{"id":410,"date":"2019-12-07T12:04:36","date_gmt":"2019-12-07T17:04:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/donnadufresne.com\/~donnadu1\/?p=410"},"modified":"2019-12-07T12:04:36","modified_gmt":"2019-12-07T17:04:36","slug":"swimming-lessons","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/donnadufresne.com\/~donnadu1\/swimming-lessons\/","title":{"rendered":"SWIMMING LESSONS"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

When I was growing up in the early 1960\u2019s,\nevery kid that I went to school with took swimming lessons at Stevie\u2019sPond. Poor kids who lived across the\ntracks close to the mills, the scattered children of care-takers who lived on the\nlarge estates  and the farm kids on the\neast side of town all dipped their toes into that melting pot that did not\njudge or segregate. We held our breath and counted to twenty, and kicked\nfiercely while holding onto the buoy lines over which you would never dare to\ncross. To this very day, my grand nieces and nephews swim in that amber pee\nhole we held so dear, and it baffles me that generations of children going as\nfar back as my father, who is ninety-four years old, have wet their whistle in\nthe coming of age at Stevie\u2019s Pond.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 1963, when I was barely eight years old,\nmothers would drop their fledglings off in the gravel parking lot. We would\npour, un-tethered by seatbelts which were not yet conceived of, from the Buick\nstation wagons, Falcons, and Ford Fairlanes which our mothers had only recently\nlearned how to drive. Shivering in the cold morning June, we would claim our\nturf on the sandy beach with its coarse pebbles that were round and hard like\nball bearings beneath our toes. Clad in striped towels, too small to be of use,\nand rubber tongs (flip flops) that came apart in the roughness of the sand, we\nwaited for the god-like life-guard and the red-cross swimming instructor to\nanoint us in our right of passage.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

From a 21st<\/sup>-century perspective,\nit\u2019s a bit appalling that my mother would simply abandon me in such a way \u2013\ngently nudging me out of the car in my little sear-sucker cotton bathing suit,\nand pathetic towel, along with other children my age who stood shivering in the\nmisty morning light like tiny birds waiting to be pushed out of the nest. Who\nknew where our mothers went after they left us there in a cloud of blue smoke\nfrom mufflers that propelled them into a moment of freedom that seemed like an\neternity to us. Did they convene in coffee shops? Beauty Parlors? Doctor\nOffices? Lover\u2019s arms? Where did they go, while we dipped our toes into that\namber colored water, with its dubious source?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

We would stake out our claim with our shiny\nquarters folded secretly in our towels so that we could buy a Creamsicle at the\nconcession stand, and wait for the glorious moment when the whistle would blow\nand we would be allowed to wade into that murky water that had baptized our\nmothers and fathers and older brothers and sisters. We practiced the dog\npaddle, the frog kick, and the crawl until we were able to propel ourselves out\nto the altar, a rickety and slanted raft that seemed like it had been placed on\nthe horizon of the Atlantic for us to prove\nour stealth.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nine, ten, eleven, twelve \u2013 the years went\nby quickly, but the summer ritual remained the same. Each year a new adventure,\na new hurtle, a new swimsuit. Childhood challenged. Adolescence advanced. One\nyear, the weeds choked me and tried to pull me down to the black muck just\noutside the ropes. Where was my mother? Where were my friends? It was my fault\n\u2013 outside the box again. Alone.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

When you reached a certain age, you began\nto explore beyond the small world of the swimming area. There was a trail that\nled to a dam that divided the mill pond swimming hole from the reservoir. Here,\nwas a frightening world that my cousin Tina and I happened upon one day in our\nLewis and Clark innocence for wanting to explore the world. Girls in bikinis,\nboys in swimming trunks, cigarette butts in the gray silt, rope swings that\nhung like lynching poles into the forbidden lake, the source of our drinking\nwater. It was uncomfortable. We were not ready. At least I was not.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

All throughout my childhood, Steven\u2019s Mill\ndominated the ambient background noise and the culture of the town. The echo of\nthe looms reverberated through the night \u2013 second shift, third shift into the\ndawn. It was the pulse of my childhood \u2013 stronger than the heartbeat of my\nmother, those mills that churned cotton and wool for more than a hundred years.\nCa \u2013 junk \u2013 ca \u2013 junk \u2013 ca-junk \u2013 across the great Lake Chochicowick, separated\nby an earthen dam as if that were enough to keep the workers at bay \u2013 to segregate\nthe haves from the have-nots \u2013 to keep a child from dreaming big.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the late 1970\u2019s, I went home and\ndiscovered a discomforting silence. Steven\u2019s Mill was gone; it had been torn\ndown and replaced by upscale elderly gated condominiums with the quaint\nappointment of title:  Mill Pond<\/em>. But nothing of the \u201cmill\npond\u201d was left except Stevie\u2019s Pond (the town beach), which had somehow lost\nits appeal. I could no longer hear the roar of the looms across the lake, and\ntherefore could not sleep to the foreign lullaby of silence. The \u201ctown beach\u201d\nwas no longer the amber cream soda in which I swam as a child. It had become somewhat\ngentrified \u2013 the sand not so coarse \u2013 the parking lot paved \u2013 the concession\nstand somewhat less primitive with bathrooms that flushed automatically.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I wonder if an undercurrent still flows\nthrough the pond – that secret code of childhood which guides us to our stages\nof being: swimming to the ropes, making it out to the raft and back, spying on\nteenage girls who have wandered into forbidden territory. Is there still an\nearthen dam that separates the pond from the lake and the poor from the rich?  Does anyone shiver as I did in that dark water\nand wonder what twist of fate has tethered them to the weedy shallows while\nothers tread water in turquoise painted pools? I hope so. After all, what is\nthe worth of swimming lessons in a world where everything comes easy and you expect\nto float on the surface of things in some dreamy pretense that there are no\ndifferences and everyone starts out on equal terms? You have to learn to swim\nagainst that tide of entitlement or it will suck you down and try to keep you\nin your place. You have to learn to hold your breath under the weight of water,\neyes wide open and ready to break through the surface toward light.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When I was growing up in the early 1960\u2019s, every kid that I went to school with took swimming lessons at Stevie\u2019sPond. Poor kids who lived across the tracks close to the mills, the scattered children of care-takers who lived on the large estates  and the farm kids on the east side of town all … <\/p>\n

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