A Love Song to the Swimmers at the Y

If you need me, I'll be in the pool

When Jane Kenyon’s “Otherwise” showed up in my inbox this week, courtesy of The Library of Congress, it resonated with me in a way it hasn’t on previous readings. Her litany of gratitude, punctuated by nods to how fleeting these days are and how fast things could change, hit home for me in a new way in my fifth decade. She opens with “I got out of bed on two strong legs. It might have been otherwise,” and I was reminded of

Lisa Renee

and her post on The Long Middle  about walking, its importance to her both mentally and physically, and how unbearable it is when injury sidelines us from something we love and need. She captured so perfectly the grief of the “otherwise” that Jane Kenyon describes, even if it’s only temporary.

Swimming is one of my greatest pleasures and it’s also one of the best ways I know to keep this midlife body of mine moving. That first push off the pool wall makes me grin every time. Swimming is hypnotic to me -the rhythmic breathing, the counting of strokes. My mind spools away into long, meandering thoughts and time slips by in a wholly unique way. I emerge from the pool sweetly exhausted and feeling like a great wave has washed away all the cobwebs in my brain.

There is a camaraderie in the locker room of a pool that I’ve always loved. Swimming is one of those forgiving activities that welcomes a wide variety of bodies, ages, and abilities. But you have to show up, and you have to get wet, and cold, and wear a funny looking cap over your hair. The generosity of spirit I find amongst the brave ladies of the locker room, their ease with other’s bodies and their own, their humor and respect, these are beautiful things.

Why We Swim by Bonnie Tsui was a revelation for me when I read it last spring. I felt not like a solitary lap swimmer, but a participant in something with a global membership. Like all of these knots of people in wet locker rooms around the world are connected, like we’re all swimming around in the same waters.   

I started the poem below years ago but could never quite get it right. It was the lovely and nostalgic post about swimming pools by Amber Tamblyn at Listening in the Dark with Amber Tamblyn that gave me the creative kick in the pants I needed to pull it off the shelf, hose it down, and see what I could make of it. Huge thanks for that.

Enjoy, and thanks for reading.

A Love Song to the Swimmers at the Y

In the damp, chlorine scented 
sorority of the locker room we shed 
our clothes, baring everything from 
toned arms and tattoos, to crepe paper skin
Folds and wrinkles, scars, stretch marks, 
and spider veins all wriggled into suits
We stand and chat, breasts bared, backsides 
exposed in all their glorious diversity
Half naked, hopping on one foot, we are 
chilled from the pre-swim shower, 
snapping tight caps over our hair, threading 
toes into flip-flops, searching for 
misplaced goggles and swearing 
at our once dry towel on the wet bench
We step onto the pool deck, scan for
a free lane, jump in at the shallow end
Mass becomes buoyancy, cares drift 
away into our oblong aqua sea,
and we float, liquid and graceful
Water in our bodies awakens 
to the water of the pool and we 
can fly, our arms as wings