by Tracy Bailey
The water always called my name. I was born near the banks of the Santee River, the same waters that flowed past the home of Thomas Lynch, Jr. who returned there after adding his name to the Declaration of Independence. Two hundred forty-one years ago, before I was a part of anyone’s imagination, he rested his feet on the railings of the back porch of Hopesewee and listened to the river sing her song. Tried to focus on the rushings and lappings in order to drown out the sound of my mother’s screams. Somewhere on that plantation every single day the lash was brandished, used as a discipline rod, the bloody instrument later rinsed on the muddy banks and hung in the barn to dry.
Still, the water beckoned to me and tried to explain that there was no difference between us. She belonged to the earth, as did I. Nothing to cradle us but the puffy white clouds and the azure blue. I faintly heard her remind me of a time when we both were born. She gave me life and hope and energy and there existed no enmity between us. It had only been the years and the lash and the middle passage that had caused me to believe the lie.
The year I decided to reach beyond the fear for the first time, I was a sophomore in college. Windows of opportunity were opening to me. Unlike the small, dirt-road community that raised me, there was an Olympic-sized pool available to everyone enrolled. I bought a swimsuit and jumped in with my girlfriends, not realizing that the seniors, the men, would show up to watch us and say things that made us afraid to get out of the pool because they would really see us. See the shapes of our bodies, the fullness of our hips, thighs, and butts. Interpret that fullness as an invitation, speak to us as if we chose that body and lived to give it away. They said things; we scuttled out of the water and wrapped our shame in fluffy bath towels. Inevitably, we blamed the water.
Upon learning of the physical fitness requirement for undergraduates, I picked beginner’s swimming. At my predominantly white college, I was the only African American student in my swimming class. From the looks of the skill level of my classmates, I was the only true beginner. The teacher tried to be patient with me. She spent several minutes giving me individualized instruction each day, I have to give her credit. For my part, I made the commitment to get my hair wet in every class, giving up an hour afterward to blow dry it, hot curl it, try to make myself resemble a civilized young woman again. Despite both our efforts, I walked away from the semester long class learning only to float on my back and do a weak frog kick. I was still afraid of the deep end, but at the very least I could hold my own. I was nineteen.
It wasn’t until I was in my thirties that I returned to the pool on a regular basis. By that time, I fully understood my responsibility to introduce my babies to the water. They needed to hear her voice for themselves. My husband knew it as well. Both college educated, both working white collar jobs and then deciding that I would quit teaching to stay at home with the kids, we promised to push them through windows of opportunities closed to us when we were children. It was his idea to take our first born to the ocean on Mother’s Day and dip our son’s toes there. Together we blessed him and whispered into his ear of the wide world and its dangers. We spoke in reverent, hushed tones about respect for ourselves and for the places God gave us access. We took turns holding him in our arms, allowing the smallest waves to lap over his ankles and toes. And we stood silent and allowed the ocean to speak. In my red halter bathing suit top, I felt the sun hit my shoulders, allowed my head to fall back toward the sky.
We signed them up for swim lessons as soon as they could walk. Our daughter let loose terrified screams when the instructor at the rec center invited her to leave the pool steps. She did not take to the water quickly the way her brother did. The day he stood on the high diving board and jumped into the deep end was the day I knew that he had heard and answered the call. He was no more than seven, knobby knees poking out like yo-yos attached to his spindly legs. His teacher, a young college student who commanded the lanes in confident, beautiful strokes, waited below him, encouraged him. And he jumped. I held my breath until he resurfaced, sure but not sure, trusting and not trusting.
Yet my husband and I did not think to climb through that particular window ourselves. Historically, black parents have sacrificed leisure time and enjoyment so the babies can embrace the treasure chests that were once locked. But the past has left an indelible print on the canvas of our minds. All of the pools that would close and be drained completely before the white revelers would consider sharing it with brown skin. All of the signs that told us we were not good enough, that somehow our very presence would contaminate the space. They vacationed and nonchalantly took pictures with their enormous Polaroids showing their teeth and their legs, lounging beneath umbrellas. They used their power to keep us out. For some black people, those images continue to speak louder than the call of the water. For me, they were a constant reminder that there are yet more rivers to cross. Rivers of access and freedom.
He played football in another life, my husband. Entered mine and taught me the importance of running, something we could do together if he wasn’t so competitive and I wasn’t so independent. Nevertheless, in the early years of our marriage, we strung up our running shoes and jogged to stay fit and stay sane. In the end, we hung two marathon medals each on the walls of our home office. We’d been running consistently for ten years when a dull ache in my hip and an autoimmune disease in his muscles suggested that another past time might be a better option.
Triathlon? I can’t remember when I first grabbed hold of the possibility, but at this point my attitude was “Why not?” It would be the ultimate challenge for a middle-aged woman with life left in her. But I couldn’t swim, was still afraid of the deep end. I was still fighting that feeling of panic and dread that time and again threatens to take over. I want to do this. Can’t see this water conquering me. After all, it’s just water. Just wetness falling from above me and rising up out of the earth below me. The same water, salty and hot, that welcomed us on summer days when we ran across the powdery sand into her embrace while our mothers struggled with blankets and umbrellas and coolers and buckets. Once a year, Huntington Beach State Park, the ocean, bid us welcome.
I asked around for recommendations. Who could teach this illusive skill? Who could peel back the layers of my fear, my shame, my self-doubt? They told me her name; I took a deep breath and sent her a message before I lost my nerve. She called. Said she could meet with me the following morning for a run. It came together like a lightning flash, and I was on my way.
