Sunday, August 30, 2009

Swimmingly

Just spent two hours floating in the pool with my daughter Elizabeth. Considering it is been very hot here I feel great right now. Hope it lasts awhile. It was 106 here again yesterday.

I went to the pool supply store to get a couple of floaties...wanted swim rings but they were totally sold out. The man said that the company would probably send a new supply in a couple of months when no one wants them! I was planning on swimming when I got back but it was just too hot. Headache hot! So thought I would wait until it cooled off some but then it was so late.

And I don't want to go in the pool alone...I never learned to actually swim. When I was young all I did was sink. I didn't know it then but I have heavy bones and then I was always very thin. I've probably mentioned this before...I weighed 105 when I got married...I'm almost 5'8". No one talked about anorexia back then...

When I was nine we spent the summer in Washington state. We went to swimming classes at a lake. My cousin Joanne could back float like a cork. She won a back floating contest. They had us face float for the count of ten, and I managed to do that. Then back float and I sank...when water covered my nose I knew it was a lost cause. The other kids were dog paddling all over the place and I was sinking. So my time in the water over the years usually included an inner tube. A couple of years later our moms let Joanne, Barb, and me row a boat out into the lake...I still couldn't swim!

Later when we were teens my dad got two big tractor tires and we floated in Mission Bay. That was before it was developed into what it is now. Not many people went there back then and it was a lot of fun.

When my children were young I joined a backyard swim class for mothers. I learned to dive into the deep end of the pool, and to face float accross to the other side. My back floating was better because after having three children I had a bit more fat on me. Still actually swimming was still hard. The instructor was from the Y and she was a great teacher with lots of patients. During one lesson she had us line up along the edge of the pool to practice treading water. Then she told us to let go of the side. I started to sink, but kept at it. I was up to my nose when she grabbed my arm and lifted me up. She said I was doing everything right too. After a couple of more attempts she said I wasn't going to be able to tread water.

My sister could tread water and smoke a cigarette. She passed through all the steps back in those swimming lessons at that lake in Washington state. Anyway I realized that it wasn't all my fault that I couldn't swim like a fish. My granddaughter swims like a fish. I sometimes call her our little dolphin.

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