Learning to Swim Again

She was born in a bathtub. It was one of those new age things people were doing everywhere and was heard about in various magazines. The midwife was there the whole time. Apparently there was little use for epidurals in water birthing.

Carol held tight on the left hand of the midwife, whose name was Barbara. There was a lot of sloshing about and moaning and groaning and Barbara would listen and hum and occasionally murmur something.

When the baby was free of the womb and in Barbara’s hands the baby cried. The midwife stuck her finger down the baby’s throat and the baby coughed up some mucus. Finally the baby was in Carol’s hands and she cried and hugged her. She named her Violet.

Afterwards she reported that it was an amazing experience and that if she had the chance she would do it again. The ending was like triumphant and the feelings were beautiful.

She kept Violet in a crib under a blue blanket and the sun made its way through the room from morning to night. Many times she woke up and cried for her mother and her mother would wake up and be right there.

The first few months of motherhood were exhausting but fully rewarding and in her opinion, beautiful. The baby would cry often. After a while however she would smile with her blue eyes wide open and then utter something insensible.

Barbara was in complete love with her daughter and she told everyone about it and how joyful the whole ordeal was.

Violet grew up to be a bright young girl with red hair who had a peculiar clever smile. She had a high pitched voice and a laugh that would make anyone think twice. Her and her mother got along like candid best friends, as if clipped from a movie about women surviving in the harsh world.

She got good grades in elementary school and in high school she kept a straight A average. People adored her and she soon loosened up around people after she realized people weren’t trying to kill her or malign her in any imaginable way.

One night, at a party, she was enjoying herself with some friends around the dock at a lake. They were drinking beer underage and chatting and getting a bit slack when a boy she knew from grade nine math class pushed her in the lake. It was so cold her nerves reacted chaotically and she didn’t surface for a few suspenseful moments. When she did she made a face to her friends to communicate she needed some help and fast.

They dragged her in the edge of the dock and she burped up some water and gasped for air. Another boy from school started beating up that other boy and they were exchanging fists rapidly. Violet got up on one side of the dock and started to breathe in huge gasps of air. Her friends surrounded her until she was ok.

One of the girls said to the boy, “You’re going to die for this one, Frank.”

Frank was badly beaten up. Violet looked at him and he with his eyes downcast told her he was sorry.

She called a cab to go home and within an hour was in the house explaining to Barbara what happened. Barbara cried, “Oh, you poor dear. How could you let that happen to you?”

“I know, Mom. I’m sorry. It won’t happen again.”

“What if you drowned? What in the hell would I do then?”

“It won’t happen again. I’m sorry it happened.”

Violet went to school the following week and everybody was asking her if she was ok. She said she was a bit shocked by this but she would get over it.

People pestered Frank for doing it. He had a shiner on his left eye that was black and red. By mid-week he apologized to her and she stared at him with another of those think of anything you stupid jerk stares. “That’s fine, Frank. Don’t do bullshit like that again.”

Violet still progressed in high school and attained straight A’s. Her and her mother kept a wonderful relationship and would talk until nights end about anything and everything.

Another time Violet and a group of her girlfriends were at another party at a lake. It was a different house and a different lake. After a few beer her friends started to jump into the lake. They rose to the surface exasperated.

“It’s cold but it’s awesome, Violet. Come on in.”

But Violet was too frightened to jump in the water. Her face was still and pale. “I’m sorry. I can’t,” she said.

Her friends kept calling her in, “Come on. It’s beautiful.”

“No,” Violet said, then again, “No.”

The flat lake appeared crystal cold and beguiling. She started to shake at the knees, standing there, staring at her friends.

Her friends saw her and swum back to the dock and got up to embrace her. “Oh, you poor dear. You’re still afraid of the water, aren’t you?”

Violet nodded and put her head on her friend’s shoulder. They helped her up the stairs with an arm around her back. Her face remained still and pale but at the top she relaxed and returned to her normal self.

She started crying and said to them desperately, “I can’t go in the water. I’m too scared.”

She cried on and her friends consoled her. Another friend, a man her age, drove her home and she arrived at home to find her mother sleeping and a light on in the kitchen.

In the bathroom she looked at her face in the mirror and hated herself. “Why am I such a wimp?” She thought. Then she gave herself a fiercer look and her blue eyes cringed a bit with pain.