The previous summer, a friend who lived across the state line had offered her help. She had been a swim teacher in another life. I bought the suit, the cap, the googles. Felt like a pro with all my gear. Jumped into her very private community outdoor pool while members of the HOA looked on, wondered out loud what I was doing there. Older women completed graceful laps up and back without wetting their hair as I blew bubbles on the side of the pool. My friend taught me drills and I worked hard, but at the end of the summer I was still staring longingly at the deep end. I wondered if there would ever be a day when that feeling of overwhelming dread and panic did not come for me when my feet could not find a perch. Wondered with great envy how my friend could glide so confidently, could know with certainty that she would not lose her life in that pool while the HOA looked on.
An entire year had passed and I was still determined. Maybe it was my mama’s stubbornness or my daddy’s audacity that would not allow me to let this thing go. Whatever the case, I could not deny that it was still there, nibbling around the edges of my brain. “You can do this,” it whispered one minute. The next day it asked, “Who the hell do you think you are? You are not a white girl. What business do you have even attempting this?” I heard the accusation in my own brain and that’s when I knew. It was no longer a question of if I would do it. Just when. The gauntlet had been laid, the challenge articulated. Assumptions I had used to twine myself in a cocoon year after year, layer after layer. It had not started with me, this hostage taking. Perhaps it had started on the porch where Thomas Lynch propped his foot up on the rail, or the ship that brought me here across the bottomless, glassy sea. Or maybe the first orbit of the spider web had wrapped me in my village when I ran from hut to hut, my feet red from the clay and the dust of the land. The expectations of me did not originate with me, but I had taken over as surely as the water enveloped me on the day of my first lesson. And as I followed my teacher’s directions and submerged myself completely, it become clear that I was the only one that could unspool the casing and set my spirit free.
Sue, a spunky lady in her fifties, clearly had a way with people. She pushed me in the pool, but not in a way that intimidated. She inspired. During my first lesson, I glided to her across the lane, then down the lane. I sent my right arm over my head, tried to grab a breath like she’d instructed, drew water into my nose, sputtered. A hundred thousand fits and starts, coughing, choking, beginning again.
“You can do this. Just relax and let the water cradle you. Let the water do the work,” she’d tell me in that indomitable tone of hers. I didn’t doubt her, had already crossed the line into ‘not if, when’ territory. Remembered the miles of running I put in training for the marathons. I had thought I would die then, too, but here I was in a public pool with no deep end. I had survived.
I kept showing up. Two, three times a week. The lifeguards gave me a few extra pointers when they noticed I wasn’t bringing one arm all the way around or wasn’t kicking my feet fast enough. Practiced what I could do, piecing together all of the lessons I’d received over the years. And then one day I jumped into the pool and I tried it all and somehow it worked. I went two strokes, four strokes, six strokes, turning my head and actually get enough air in my lungs to keep going. I was swimming.
After that I wanted to be in the pool all the time. I was getting stronger and the mechanics were clicking into place. Sue and I worked on endurance. Ten laps was the goal. She put me in a wetsuit and told me about how much more buoyant I would be wearing it. We chose a triathlon nine weeks in the future.
“I know you can do this,” she told me one day as we finished up a lesson. “You have the mechanics of swimming down to a science. The rest of it is all in your head. Do you believe you can do this?” Her blue eyes penetrated my defenses. I had no choice but to tell it straight. I did believe. Looking back on the panic that once threatened to paralyze me, I felt a hint of shock. It wasn’t there anymore. It had been replaced by excitement for the day of the race. Anticipation propelled me forward, made me dream at night about being under water.
The morning of the race we woke up at 4 a.m., my husband, two kids. We locked the road bike onto the back of the car and drove the short distance to the county park where the race would begin at 6 a.m. I watched my fellow competitors march around the sign-in area as if they owned it. Mine was one of only a few black faces, a million white men. Sleek looking outfits designed to helped them swim faster, ride faster, shave 30 seconds off their run. My coach competed that day, tried to get me to swim a bit to warm up. I was nervous, prayed the entire time that I would not drown. Sure on the one hand that I would emerge victorious, not sure that I was completely ready. That day would be my first attempt at swimming in open water surrounded by folks that seemed like pros. My division of women pulled on our green swim caps and waded out in the water, someone fired a gun. I swam my best crawl half way to the first buoy and got tired, flipped onto my back and began to drift off course. Things only got more complicated as time went on. My goggles fogged, the sun peeked over the trees just as I searched for the second buoy and blinded me. It wasn’t long before I looked up and realized that I was the only competitor left in the lake. The only other person in the water was in a boat and he was telling me I was going the wrong way.
I would learn the next day that I emerged from the swim portion of the competition a full 15 minutes after the person ahead of me. When I finally walked up onto the shore, it felt like I had gone five rounds with Iron Mike Tyson. Disoriented, tired, and bewildered, I looked around to see at least fifty people including my husband and daughter cheering me on, encouraging me. Relieved to be on terra firma, I fought the urge to berate myself for such a poor showing and remembered that I had done something I thought I couldn’t do. I took comfort in the overcoming, jumped on my bike and tried to be the wind.
I didn’t win the triathlon that day. Despite my overachieving, type-A tendencies, I do realize that winning was never the point. That day, that open water swim was a reconciliation, a taking ownership of my body and my destiny. Floating in that water and staring up at the blueness of the sky without the support of my coach, without the safety of a pool with no deep end, I realized fully and completely that I could rely on me. I can trust me. Waves may crash and things may get deep, but I’ll never be in over my head again. The water called my name, at once calling me out of myself and home to myself. I heard the water call my name. And on that day, I answered.