NCLUSD Public Pool

When I was 12 I would jump into the pool and let my body weight pull me to the bottom, I'd slowly raise my hands above my head as I sunk feet first into the chlorinated water until it fully engulfed me. My toes would finally hit the bottom and with the slightest push from my bent legs I would shoot up and out of the water as I brought my hands back down to my sides. It was like being launched from a rocket. It was powerful, quiet and calm. In the dead of a valley summer 110 degree day it was cool and comforting. I did it at least 20 times in a row, sometimes several times a day- all summer long.

I wasn't the high dive jumper or the water slide rider. I was the swimmer. I was back and forth from one side to the other, breast stroke, free stroke and when I got tired the back stroke. Thousands of laps every summer until the pale white skin I had in May turned to a dark rum color at the end of August. I was devastated when it closed. I was impatient during the rests and if I stopped with you, it was only to get my strength back to start swimming again.

There were people there, there were things. People I loved... cool friends with side ponytails and hot pink toe nail polish wearing last years bathing suit and helping tote an overflowing bag of things we might need but hardly ever did actually need. Things to be remembered, floating in the big rubber inter tubes, chasing down the ice cream truck for a choco-taco, and then drinking hot flat soda that we prepped 3 hours before.

We were the in crowd there, not because we wanted to be but instead because we were a fixture. We were a part of it like pale blue painted floors and ricketing chain link fences. We were the summer kids. We had no where to be, nothing to do and no one to watch us. We were free.

Too young then to appreciate it. We always wanted another $2.00 for something, a darker tan and a better kick turn at the end of the next lap. And now 17 years later what all of us wouldn't give to be back in the same pool with the same people with that same damn ability to swim all day without burning or getting tired.

Summer is starting. It's not the power of freedom now. Instead it's the reality of higher air conditioning bills, higher SPF and warn out flip flops. But sometimes when we sneak away to a pool somewhere and ease ourselves into the cool water we let ourselves remember. We find ourselves in a little deeper part of the pool, and we sink to the bottom.