summer


         I spent the better part of my childhood summers under water: summercamp, grandparents’ pool, beaches, lakes, swimming holes.  Summer meant water.  Summer meant being submerged, the lifting of my hair in the enveloping cool, the constricting feeling of my lungs in the evenings after holding my breath in the deep end all day.  I took it for granted.  Summer and swimming were synonymous.
          Then came adulthood.  Then came New York.  The reflection of heat bouncing off concrete to more concrete.  The oppressive humidity, the crush of traffic to the beaches, the polluted river one block away.   When I first moved to Greenpoint eight summers ago, I put wet washcloths in the freezer and draped them on my shoulders during the heat waves.  In the evenings, I went down to the river and watched the water lap the pilings on java street but didn’t dare dip a toe tip in. The river's smell of earth and water drifted up to my living room window and made me wild.  Such an ache to swim, to dive into that river polluted by my elders.
            When we walked past the old abandoned swimming pool, we tried not to look at it.  They’ll never fix that pool, I was told.  Or if they do, it will be in ten years and by then we won’t be able to afford to live here anymore.  Summer in New York became about finding ways to leave.  Dreaming of lake water upstate or on train trips on the LIRR.  I adapted to a seasonal sadness.
            Time passed.  Rents went up.  The first of my friends fled to cheaper territories.  Art and culture came to the abandoned pool, and with it came city funding and without the time feeling so heavy after all, something changed in the city bureaucracy and the pool re-opened.
              My first morning swim came three days later.  7:30 am.  Early-morning stillness, sun sparkling off the blue, rows of swimmers breathing in rhythm with each other.  Padding barefoot along the quiet to the little ladder at the edge.  So big, it was originally built to hold 3,000 people.  Sliding down, the sudden sweetness of the water on my skin, the lifting of my hair in the enveloping cool.  And with it, an underwater sigh.  The joy of summer has returned.
              It seems such a silly thing, that a public pool born of city planning and reborn of elbowing budgets, could make me feel so happy, could make me sit with damp hair in my living room scribbling in a notebook before work with a few rogue tears in my eyes.  Maybe it has something to do with childhood.  Or summer.  Or maybe, I just love swimming.

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