The Water Held Me

A Meditation on Creativity and Remembering How to Float

She’s a maniac, maniac¹ throbs in the background as I open the door to the local Y’s pool.  I feel every bass note pulsating beneath my skin from the speaker 10 feet away.  A fitting introduction I thought as I slid into the crystal waters this morning.

I came prepared. Swimsuit. Towel. Goggles. Locker lock.

An aqua aerobics instructor calls out “mermaid tales” and I assume that’s an exercise for legs under the water as rows of ladies shift in their places.

It has been more than 15 years since I have swum a lap or exercised in the water. 

The morning is warm but the sun is not yet hot.

Suddenly, I am reminded why one of my nicknames was fish growing up. And why pools make Florida summers magical.

Being born without my left leg and having a mom who had been a professional water ballet swimmer in her day meant I learned to swim before I learned to walk. 

For many reasons, the pool became one of my safest places growing up.

It was the place I could be like everyone else and fully myself at the same time. Where I could swim, and dive, and race, and compete and float and know the water held me.

The water held me.

I have not so much looked at a pool since my mom’s passing over Mother’s Day 2020.  It was just too close to the ache of her absence.

The teenage lifeguard watches me from his perch. Yes, I could leave my crutches at the waters edge. 

She's a maniac, maniac on the floor
And she's dancing like she's never danced before…

The water held me.

It can cut you like a knife, if the gift becomes the fire
On a wire between will and what will be

The water held me.

Then it dawned on me that my mom swam this very lane and took this same aqua class 20 years ago and somehow time condensed and the water became arms and the sunlight her smile.

Sometimes the holiest moments come when we least expect them.

The water held me.

And I could almost hear the laughter of a decade of poolside summers ripple towards me from my childhood.

I duck under the water’s surface because the lifeguard was watching me stand oddly still beneath his tall red chair.

I was grateful no one would think twice about my streaming wet face.

As I began swimming, I soon found out my lungs forgot how to hold a sustained breath and my arms forgot how to move except as discombobulated rusty windmills that could barely manage three quarters of a rotation.

But still the water held me. In all my shortcomings. Welcomed me in all my weakness. Surrounded me with stillness.

I swam close to the edge of the pool alternating between a haphazard doggie paddle and a half-remembered frog crawl.

I would choose to start back swimming laps in an actual Olympic sized pool used by real competitive swim teams.

She’s a maniac…

But I forgot how light I felt in water.  Focus on how amazing it felt to move this body forward with all its challenges and quirks and extra special details.

…maniac…

My lungs slowly began to remember how to expand and hold on to a short breath by the end of the hour.

Don’t fight the water. Let the water carry you.

You don’t have to attack it. Let it surround you. 

Don’t gulp air. One steady breath. That’s all you need.

You aren’t free-diving in 3 inches of water.  You don’t have to hold your breath like there will be no more air when you surface.

Your arms don’t have to chop the water like it’s an opponent in a karate match.

The water is not something to be subdued.

Let the resistance of its molecules move you.

And when you are tired, turn, lean back… and just float.

That was one of the first thing mom taught me. How to float and make friends with the water.

All in all today I managed 6 faltering Olympic-sized laps sans floatation in an hour and a solid ten minutes of deep water treading.

I think that’s a pretty decent start. I can’t swim like I used to. But I can swim differently.  And every stroke reaching through the water moves me forward.

Swimming is a lot like creating, and creativity a pool.

Creativity can carry us. We can lean into it. We can learn rhythms to move through it.

We can learn to breathe in time with its strokes.

Creativity is an embodied experience, a baptism into joy and mystery and hope and wonder.

They all say she's crazy
Locking rhythms to the beat of her heart
Changing movement into light
She has danced into the danger zone
When the dancer becomes the dance.

Creativity surrounds and envelops and holds us.  It shapes us as we stretch our arms towards the unknown and invites us to kick our feet to the rhythm of our own heart beat.

And when our energy is spent, the days are long, and we feel like there’s nothing left to give...  We can simply face the sky and float.

Cheering you on friends. Always.

1. Italicized text are lyrics from Maniac referenced: https://genius.com/Michael-sembello-maniac-lyrics