Memoirs, Ink

Swimming Lessons

by Suzanne LaFetra

 

Gripping my little boy’s hand tightly, I defy the sign that reads “NO STREET SHOES ON DECK” and walk him right up to the lip of the pool. I squat as my four-year-old son Alex cautiously slips into the shallow end, and the warm water rises to his collarbones. His instructor says hello to him, and nods to me, my cue to leave. Looking back over my shoulder, I inch toward the door. The last parent on deck, I finally exit, my hands jammed into my pockets, and the lesson begins.

Once outside, I press my nose against the window, a sentinel for the entire half hour, even though five instructors and two lifeguards are on duty.

I remember the first day I left him at preschool, I sobbed into the steering wheel of my car. But an hour later, I sipped tea at a cafe, steeped in peaceful quiet, floating in the luxury of a morning without diapers.

“Puff up your stomachs,” an instructor calls out to the Pikes, Eels and Pollywogs. In the depths of the YMCA, I’m mesmerized watching my son learn to swim. “Arms out to the sides... That’s it! You’re floating.” I smell the chlorine and smile at the archipelago of tummy islands. The small dot of Alex’s belly button is visible above the waterline. But today he floats in the local pool, just as warm as amniotic fluid. He is an eager swimmer.

I watch Alex through the glass as his instructor, a muscular and pretty high- school girl, smiles at him, encourages him. She speaks softly into his ear as he clasps his hands around her neck, and practices a frog kick. She praises him, and he grins back at her. With her help, he finds his rhythm, here in the balmy basement.

“Green Light!” the teacher yells, and the children make giant splashes. “Red Light!” she shouts, and the kicks make only tiny ripples on the surface. Sometimes Alex glances at me through the window, and I give him a thumbs up. But mostly, he plays and practices, doing his job beautifully. And I am trying to do mine. I am adjusting to my role as observer.

A father in a blue windbreaker stands next to me, his nose inches from the window. He is smiling, his brown eyes locked on his daughter who’s wearing an orange ruffled bikini. His little Minnow or Stingray has propelled herself, without so much as a kickboard, to the far end of the pool. Without shifting his gaze he says to me, “Amazing, isn’t it?” And it is.

I rest on the slatted wooden bench, separated from my child by a pane of glass, thousands of gallons of water, and something I can’t find a name for. I suppose it’s the bittersweetness that all parents feel as we watch our kids brave the world; surviving, thriving even, without our help. That’s the way it’s supposed to be, and I’m glad that there are people who can guide my son, help him learn to kick and stay afloat and tread water when he needs to.

At the end of the session, a t-shirted lifeguard blows a low trill on her whistle, and the kids pile out of the pool. Alex scrambles up out of the water, and stands unshivering on the deck, searching the crowd of parents who are pouring through the door. “Hi, babe!” I wave, and wrap his new terrycloth robe around him. He looks like a mini prizefighter, and he leads me away from the pool. Outside, we walk toward the car, Alex’s wet hair catching the sun. “You did a great job floating on your back, honey. I’m proud of you.” I bend to kiss his downy cheek.

As we drive home I try to catch him in the rearview mirror. He is beaming under the hood of his robe, watching the rush hour world. Alex doesn’t look my way until we pull into our driveway. “My teacher said I’m ready to practice in the deep end.” He jumps down from the car and pauses, “Mommy, I was swimming all by myself!” His oversized dripping trunks are as shiny as a peacock’s feathers.

I reach into the back seat and scoop up his dinosaur rainboots and Spiderman lunch box. I collect the collage of sequins and gluey yarn and the blue construction paper with the spidery scrawls of his preschool printing. My arms are filled with treasures that will link me to this time, to this age when the tide turns. I bump the car door closed with my hip, and follow my child into the house. His wet footprints evaporate on the hot pavement and disappear before my eyes.

Suzanne LaFetra is an award-winning writer whose publications include the San Francisco Chronicle, Skirt Magazine, KQED fm, Diablo Magazine, and several literary journals and anthologies. She lives with her family in Berkeley, and writes a weekly arts feature for newspapers in the Bay Area.