Our neighbors were real men’s men. They were from Alabama. I think my step dad looked up to them, the way he would adopt a slight southern accent while talking in the yard with them. The way each of the neighbor boys learned to swim was their dad swam them out over their heads, left them, then swam ashore. They had no choice but to swim. And they did. Men.
My step dad’s way of teaching was to give no instruction then throw me in the depth of what he was already angry that I didn’t know how to do.
With swimming, he literally did that.
We were at a family friend’s pool. I loved it there. It was heaven: the comfort, the play, the weightless feeling.
But that day, he decided it was time I knew how to swim and threw me in the deep end of the pool. The deep end. I hit the water. It’s way up my nose and I panic. I’m disoriented. I struggled with all I have to get to the surface. Every gallon of water in that pool was trying to get into my mouth. I felt so out of control. Everything was blurry. The bottom seemed to go down forever. No movements helped. And oxygen, oh my God, the instant I hit the water my adrenaline burned up the oxygen in my lungs. It felt like they were burning from the inside out.
He dove in and pulled me out and I felt so ashamed that I couldn’t just do it, that I was completely inadequate. Not a man.
He continued his lessons on our swimming trips to Lake Michigan. What had been one of my greatest joys was now terrifying. Such a betrayal. As we got closer to the lake my anxiety would build. Seeing the horizon of Lake Michigan rise in the windshield felt like a tsunami the size of the Earth heading towards us. This is because on each trip, before I was allowed to play on my own, I had to pass the following test.
He’d take me out, chest deep, put his hand on my head, and make me hold my breath under water while he counted to the number he named. Each trip to the lake increased the count by one. If I couldn’t do it, he’d let me come up for air. But I had to do it again. And again. And again. Until I could do it. Since this wasn’t actual instruction on how to swim, I guess it was to teach me not to be afraid of the water.
This is what it felt like.
Wading with him into the water, with each step I begged in my mind to go no deeper. The waves moved against me with absolutely no regard for my tiny body. His hand went on my head and I had to say when I was ready. I had to fucking participate. It felt like such a betrayal like I was condoning it.
I went under. His hand on my head. My hands on top of his hand, which was an odd comfort, like keeping the hammer of a revolver from cocking back. A few seconds of silence. I could hear the echo of his count. Then my heart started to pound. And my lungs started to contract. Every second seemed to last twice as long as the previous until I again felt like the water was trying to get into my mouth. This time it was the weight of all the water in Lake Michigan. Trying to prying my lips apart. When I couldn’t take one more second I’d come up gasping. I dreaded catching my breath because that’s when I had to do it again. Until I made the number.
Every time I thought I was going to drown. To drown. I felt so mortal. This grown man and all of Lake Michigan versus and nine year old who thought he was the problem.
