Nightswimming

Only now did she recall how much she loved to swim, the freedom from thought and self-consciousness that was always denied her on land, the sense of having found at last an element where she belonged, and where all that mattered was buoyancy, breath, and forward motion. –Francine Prose, Hunters and Gatherers

I went swimming tonight for the first time since the summer. And I enjoyed it, despite the burning sensation in my eyes and on my tongue from the buckets of chlorine they must dump in the gym pool. I had my eyes and mouth shut tightly the entire time, and it still burned.

Tonight I did laps, all the while wishing I was getting my exercise playing a good old-fashioned game of “Marco Polo.” Now that was some exercise. Plunging underwater to avoid whoever was It, swimming as low to the pool bottom as possible, as fast as possible, all the while expecting to feel the brush of Marco’s hand or foot against your leg as you swam by. Breathlessly arriving at the other end of the pool, gasping and calling “polo” as you surface.

In June of 1996, when I was seventeen, my cousins Jen, Shana, Val, their cousin Ben, my cousin Amy, and my brother and I had one last night of Marco Polo in our family’s pool. It was a dark, humid Florida night after a family wedding. We played old games, Marco Polo, and ball tag. It got late, and my parents had gone to bed. We weren’t quiet, and since my parents’ bedroom bordered the pool, I half-expected my dad’s voice to call out from the darkened sliding door, telling us to keep it down.

But, for whatever reason, it didn’t happen. They probably went right to sleep and didn’t hear us. I like to imagine that they let us have our fun because they thought about how grown-up we were getting, and how this might be the last time we’d all be together like this. The last time they’d really hear “Marco” “Polo” called out, the last time they’d hear us all splashing and jumping into the water.

Of course, I’m ridiculously nostalgic. But I’m almost sure this is the last time that all of those people were together at our pool. Possibly the last time we played “Marco Polo” there. So I think I deserve a little nostalgia-wallowing.