Sep 1

Sep 1 Pool Reflections

THE ACTUAL POOL FROM COCOON, FROM REALTOR.COM

I keep flashing to the movie Cocoon. The rebels, escaping from the old age home, sneaking into an abandoned pool, old men transforming into children as they splash and dive and race each other on blow-up rafts.

I wrestle myself into a swimsuit in the early morning and gather with the gorgeous older ladies for aqua aerobics. I admire their skin and hair and rash guards and headwear. They lumber into the blue, blue water, and then they, too, become light and are filled with memory as we pump our legs, invisible to eyes above the surface. But below, we kick and flail and push and pump, getting stronger as we get older.

We sing along with the speaker our teacher drags out every morning.

Sunny. Yesterday, my life was filled with rain.
Sunny. You smiled at me and really eased the pain.

This is the summer of pools. I think about the pools of my past, the one that was penguin-shaped with a dark blue bottom. We moved into that house the summer before I turned nine, and my mother was overheated from hauling boxes, so when the movers pulled away, and she was left alone in her new house, she stripped her clothes and jumped in. She told us the story later after dinner, and I was in awe at her moment of freedom and relief.

I remember the over-chlorinated pools of summer camp, where the boys made fun of my Wonder Woman bathing suit.

The pools in the backyards of friends where I accidentally swallowed too much water and threw up in the bushes, hoping no one would notice. Playing chicken on the shoulders of older boys, feeling so self-conscious to have my legs around their faces, falling backward and hitting my head on the concrete edge, trying not to make a big deal so as not to take up attention while wearing a bathing suit.

Now, I try not to worry too much about the rolls and my legs and the wobbly bits, as things might never look this good again. I make broad sweeps with my arms. This is my pool too.

My housesit in the foothills of Altadena.

That pool, saltwater, surrounded by huge succulents and boulders and oak trees. In the wee hours of the hot months, the bear would come to visit and take a dip. But in the daytime, with the owners gone for six weeks every summer for thirteen years, it belonged to me.

The house was gorgeous, with a curvy, understated 1930s Spanish style. I preferred to be alone there, to cook and write and make music and roam the halls and rooms.

But I had to share the pool. It’s only fair in the world of pool karma.

Lovers and partners, friends visiting from out of town, and one large party in the early years that made me swear off parties, so ten people max became my mantra.

Three of my girlfriends had pregnancies in the span of those summers. They came to swim and rest, awaiting their firstborn, bobbing with their bellies like an island jutting through the surface, weightless relief from the heat and heaviness of the boys they all bore.

We ate watermelon in our towels in the shade, and I wonder now about my own babies. The ones I didn’t bring forth. I think of how I am learning to take up space again, how I am feeling full and whole and more like myself than I have ever felt.

And I look back at the lady I was in my summer house, weighing the want and desire of a child of her own. Not trusting her partner, not trusting herself. Trusting the bears would keep to their pool hours. Was I even allowed to be a mother when I felt and acted like a child? What was I craving in a family? I am allowing that truth to surface, to be crystal clear, but I am not allowed to regret.

Yearning for a moment or two is okay. I float myself now in the club pool, children like loud champagne corks bobbing beside me. Sharks and flounders and tiny sea creatures in Hello Kitty bathing suits. Their shrieks cut through the peace, so I keep my ears partially underwater and spy through my swim goggles.

They are held by their fathers, young, beautiful men, their children safe in their papa’s arms; the water terrifying, but the bearded face that carries them through is so, so safe.

This hurts the most. My body, wide and dense and buoyant, my spy face hidden beneath my cap. My desire to be included and held and part of a family so, so palpable.

In Altadena, we joked the house was haunted. But it was only one summer that the air was dense and thick with ghosts. I heard and felt them constantly. Things fell and broke and pushed me against walls. Every night I was kept awake by sounds and visions, and lights. The bedroom was filled with entities. Sometimes children scurrying across the ceiling, sometimes parties from sixty years ago happening like a film projected onto the walls and floors, sometimes my mother, dressed in an old flannel nightgown, her hair in rollers under a cap, scratching her face as she approaches my bed. Always something or someone watching. As I had stayed in the house so many years before without incident, the difference was undeniable.

I asked a friend for help. She was well-versed in other realms, and I had no idea what was happening. She read me and the house and stated matter-of-factly that the house was Grand Central Station to ghosts and other invisible beings. Things are coming and going, and time and space portals are jutting up against one another. This happens in many places, she told me. It’s just that my shield was down that summer; the veil was thin. I was too wide open, my defenses down. She did some Hocus Pocus and cleaned me up. The next night, I slept like a rock; all the chaos was subdued into a small buzz that I could easily ignore.