since I would never see these people again, I had nothing to lose. I waited in line and tentatively jumped, well, fell off the board. My body descended deep into the water. I had never swam in anything deeper than three feet, and here I was, dying on the first try. I thrashed my way up to the surface, gasping for air, and made my way to the ladder. No one seemed to notice what I had just been through. Kids were laughing and talking and even throwing themselves off the high dive, something I decided I would never do. But of course, there were more trips to the board and by the end of the week I joined the crazy kids, not just falling but jumping off the high dive. 

Thus began my love of the water. For my middle school years and all the way through high school, I worked at Sun Valley Beach, teaching little ones to swim and lifeguarding (who lets a 12-year-old teach swimming lessons? But I promise I did, and they even paid us). Each break I got, I would get back into the water, perfecting my dives and swimming around like a mermaid. 

I taught my four children and many of my sister's children to swim, and have never ceased flinging myself into the ocean or lake or pools along the way, no matter how white or floppy I happen to be. It's a wonderful thing, to float and move in the liquid spaces. Even just seeing water is good for the soul. It's dangerous and wonderful and mysterious, all at the same time. 

Seize the day. Don't wait to lose weight or get in shape. Get the old fool out there and dive in (and get your kiddos some swimming lessons).