ponderings from the pool
Today was my niece's 6th birthday. I spent most of the morning and early afternoon at her party ... it was a pool party. This morning, it almost looked like the party wasn't going to happen, or that it was going to change from a pool party to a board game party. The sky was gray and it looked like it might rain. Spirits were low as we filled up water balloons and hoped for the best. As we drove toward the mountains to the park where the party was going to be, I noticed that my niece seemed to be the happiest one in the van. She chattered and jumped up and down in her seat and was obviously not affected much at all by the ominous clouds that surrounded us as we drove.We arrived at the pool to discover that we were the only ones there except for the lifeguards. Bekah (my niece) remained unphased and grabbed my hand and pulled me to the bathroom with her so that we could change into our suits together. Her smile and energy were infectious, and we couldn't change fast enough for her liking. We raced out to the pool and stuck our toes into the water. Her cute little nose wrinkled up as she said "it's cold!" I asked her if it was too cold for her, in a teasing way ... she recognized the challenge in my voice. She headed for the ladder into the shallow end and eased her way into the water -- I went straight to the diving board, knowing that the best way for me to get into the water is to just get into the water. So we looked at each other from opposite ends of the pool, and I jumped off the diving board straight into the chilly water. As I kicked myself up toward the surface, I found myself unable to speak for a few seconds. The shock quickly wore off though as I plunged back beneath the water and swam over to the beautiful little girl giggling on the other side of the rope.
We laughed and played and I rubbed her little legs in attempt to rub away the goosebumps. Eventually the other party guests started arriving, and some of the mothers claimed lounge chairs along the pool. Somehow I became the designated pool adult, as all of the kids changed into their suits and inched their way into the chilly water. I was having so much fun that I found myself disappointed when I heard the announcement that it was time to eat pizza.
We got out (I was the last one out) and ate pizza and watched presents get opened, and then ate birthday cake ... and I ended up back in the pool with a few kids. It was still cloudy out, but it was warming up, and there were a few moments when the sun broke through the clouds and gave us glimpses of hope that the weather might turn around. Throughout this whole process I noticed that I had somehow fallen into my usual role of the "fun" aunt, or the one who plays with the kids while all the grown-ups stand around and talk about mortgages and car payments and the next big birthday party. I noticed also the looks that I was getting from some of the mothers who were reclining in the lounge chairs. These were women who had swimsuits on, but they obviously had no intention of swimming. I have a feeling that they wouldn't have been getting into the water even if the sun had been shining.
There is a truth that I learned several years ago when I first started working with kids -- it's a deeper lesson that can be applied to other parts of life. During the summer after my junior year of college, I worked as a nanny for two of the prettiest little girls I have ever seen. They were from California, but they spent the summers in NY with their dad. They were girls in the girliest sense of the word. If it were up to them, we would have spent every day at the mall or inside painting our toenails. But somehow that summer we arrived at our compromise. I would paint their toenails after we went and played at the park or did something else outside. So we ended up spending most of our days at the pool. Remember that this was about 8 years ago, one of those times in my life when I was in incredible shape ... I know that I looked good in my two-piece bathing suit, and I had quite a solid tan too from all the time I spent outside on my mountain bike or going on runs. Anyway, that's really unimportant ... but I remember the feeling I would get when we would go to that pool. The pool was actually at a hotel in downtown Rochester. It was a nice hotel, and people from the community could buy memberships at the health club and pool. On any given day that we went, there were at least a handful of women lounging alongside the pool "tanning" or doing whatever it is that someone does when they just lie there and do absolutely nothing.
I would walk into the pool area with Olivia and Phoebe and assorted floaties and beach balls in tow, and I would get looks that I don't even want to remember getting. We would jump into the water and splash and do cannonballs and just act silly ... I would swim along the pool floor and let the girls "surf" on my back ... we just had FUN. And I can remember looking at the women laying by the pool and wonder if they were having fun -- actually I remember the day that Olivia asked me what those ladies were doing, and I remember that I couldn't give her an answer. Some of them were pretty, some of them weren't ... but that really didn't matter at all. Those days taught me a lesson that still rings true today -- at pools and in life, there are those of us who sit on the sidelines, looking pretty or trying to do something that will make them look pretty (working on tans, I guess) and then there are those of us who dive off the edges and hurl themselves into the water and laugh and have a good time and don't care if they're getting dirty looks because they splashed some water on the people in the lounge chairs.
Summer after summer, as I continued to work with kids and take them to pools, I found this theme playing out again and again. Last summer was perhaps the epitome of this kind of thing, as it was the first summer I was in North Carolina, and there seemed to be more women and lounge chairs than ever before, and the children I was watching were the splashiest I had cared for to date. On my first visit to a pool last June, I wondered if maybe it was time for me to act more like a grown-up, and to take my spot in a lounge chair and not in the pool with the kids. I think I even tried it for a few hours. But I got hot in the sun, and even though I had a book with me I found I couldn't concentrate it because my attention was being constantly directed toward the children shouting and splashing in the water ... so I acquiesed and put down my book and went back into the deep end to splash the kids back.
I know now that I will always be in the pool and not in a lounge chair. As in life, I don't want to miss out on the fun just because I feel like I should be doing something else, or because I am so focused on one thing (getting a tan) that I miss out on others (having fun and sharing unrepeatable moments with children who may not be there the next day to tickle or snuggle or splash). I so look forward to having children of my own and being a mom who is never too old or too busy or too tired to run and play and splash and LIVE. I mostly just enjoy being someone who has that attitude now, even if it's not being revealed through motherhood ... and I am so happy that I will be that kind of person in the future. I look forward to pool parties that I will attend in around 40 years or so, where I will still be doing cannonballs off diving boards and earning dirty looks from lounge chair'ers. To me, this is the only way I know how to truly LIVE, and I make no apologies.
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