(sounds of children playing, seagulls squawking, and waves crashing at a beach)
Whenever I mention to anyone that I can’t swim, I usually get four of the following responses:
Oh, so you can’t swim? What are you gonna do if you’re on a boat? Or if you’re in the middle of the ocean? Or if a tsunami hits? You’re just gonna drown?”
Or…“Your parents never taught you how to swim? I mean I thought everyone was taught how to swim at the YMCA…or—” Insert some summer camp related program said person was a part of when they were twelve here.
Or…“Really? All you have to do is move your legs and arms in the water like this.” Then they proceed to show me how to swim, but we aren’t in the water. Therefore this information won’t help me in the slightest.
And sometimes…“My—” Insert parental figure or sibling here, “pushed me into the water, and then I just learned how to swim. I did almost drown though, lol.”
And I normally respond with: No, I never learned how to swim, or with, my mom knows how to doggy paddle and my dad got a C in swimming when he was in high school, or, the ocean is scary—and you’ll never see me past the point where I can still feel the sand beneath my feet.
What lies within the unknown has always been a fear of mine. Something my body seems to instinctively recoil from. The ocean is just one of the many things I’ve never grown to love or hate because of this. If I knew how to swim and embrace water with open arms, maybe I’d like it just a little bit more. But I also hate feeling immense pressure of water against my chest, squeezing as if to break to me. And my near death experiences also don’t help in mending the relationship I have with large bodies of water. And the fact that I’ve lived in Delaware my entire life. A peninsula. A state surrounded by beaches and water—I’m starting to connect the dots…
And maybe this is a weird writer thing, but I love to write about water in stories and poems. Water as an existence is captivating (and easier to write about and describe in abstract ways). Same with space and nature, two other unpredictable things I have very mixed feelings about. Space because I had a bad dream that I was floating through space without a helmet and couldn’t breathe, and nature because bugs. I really don’t like bugs. Despite all of my feelings and many irrational fears though, water seems to be the one thing that I should get, because after all everyone else seems to get it. It’s why I’m bombarded with questions as to why I can’t. But whenever I find myself in the midst of a pool, attempting to lay flat on my back (with the assistance of my friends), I can’t find a way to stay afloat. I panic and I sink under almost instantly, too weak to kick my legs against the pressure of the water, too tense to relax my whole body against a shapeshifting expanse.
(pause, bubbles and crashing waves)
When I finally graduated high school and officially began embarking on my “college career,” the panic and unnerve I felt was the exact same as whenever I was in or even near the ocean or a pool. I didn’t even know how to “college,” I mean, how are you supposed to “college” properly? I knew it was going to be full of new things I had never faced before and would inevitably have to. I was going to be living with someone for the first time, keeping track of my schedule and meals, trying to finish assignments with little to no reminders from my professors, and dealing with my mental health entirely on my own. My major wasn’t certain to work out in the future, and my parents weren’t sold on me pursuing creative writing. It left me with a sense of dread. It was as if I was staring at a neverending sheet of bright blue. I would wade out further and further until my feet escaped from underneath me. I’d lose my footing and go under, in hopes the waves were forgiving enough to bring me back to shore.
(sound of jumping into water and submerging)
But I quickly realized that not everyone knows how to swim, in fact some people are wading across the currents and the tides completely unbothered. When I was stepping foot on Susquehanna’s campus, maybe I wasn’t alone after all. I wasn’t the only person who didn’t know how to swim, and frankly, I wasn’t the only person who had a few near death experiences with water. Finding other students and peers who also didn’t know what they were doing and had no experience with college, made the wading and trekking all the more worthwhile. So the next time someone asks me why I don’t know how to swim if everyone was taught, I’ll just shrug and say, “If I can’t float or swim my way through the twisting sea of university, I guess that’s what floaties are for.” And even now, my arms are protected with little inflatables, and I feel a bit more open to the ocean’s embrace.
(pause, resurfacing and gasping for air)
The sound effects included in this bio were provided by Jonathan Shaw, Scott_Snailham, and juskiddink on freesound.org.