Afterwards she pretended as if it never happened. She won a scholarship at the end of high school having kept a 98% average. Her mother hugged her in amazing pride, crying on her shoulder.

Violet wanted to study English at York University. She imagined that afterwards she’d go to teacher’s college and later teach English. The scholarship would pay for most of university.

She bought an old car with rusty wheel wells and drove it to the university in Toronto. She was to stay at a dormitory for the year. She parked in a spot that she would stay in for the whole year. Once she arrived she smiled. This was the beginning of something completely different.

There was a booth near the main door where she checked in and signed some forms and went to her room upstairs. She met some good friends and partied often.

Her roommate was a professional swimmer and woke up every morning at 7:00 to swim lanes at the gym. Violet somewhat envied her but the fact remained she did not like water. If it was water in a glass there was no problem but the idea of swimming in freezing cold water frightened her.

There were times at parties with beers in their hands she imagined she might forget about the incident on the lake, but every time she smelled the chlorine at the gym she felt ill and remembered how much she hated swimming.

One night she called her mom and they started talking again. She asked Violet if she was over her fear of cold water and Violet replied, “No.”

Her mother told her the story of the water birth and how beautiful it was and the tub was just warm enough and how she cried afterwards. Violet told her she wasn’t afraid of tubs and maybe that was a start.

Her mother went on saying how that makes sense, to try taking a bath and seeing how one felt about it. Violet listened but inside she knew she wouldn’t even try taking a bath, it was one step too many on a path she didn’t want to take.

There was a way from the dormitory to Lake Ontario and one day Violet drove there. She stood on the sand and looked at the water as it came in wave after wave to the shore. The sky was leaden and there was little wind.

Standing there, she thought deeply about her life. She wondered if she was a screw up. She often took pity on herself and this time, before the great lake, she knew something had to change.

She got back in her car and drove to the dorm.

After telling her friends about it they sympathized for her. They told her it was probably shock and that she should take little steps before trying big water. She listened to them and realized they were talking sense. Maybe she could try something, but she didn’t know what.

There were showers in the dormitory but no bath tubs. Showering was a kind of relief from sitting in a bath tub, but she realized she was just putting things off. In the shower she cried for about a minute and a half, then got out feeling refreshed.

Her friends arranged for a night at the spa and told Violet to come. “Just a night with the girls at the spa. There’ll be plenty of beer and just us. Be there by seven.”

Violet packed her things together in a pack sack and arrived there with a smile on her face. She smiled and shouted, “Hoorah! I am here!”

They drank a few beer and talked. There was a whirlpool ahead of them that seemed slightly tempting. But Violet looked at it with revulsion. Her stomach was uneasy all night and she told the girls she couldn’t swim.

But the girls went in, laughing and giggling. Violet watched them with an easy smile, supporting them and hooraying them, sitting by herself drinking a beer.

She did take the sauna however and showered off before driving home. She pitied herself for her fear and cried a few tears. She said to herself, “Dammit. There is only one problem and I have to fix it.” She thought of ways of defeating this problem but she just pitied herself more. She cried until she got to the university parking lot, then walked into the residence as if nothing happened.

She did sleep an angelic sleep that night, however, further putting off the impossible solution to her problem.

That year she got straight A’s again and her mother was extremely proud of her. “You’re going to be a great teacher!” She said.

Of course Violet said, “Thanks, Mom.”

She drove the old yellow car back home. At the front door she rang the doorbell and smiled at her mother. “Hi, Mom!”

They hugged and Carol cried. “It’s so good to see you again. It’s been like a century. Oh, dear. How are you?”

“Fine, Mom, as always.”

They went upstairs to the kitchen table and talked all night, until about eleven when Violet felt tired.

She woke up and her Mom was frying breakfast with a big smile on her face. “Good morning, dear. And how did the princess sleep?”

“Awesomely, Mom. What’s for breakfast?”

“Scrambled eggs and bacon, and cinnamon toast just the way you like it.”

Violet smiled. It was all coming back to her. She sat down at the table and thought dreamily.

“Are you going to call your friends and say hello?”

“I’ll call them later. It’s so weird. Right now I feel as if I’m waking up from a twenty year sleep. This is so perfect.”

“I’m glad you’re happy, dear. You know how I’ve missed you.”

“I missed you too, Mom.”

After breakfast Violet called her friends. There was another party on the lake and all her high school friends would be there. She was so excited. She did not fear being pushed into the lake again. If someone did she would simply kill them.

