high dive

as scary as the moment was for me, I am now convinced it may have been scarier for my mom to watch it happening to me.

location: amazon pool

date: 1970-something 

occasion: swim lessons

our annual swim lessons were progressing easily and organically.  I loved to swim and this skill was one that was highly valued in our family.  We all were required to not just learn but be proficient at it.  As a family we spent lots of time in and around water so the lessons were a annual requirement.

however...I never factored into the equation that I would be required to go off the high dive as part of my lessons. Evidently this was important to someone in the swim curriculum world and as we approached my final lesson, this was something that was going to prevent me from graduating out of guppy class into dolphins.  Can't be a good swimmer without a jump off the high dive I guess.

I had climbed the ladder and walked to the end of the stationary board so many times but had always turned back.  The climb of shame back down to the pool deck was always met with a stern look from my burly swim teacher and giggles from the rest of the guppies. 

"You will have to jump to pass". 

final day of class...beautiful June day finds me climbing the ladder again, standing at the edge of the board...afraid! I am so afraid!  Even now, thinking about that moment, my stomach flips and flops.

And then, like a great red swimsuit-clad fog bank, my overly muscled swim teacher rolls in beside me. She has ascended the ladder to join me at the end of the board. I know she is going to try to encourage me to make the leap, and in my mind, I think how nice it will be to have someone descend the ladder when I decide that, once again, I will not be jumping.

What happens next...well, it is one of the more traumatic moments of my youth.  It would have been easier I think if she had just pushed me off, but that is not what she did.

After some verbal "encouragement" (harassment?) she turned me to face the water and stepped in behind me. Placing her large beefy hands under my armpits, she proceeded to lift me up and take a step forward so that I was no longer standing on my own but was being held by her over the water below.  I am not sure how long I hung there but it felt like an eternity and I know for sure she talked to me for a while so it wasn't just a quick lift and drop.  It was more of a lift, let's-chat-about-what-is-happening and then drop.

I was like a dog treat being dangled over the mouth of a hungry dog being commanded to dance. And the fear I had been feeling was now about to be released into a full blown, freakishly shrieking scream as she finally let go and I tumbled to what I was sure to be my early demise...death by swimming pool.

I survived the plunge but am obviously haunted by the experience.  I still to this day cannot...will not...jump off a high dive board...nope...not ever!  Bungee jumping is probably out also.

And then there was Loretta! My mom, watching the entire thing transpire. I am pretty sure she gave that lifeguard an earful but as a mom, my perspective has become about what she saw that day.  

She had sat and watched every lesson. With pride she had encouraged me as I made my way through guppy class.  Watching as I climbed up that board again and again and then back down everyday, believing in me every step up and every ladder step back down.  And then I dangled! At the end of the stiff arms of my instructor over the chlorine filled pool. She heard my screams and watched my flailing body as I plummeted toward the pool. 

I am the mother today. 

There are my brave children, working so hard to be courageous, taking their lessons, climbing the ladder up and down. But now it feels like I am sitting watching them be hung out over the water, as they are being strong armed into facing their biggest fear.  They will survive the fall, and there will probably be screaming and flailing.  I may feel like giving God an earful but I know he is not the instructor in this story.  He is the soft landing. He is the warm dry towel waiting by the side of the pool and the hot shower in the locker room.  He is the arms of comfort. He is the laughter over the absurdity of the whole thing.

I am the mother.