Chapter 4: Water, Water Everywhere

I can't remember the first time I went swimming. Not remembering is like trying to reach out in an abyss into which I have already fallen. As far as I know, I have always loved the water and, in the sanctuary of my mind, I like to imagine that I was reveling in the water's magnificence the first time I entered it.

Ironically, my mother is and always has been afraid of the water. Perhaps fear is too strong of a word, but certainly she has a strong aversion to anything wet. But it is this dislike that, I believe, fueled her desire to have her children learn how to swim. If anything, her children would grow up without a phobia of the water. My first lesson, she tells me, was learning how to stay afloat (on my back, of course). She recalls my excitement, saying that I would not want to get out the water: "you were like a fish; the water was your home away from home," she says with a smile.

As she sits in front of me, I notice just how beautiful my mother is. She may not be a swimmer, but she is far from inactive. At an older age than she cares to admit, my mother is more fit than anyone I know. Just the other day, she completed a 100k race, or 63 miles. That's almost two-and-a-half marathons, more than many people will run in their life time. Straight as a ruler, she sits with her muscular arms relaxed beside her. Her faded red hair and light blue eyes are reminiscent of her youth, and remind me more than anything of myself.

For me, learning how to stay afloat in the water was only the beginning. At the time, I had become convinced that swimming was one of the most important skills that one should attain, and I took it upon myself to teach others. My victim was my younger brother, Ben, who was barely a year old at the time. He was a pudgy little boy with light brown tufts of hair. He had just begun to walk and talk and was now about to learn how to swim.

He was by the edge of the pool with our mother, as was I, ready for the day's lesson. Impatient as I was and often still am, I wanted to hurry things along- I mean, why couldn't he just swim already? A push was all it took to send him down into the depths of the shallow end of the pool. There, that would teach him. Unfortunately, my mother and the instructor were not quite so pleased as I was. Whereas I believed I had successfully taught my brother how to survive in the water, they believed I was trying to hurt him. Almost immediately, they managed to rescue the flailing, sputtering little boy by fishing him out of the water. Tears poured out of his little blue eyes even as my mother wrapped him in a towel to try and comfort him. The lesson for the day was canceled and that, more than anything, angered me. I was confounded when I was told I could not swim that day. It was punishment, my mother had explained. I was to never do anything like it ever again. Even though I still believed swimming was an essential skill, I promised to never push anyone in the water.