Laps

It’s calm under the waves, in the blue of my oblivion. – Fiona Apple

Yesterday, I went swimming, as I usually do twice a week, for a bout a half an hour. I did 20 laps – 33 is a mile – again, like I usually do. If I get there with enough time, I’ll do the whole mile. But mostly the point is to get into the water, move the blood around, look at no-one, talk to no-one, see no-one. If you ever see me in there, don’t worry: I’m not wearing my glasses and my goggles are foggy from the bathroom soap I use to rinse the chlorine off of them. I’d worry about anyone seeing me, but I’m usually underwater, well at least the bits of me of which I have less reason to be proud. But, in the condom cap and goggles, it wouldn’t really matter what the bits below the bra looked like – it would all appear slightly insectoid.

I love my time in the water. I didn’t know that I would. We had a pool when I was little – we were living with my grandparents – and in the myriad apartment complexes we inhabited before and after that. I remember swimming lessons at 5 years of age. I was a skinny kid, though, they were all at 7 in the morning, and under-appreciated by the skinny kid who couldn’t stay warm in the pool. I came flapping out, blue-lipped and shivering once to go snug with my mom. She sent me back in saying, “just swim faster, you’ll warm up.” Later on in the summer, with my now water-proofed self able to cruise around the family pool with confidence, we could always sun like lizards on the pool deck, warming and swimming and eating, like primordial creatures.

I suppose that’s why I decide to swim when I was pregnant with Connor. I knew that my lack of will power with all manner of fried food and my recent separation from all form of distilled beverages and cigarettes would make me want to munch. I knew I would need to do something to keep from swelling that dude in Dune who had to have an air pump in his suit to keep his fat ass buoyant enough to walk. I also needed something I could do at seven months pregnant and after doing the Thriller zombie dance downtown at five months, was pretty sure that it wouldn’t be aerobics. Everyone and their cocktail guests wanted that I should do yoga. Everyone. If I hadn’t had a course conflict with my downtown class, I’d have had to listen to it till I acquiesced, or was drug -- kicking, screaming and munching on microwave popcorn –to the mats.

The swimming has an added benefit in all that cool blue, though. It’s calming and head clearing. This is a good thing for a pregnant woman or one with a new baby. It’s the one 45 minutes a day where no-one can find me. The cell phone is off and not only am I in the bowels of a beautiful old stone building, I’m underwater in an ancient and algae-stained body of water. It’s about as away as you can get and the pool stays warm up through November or December. When I lose my desire to clamber into cold water in the middle of winter, there’s always biking again. If I wear my swimming goggles and my Ipod, I’m sure no-one will recognize me, let alone bug me.

I’ve used other spaces for this in other lives. There was the racquetball court in the NYU gym. It was a big, white room, empty and cavernous, just right for beating the mess out of a little blue ball, some handstands, some stretching, some flurried attempts at running after the ball, some zen-calm volleys. I went there for the exercise, yes, for the moving of the blood and the strengthening of limbs. I also went for that getting-away-from-everyone head-clearing property of a large space that you get to have all to yourself because you’re moving quickly in it. I think at the time I was writing my dissertation in an apartment full of my husband’s employees. I did many times love having the business in the dining room, living room, etc. But it was hard to get some time to yourself to think. And with space in New York City being at such a premium, a large soothing-to-the-soul white room would have been cheap at twice what folks paid their shrinks. Free for all students, I'm surprised I only had to stand in line once or twice to use it.

So a little exercise is good for a lady and the cleared headspace means I’m less likely to scream at or maim someone. These days of late nights, early mornings, fussy teething babies, busy husbands and stressed-out-friends, it helps if I can keep my cool. Yes, exercise for young women will improve their health, their interactions with others, keep their endorphins up, increase their self-esteem, reduce the number who allow themselves to be beaten or abused, and clear their minds now and then. In a near-40 academic, it seems to be the difference between crippling neurosis, too many bad habits, sleep problems and divorce -- the “if I don’t settle my shit out, my husband is going to divorce me” kind of solution.

And you know what, it’s kinda calm down there, in the blue, between the devil and the deep blue . . .