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2 days ago
5
I don’t know if I’ve always been afraid of water, but I don’t remember a time when I wasn’t. I remember as a child sitting next to the bath to watch it fill, lest it flood the house in the few minutes we left its side with the tap running. I’d had no bad experiences (that I could remember); my fear seemed to be innate.
Like most Australians, I had swimming lessons in primary school. But one of the first tasks was to submerge your face and head in the water, and I flat-out refused. The instructor warned if I didn’t I would have to stay in the first lane with the little kids doing water play. I said that was fine, and she left me alone after that. So I never learned to swim.
I got by pretty well masking my inability – I became someone who was “not really a beach person”. And when I did go to the beach or pool I could wade and splash about in the shallows – no one noticed I rarely put my head under the water.
I noticed, however, that when I walked past the pool on my way to the gym the smell of chlorine filled me with a choking anxiety. I would momentarily feel short of breath, until the heady chemical smell was out of my nostrils.
When I became a parent I had the same intrusive thoughts all parents have: what if my baby stops breathing in his sleep? What if he chokes on his food? What if we’re walking next to a river and we both slip in and I can’t save us?
I’d done the baby first aid, I’d studied the safe sleeping guidelines, I figured I should really learn to swim.
The prospect of going to my local pool, in my mid-30s, and asking about beginner swimming lessons (“No, I don’t need to work on my stroke, I need to work on getting my face in the water”) was a somewhat embarrassing one. The prospect of finding some bathers to fit me in my postpartum period even more so. Standing on the sidelines of the pool as I waited for my first lesson to begin, other women my age were gathered there to watch their kids’ lessons. A thought surfaced that I was a bit pathetic and I worried I might cry.
I shared these feelings with a friend who said learning a new skill like swimming was no different to an adult taking guitar lessons. But it felt more like not knowing how to read – something it’s assumed everyone can already do and which must surely be harder to grasp as an adult.
Despite the fact it’s generally assumed all Australian adults can swim, almost a quarter of us report weak or no swimming ability. So I am hardly alone, even though I’ve never heard another adult say they can’t swim.
My first lesson contained only two pupils – myself and a middle-aged Englishman who had the simple, almost heartbreaking desire of wanting to swim in the sea for the first time. However difficult it had been for me to show up, I wagered it had been more so for him.
We started small. No faces in to start, but just some kicking on our backs, getting comfortable with the enveloping sound of our ears under water. At first I kicked my legs and I went nowhere. I don’t really seem to be moving, I told the instructor. She laughed and said no not really, but you will soon.
Without knowing what had changed I soon began to move. Loud but peaceful laps up and down, up and down, hugging my kickboard, more than once donking my head on the wall, not realising that’s what the flags up ahead were for.
I left the first lesson elated. I had done it. I swam. I didn’t drown, and nobody laughed at me. Sure I had used a flotation device, but I had walked out of there a little bit better than when I’d walked in.
When it came time to put our faces in the water, the instructor told us about blowing bubbles. This was a concept I had never heard of. On the rare occasions I’d submerged myself in water I’d just held my breath. In the days following I asked people if they knew you were meant to “blow bubbles” underwater. They told me of course, what else would you do under there?
Progress has been slow-going, but more linear than I anticipated. I spend whole lessons going up and down the heated indoor kiddy pool practising blowing bubbles, sometimes even dipping my eyes underneath. After each class I have gained something new, or improved in some small way.
It has quickly become addictive. The feeling of doing something I’ve never done, of overcoming something I never expected to overcome. I started going to the pool alone, doing lap after lap practising whatever I had learned in that week’s lesson, trying to master the tiny incremental skill of taking one hand at a time off the kickboard, or breathing to the left, then the right.
I’ve spent hours holding on to a pool noodle, bobbing past groups of socialising teenagers in the recreational lane, just practising putting my face in the water.
Suddenly one week entering the pool I realised the smell of chlorine caused a leap of excitement rather than terror. I’d come for my baby, but I was staying for me. For the compulsive feeling of euphoria I felt at being in the water, at beating it. I stopped noticing the discomfort of water on my face, up my nose and in my ears, and instead started noticing the patterns of light dancing on the tiles of the pool – tiles I had never seen before beneath the water. I came to enjoy that rushing sound of pressure and silence that hits your ears as they’re submerged.
I’ve noticed my son is also afraid in water. He tenses up when placed in the bath, and clings to me in the shower and pool. I look up whether phobias are heritable (they are). If I have passed on my fear of water I hope I can also pass on what I know about overcoming it. I’m not there yet, but I’m getting closer.
