Swimming Around

I'm a sports dunce. I have no hand-eye coordination, my ankles are weak, and I was born without that love of competition that fires up others' pulses when balls are kicked or whacked or thrown. But boy, can I swim.

The first swimming pool I went to was in San Dimas, California. It had a rough concrete bottom you could stub your toe on, which I frequently did. I was only four and could not swim: I floated around in an inflatable penguin that was bouncy and slippery and made squeaky noises when I climbed into it. I remember sun-filled days, the shrieks and laughter of other children, the delicious coolness of the water, how it shattered into crystal when I splashed.

Our next pool was at the Riverside YWCA pool. It was nowhere near as nice as the outside pool in San Dimas; the stink of chlorine burned your eyes and weird people smells were trapped in the warm, chemical fug. I couldn't swim and I had no inflatable toy, the water felt greasy and everyone else there was old -- at least fifteen. They took swimming seriously, too: they lashed back and forth in the water, barely coming up for air, their faces grim, their conversation full of distances and times.

Next we joined the pool at the University of California, a delightful turquoise rectangle nestled among eucalyptus trees. There was a grassy verge you could lie on, bleachers you could sit on, a gallery where my non-swimming mother sat and read, only looking up when I screamed, "Look at me!" for the umpteenth time. I learned to swim at the UCR pool; I met my best friend there.

When I moved to Miami, the apartment building where I lived with my cousin had a pool, but we liked the beach better. I did the back and side stroke; doing the crawl in salt water made me nervous. My cousin didn't swim -- she couldn't. Her father threw her in the water when she was a little girl, to teach her to swim; she almost drowned instead. She sat on the beach and watched me.

When I moved to San Francisco, I took a swimming class at eight in the morning. The pool was kept unheated for the water polo team, who had their practice session at ten. It was tough going, getting into that frigid pool in the wintertime, but I never missed a class.

In Southern Japan, I looked in vain for a pool in my town, but the only one that was convenient was the university pool. This was chained off and marked 立入禁止 (No Entrance) and with good reason: the water was foul, the color of seaweed. The entire surface of the pool was covered with thick green algae; God knows when the filter had last been cleaned. One day my desire to be cool overcame my squeamishness: I climbed over the fence, struggled into my swimsuit in the dingy changing room, and plunged right into that foul water. I did the side and back stroke and kept my mouth tightly shut, worried about amoebic dysentery. The next time I went, my boyfriend joined me: our bodies coursed through the water, leaving trails through green scum. Believe it or not, there was actually a swimming competition in that pool. The day it was held, the surface scum was even thicker than usual. I came in fourth out of ten. When I climbed out, I cut my left shin on a protruding bit just a few inches under the surface: the water was so turgid I couldn't see it. To this day, I have the scar; miraculously I never got tetanus. Or amoebic dysentery.

In Amsterdam, I swam at a pool near Dam Square. Though swimming lanes were clearly marked off, they were also chock full of swimmers, and little kids swam over the barriers and got in our way, driving me close to distraction. The lifeguards never seemed to notice. I suddenly realized I had become one of those tense, grim swimmers, lashing back and forth in the water, thinking of times and distances. I swam around the kids and tried to smile.

In Wales, I swam a kilometer a week, right through my first pregnancy. Two weeks before I delivered, the lifeguard begged me not to come back. "Or if you have to, just not on my shift, okay?" I had a blast coming back the next week; I made sure it was on his shift both times. I swam through my second pregnancy too, in the Tokyo YWCA. Some of the women frowned at me, but they all came to look at my baby after she was born. "She'll be a swimmer too," a couple of them said. "Mark our words."

In Chiba, we took the kids to a swimming pool in Abiko, in the park. Sometimes the lanes were so crowded, you almost had to wait in line. On Sundays, we cycled five miles to a larger pool, where we all swam. During the week, the kids had lessons there. Both of them got good at it too. They splashed and they played, but they swam too -- not grimly, but well. I could hardly contain my joy.

In Scotland, the closest pool was a long drive away and a lot like the Riverside YWCA. The first time we swam in it, there was something unmentionable floating in the shallow end that had to be fished out messily and necessitated a lot of chemicals. But we still went there regularly; not swimming was not an option. The lifeguards got to know us well. We participated in charity swims and swam mile upon mile in that pool.

Here in our little exclave of Turkey, there is a swimming pool hardly a stone's throw from our house. It is surrounded by lemon and olive trees, and in the morning, doves and wagtails come to drink out of it, tilting their heads back prettily as they swallow. Not far away is a field of sheep; you can hear their bells tinkling in the evening as they graze, mingling with the call to prayer. I am in heaven in that pool -- I cannot believe my good fortune. I have swum through claustrophobic chlorine fugs, in the sea and the ocean, through pools crowded with swimmers and playing children, through the vilest scum and murky water with number twos floating about. This pool is cleaned regularly by men with poles and nets; the water is pristine and almost no one comes to swim there.

But would you credit it? My youngest daughter will not swim in it.

"Too cold!" she protests, pulling out her foot, a grimace on her pretty face.

"No it isn't!" I say through gritted teeth, trying not to think about the ice-cold water of the university swimming pool, where I regularly built character.

"What is that thing floating there?"

"A leaf." And that's all it is, folks: one freshly fallen, clean, crisp leaf. In my mind, I see that floating jobby being fished out of the pool in Scotland.

"What's that?" she frowns, pointing.

"That would be a wasp." She jumps half a foot and I take a deep, steadying breath: I will not think about the green scum in the Oita University swimming pool.

"It's crowded!" Amazingly, three people have just arrived.

She goes back to the house; I swim a mile and feel like crying.

Later that night, there is an e-mail from Eldest: I've joined the swimming pool, it's fantastic! I swam a mile the other day.

Who knows? Maybe Youngest Daughter will do this too one day. Right now she's trying to learn Chinese.