Her and some girls bought a case of Labatt Blue, just like they used to drink. They exchanged some warm smiles and some hugs and were soon telling stories about their first year of university.

Everybody was getting together at a rich dude’s back yard. People were ecstatic, seeing old faces and telling stories. After four or five beer Violet spotted Frank, the little man that pushed her in the lake.

He came up to see her with a confident smile. “Hey, Violet. Are you still upset about that night?”

“I’ve forgotten about it. I’m surprised you’re not dead.”

“Well, life treats me well,” he said, and smiled. “I hear you’re still afraid of the water.”

“It’s not the water it’s the shock from warm air to cold water. I’ve never been so shocked. It tangled up my nerves.”

“People can help you with this.”

“I’ve seen a psychologist,” she lied.

“I’m so sorry. I’d never do a stupid thing like that again.”

Violet softened. “At least you learned your lesson,” she said, staring down at him dominantly, letting a thin smile of forgiveness.

“Well, anyway, see you later.”

She looked at the lake and it still appeared menacing and cruel. It remained as the one actual mental problem left in her life. Inside she felt secure, brave and proud, but the water frightened her and she felt too weakened by it. Tears would form in her eyes and she began to pity herself again. “Dammit,” she thought, inside.

She was on her sixth beer when she came up with an idea. She told a friend to hold her purse and walked down to the water. She stared at it like it was a fair contestant in some kind of fight, then she put her toe in it and felt the coldness. She hesitated when the sensation of panic came to her and pulled her foot out of the water.

Her face was red when she came up to see her friends. They asked her why but she just said forget about it and she grabbed her purse and left. Another old friend from school drove her home. She thanked him, got inside, and went to sleep.

The next morning she poured herself a bath and got in. She felt like she was in her mother’s womb again. All she could do was maintain a deep quiet so that no one heard her. But she felt some calm come in and stayed there in the tub for twenty minutes.

She wondered about actually seeing a psychologist about this. How deep was her problem, and couldn’t she solve it herself?”

There was a pool just north of city that she wanted to try swimming in. She made up a plan: first to change into a swimsuit, then to dip her toes in the water, and if the water was too cold or too frightening she would retract and find something else to do. She would not be beaten by a stupid lake.

When she got to the pool there were voices shouting and giggling. The smell of chlorine was so strong she felt a bit sick but pinched herself to go on further. She was close to vomiting before she saw the pool. There were a few swimmers on foam rods and little surfboards. There was a diving tower and two springboards. And from the deep end there was a shallow end where most of the people were.

She walked gingerly towards the shallow end and the idea struck her like a match. If you’ve got a deep problem, go to the shallow end. So she did. She smiled prettily at the people swimming there who looked at her and walked to the rim of the pool where some water was splashing over.

She stood beside the pool as people splashed and played and giggled. The water crept up to her toes and almost playfully receded and came again. She was listening to herself as the water played with her feet. “Am I freaking out?” she wondered.

Her next step was to sit by the edge of the pool and let her legs get wet. The water came in up to her knees and receded as the swimmers played.

She closed her eyes to see how she felt and sat down on the lower rim of the pool where the water came in up to her waist. She felt like she was back in the bathtub with her mother, maintaining silence as if she were in the womb of a hippopotamus. Inside her eyes glowed red and pink, soft and warm. She could hear the water coming up to her and playing with the flesh on her body. Then she listened deeper.

All of a sudden she pushed herself into the water and fell in five feet of water then touched the bottom and rose back up. When she came up it was like a whale who had been holding its breath for hours, days. She breathed in a lungful of chlorinated air and swam back to the side of the pool. When she was standing again she smiled victoriously.

She got back in her car and drove back home. Her mother was there and she wanted to know all the details. Like a rush of memories and thoughts Violet told her everything. They stayed up late drinking gin and tonic, talking and adoring each other.

Another party came around that August and Violet was there. Her and the girls were talking and laughing. Violet told them the whole story and they said “Aw,” and, “Isn’t that beautiful.”

After six beer she showed her friends her new bravery. She asked them to hold her purse while she approached the dock by the lake. She smiled back at them and curled her toes around the edge of the dock, closed her eyes and felt the bright pink, then jumped in, totally expecting the cold and swimming with it. She rose with her hair wet, a neat part through the middle, and smiled at her friends. She called out! “Look at me! I can swim!”