Elegy for a Pool

I brought my swimsuit and goggles at the beginning of the year, stuffed them into the outside pocket of my suitcase the day before we drove up for first-year move-in. But for one reason or another, I never felt like swimming. I had dance classes, I had rehearsals, I had books to read and papers to write.

With a sense that time really has run out, I borrow my roommate’s swim cap (oh, the glamor) and head to the basement of our central building. I find the locker room, leave my stuff unattended, sign in, and wade into an empty lane. There are two guards and one other swimmer, and it is very quiet.

As I paddle myself across and back, I’m very glad I learned to swim as a kid. Thanks, I think in the general direction of my mother. I’ve never had a passion for swimming—it wears me out, and getting water in your nose hurts­—but I’m comfortable in the water. I put my head under, my legs give me a good start off the wall, and there I go. I’m determined to stay in the lane for at least a half-hour.

As in dance and music and writing, I find the peace of concentration in my slow breaststroke. I have upcoming exams and a paper to revise, but it’s hard to think about Integrated Pest Management and the Crittenden Compromise and To the Lighthouse when you’re swimming. It’s hard to think about anything but swimming when you’re swimming. Your head bobs up and down, up and down, and you experience the mental equivalent of… not of white noise, but ambient music. Not waiting-room-elevator-your-call-is-very-important-to-us music either. This music is softer and gentler.

How funny that you can move through water in ways you can't move through air…

You’re going to cut your hair short when you get home, it will probably look fantastic…

A boy you had a crush on an age ago, why are you thinking about him…

Caught in a wild ocean, waiting for rescue, a giant whale sails past…

The muscles in your back, the muscles in your legs, the synchronicity of the body…

You’re going to cut your hair short when you get home, it will probably be a disaster…

A little girl comes for her swimming lesson. She is too cute. It makes me sad that she’ll never have another lesson in this pool, which is closed as of today.

It isn’t going to reopen in the fall, either. They’re filling it with concrete and using it as storage space while they renovate the library, or so I hear. Not that they’ll have the money to renovate anything for a few years, so that makes a lot of sense, doesn’t it? Also if they wanted storage space, why fill the pool? You could totally store stuff in an empty pool, right?

It’s not like I know anything about development, but it seems a great shame. What about all the little kids who need their swimming lessons? What about the student lifeguards who are out of a job? What about students who will have to trek across the street to the big university pool and trudge back all wet and gross?

Goodbye, fair pool. I hardly knew you. I’m not sure your loss will have too much of an impact on me personally. But when the urge to swim strikes again, I will regret the time we did not spend together and denounce the administration that decided you were unworthy of a place on campus.

--Bridget