The Swimming Pool - Revisited

After swimming my laps yesterday, I decided to walk a few – just for old times sake. I remembered the first time I 'walked' in the pool, when I was pregnant, I almost regretted making fun of the old ladies who gossiped while walking that steamy indoor pool in my post The Swimming Pool. Funnily enough, here I was walking in a pool, and, as the same ladies in Tehran projected, I wouldn't have such a flattering figure once I produced children. Still, at least I wasn't munching on turnips and cucumber whilst sashaying up and down the pool, as they might have done. And, I promise, I never bobbed!

The pool walking was more of a workout than it seemed, I could workup quite a heart rate. My pool regimen was this: Swim 20 laps, stretch, walk 20-50 laps (short length of the pool), stretch. I also walked a lot and stretched in preparation for labor, and in the earlier days even more strenuous stuff. But towards the end it was the pool, everyday.

During the day, the only other people at the pool were lounging around sun bathing, occasionally dipping in the pool for a few minutes. The swimmers usually came later in the evenings.

Except for one - my cohort in the new found art of pool-walking, on whom I often eavesdropped. He looked just like Pablo Picasso – if Picasso had been a starving rather that well-fed artist. Skinny, but lean and sprightly – at least in the pool: Everyone looks graceful in the water, and clumsiness is just an illusion. This is one of the many reasons why the water is so great when you are pregnant. You feel normal again, in size and in maneuverability, weightless, even elegant.

After walking (which was quite varied, with all sorts of evocative leg lifts and delicate, dance-like twists), Picasso would finish his workout with a series of stretches outside the pool - a classical routine of side-to-side, up, down, to and fro.

Meanwhile the old, stocky, bronze man, who was also there everyday, alternated between floating at the shallow end of the pool, flirting with ladies, and lolling in his chair, rubbing oil on his hairy chest and arms. And the tanning women flipped over, and casually thumbed their best-sellers and magazines.

But Picasso and I, we were on our mission. Day in and day out, faithfully practicing our modest little routines. I am sure he never noticed me, focused as he was, but I admired his zest, and he motivated me. At the same time I found it ironic and hilarious that my workout was on par with that of this tiny, frail old man. Old Picasso and me had something in common.

At the pool yesterday, I didn't cramp up in my lower belly, with Braxton-Hicks contractions, and my usual entourage wasn’t there. I especially missed my old comrade. Just me and the lifeguard, with our friendly, non-verbal greeting across the pool.

The water was liberating as ever though. It’s a good place to think. If only I could record those fleeting moments of clarity somehow. I can only try to resurrect them – memories of memories, and so on. On the other hand, this makes memory fun. You get to recreate and even reinvent your life, fill in the empty spots with imagination.

With this I realized, in the pool and elsewhere, that another mechanism of this process of ‘going back’, aside from achieving some kind of therapy, is how it will serve as a relic. Recently S and I noticed that we were forgetting so many details from only a few months ago…and those details that remained might soon be gone completely. Of course we would like to remember some of these precious moments…and even if they are already hazy…there is an outline, and undoubtedly the profound impression in our lives remains forever. So the story goes, better late than never!