the only thing worse
than bad memories
is no memories at all..
[dismemberment plan]
6.20.2007
Treading Water.
One of my most distinctive memories of going to the beach on the Jersey shore is floating in a giant black inner tube. I have never been a strong swimmer, so I always had to rely on a giant inflatable tube to keep me afloat. If I went far out enough, past the breakers, I could just ride easy, with my forehead, nose, shoulder, and upper arms -- everything above the tube -- getting sunburned while my submerged legs remained a pasty ocre hue.
I never particularly cared for going into the water. I couldn't swim, and as an abnormally large child at the time, I looked like a fat idiot floating around getting sunburnt and flailing my limbs while remaining stationary. Jellyfish and squid and fish and pinching crabs were also a constant worry, and even wisps of harmless seaweed would send me into a gasping panic. But I was young, and my family rarely went out on trips to the beach, so the time in between visits to the shore were long enough that I would forget how miserable I'd feel there.
One of the last times I went out in an inner tube was probably when I was 7 or 8 years old. I was very fat and wore an awful diagonally striped neon yellow-and-black swimsuit that had a gaudy bow on the side and a ruffly attached skirt. I trudged out through the unsympathetically cold waves, tube held up around my waist, fat dimpled elbows bent, legs shaking, the cheap polyurethane squeaking with each step. Looking out at the crashing waves, it seemed like everyone else my age (and older and younger, for that matter) was having a great time, laughing, screaming with joy, splashing, swimming. Everyone seemed to have a lithe, buoyant quality that allowed them to slip in and out of the water and through the waves unharmed, something that I just seemed to lack for some reason.
So into the water I went, with the tube pulling me and pushing me with the waves. I put on a brave smile for whoever happened to be watching me, and hopped over several waves, the black donut around my waist serving as some kind of ballerina tutu as I pirouetted in the water.
Then, a girl's voice:
"HERE COMES A BIG ONE!"
Other kids squealed with anticipation, but my stomach filled with dread. I looked up at the wave, and it was as though I was a rat cowering in fear, and the wave was a giant elephant reared up on its hind legs about to smash the daylights out of me. I wished desperately that I could run out of the ocean before the wave crashed, but I knew that running would drive me further in the path of foamy destruction and that the friction of my legs cutting through the water would only let me move in slow-motion.
I gripped the tube with one hand -- the other hand tightly pinching my nose shut -- closed my eyes tightly, tensed my body up, and let the wave crash onto me. I was suddenly in a suffocating wormhole, doing underwater sommersaults, with water trying to force its way up my nose, in my ears, into my eye sockets, down my throat, tearing at my bathing suit, pulling the tube underwater. The waves finally vomited me ashore, as though discarding something very undesirable, onto some sharp rocks and shell shards, with me on my hands and knees, sputtering and coughing, the salty water burning in my nose and throat, my fingers splayed out to hold me up. This was fun?
The years went by, and my confidence as a swimmer didn't increase over time as much as I instead decreased the frequency of trips to the beach. I ditched the tube long ago, but I never went out far enough so that my feet couldn't touch the bottom. It was a thought so ludicrous to me that it didn't even cross my mind as a possibility or an option that I could take.
During the last five days, I was down at a beach house and played it safe for the most part by swimming close to the shore. The water was pretty cold, and it sometimes felt like torture taking baby-steps into the freezing water, even though several people said, "If you just jump in, it's a lot easier." I didn't listen and prolonged my suffering by inching my way in. In the shallower waters, the rocks scraped my knees, and as usual I winced when seaweed felt like jellyfish legs wrapping around my legs. I never considered going out very far into the ocean.
At someone's gentle encouragement, I swam out way past the breakers, beyond where I could touch the sandy bottom under the sea, way out to the point that the waves were breaking again. I had never ventured out that far so I couldn't even tell you how far out it was. But it was certainly the farthest out I have ever gone. There was a sand bar out there that I could feel with the very tip of my toe -- a place to stand. And I was scared, and coming back to the shore, it felt like I was kicking an awful lot without seeing any progress really. I felt some panic grip me in the process, but eventually the ocean spit me out again all the same. And I wasn't so afraid after that.
After that, on the fifth day, my last day at the beach, I decided to swim out to where I couldn't feel the bottom again. For the most part of the first four days of my trip to the beach, I barely exerted myself. I spent a lot of time catching up on reading outdated magazines while reclining on the sand. My muscles didn't feel sore at all, because I was basically just doggypaddling in place, floating, looking around at everyone else jumping through waves having a great time, as I worried about whether my eyeliner was running.
On that final day, I realized that if I never forced myself to go out where things were uncertain, to a place where I wasn't 100% safe and comfortable, that I would never realize how much I can actually do on my own. I would never build my muscles, I would never exert myself, that I would never feel the exhilaration of completing something just to know that I can do it.
The reason why I was miserable when I was little and had to use the tube was because I just didn't realize that I could go it alone, without the floatation device. Though it did keep me above the surface most of the time, it let me become lazy and I just didn't enjoy myself. And when a big wave came up, the tube actually weighed me down and dragged me under. I realize now that I need to set the tube aside, shed my fears, face the uncertainties, kick out beyond the breakers, and teach myself how to move, swim, live, and breathe all over again.
[Peek-a-Foo]