I have a recurring dream that I am at the bottom of a pool. I am not drowning; I am just standing underwater as if I was born an aquatic creature. I gracefully glide my fingers to the front of my face, and I marvel at the beauty of my fingers seen through the soft, filtered light of the sun. The peaceful silence fills me with a calm, certain strength.
All of a sudden, my arms are being yanked almost out of their sockets. The pain in my shoulders is unbearable. Worse, I am being pulled out of my haven and into the brittle sun and rough air. From silence, the frantic babbling around me is violent and painful to my ears. My peace is shattered. I begin to cry.
When I was three years old, I nearly drowned in my Uncle Bill’s underground pool. My family and I were visiting him in New Jersey for the weekend. On this day, we were having a barbecue. My Uncle Bill and my father were chatting as they watched the hamburgers and hot dogs burn over the open fire. My mother was arguing with a stubborn three year old: namely, me.
“Mama, I wanna go swimming.”
“We’re not going swimming until after lunch.”
“Let me go. I can go alone.”
“Amanda, I said ‘No!’”
“Why not?” I whined.
“Say anything more and you aren’t going at all!” My mother spat out, turning on her heel to walk away.
I didn’t know how to swim yet, so my mother had put bright yellow plastic swimmies with orange ducks on my arms. I hated them. I wanted to go swimming like the grown-ups. I wanted to go swimming now. My mother left me to yell at my brother, Brian, for playing in the mud. I stared at the bright blue water in the swimming pool. The peaceful rippling of the water’s surface mesmerized me.
Slowly and deliberately, I pulled my bright yellow swimmies with the orange ducks off my arms, and they fell to the ground. Without hesitation, I jumped into the water and sunk to the bottom like a rock.
My mother told me that, for her, everything from that moment on happened in slow motion. She slowly screamed. My father slowly ran as fast as he could towards the pool. My mother slowly followed him. My father slowly pulled me by my arms out of the water, and I slowly began to howl. Time then returned to its normal speed.
Immediately after this, my parents decided that I needed swimming lessons. They enrolled me in swimming classes at three years of age. I learned how to hold my breath underwater, how to float on my back, and how to tread water. When I was six years old, I began swimming with a team. I practiced the four strokes for two hours each day. On some weekends, I would race against other swimmers to make me a faster swimmer. Swimming has become a very important part of my life, and I want to thank the stubborn little girl who inadvertently made it happen.
I don’t remember nearly drowning when I was three years old. This story as I have related to you was told to me several times by my family as I was growing up. I have no proof save the belief in my parents’ word that I actually jumped in my uncle’s pool when I was three. That is, I have no proof except their word and the dream that I have continuously: I am at the bottom of a pool.
*Pisces is the astrological sign of two attached fish swimming in opposite directions. Its element is water, and its weakness is the foot, a symbol of land.
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