Chapter 8, Minneapolis, 1977

YOU CAN JUMP SO HIGH

My mother has announced during our winter vacation Carolyn and I need to learn basic survival skills. As a start, she has signed us up for beginners’ swimming lessons every Saturday at the Minneapolis Fairview Hospital. The smell of chlorine enters my nostrils from the changing room before I even see the pool. The pool area is kept very warm for the physical therapy patients who use it each day before swim lessons. On the coldest Minnesota days I close my eyes while my mom helps me into my swimsuit, and I imagine I am on a warm, sunny ocean island. I haven’t seen the ocean. I wonder if it smells as pungent as the chlorinated pool. I timidly walk hand-in-hand with my mother to the pool deck. The floor feels warm and slippery beneath my feet. Mom seats me on a metal bench near the shallow end of the pool. Carolyn, three other girls, and I sit together. She is far braver than I, asking today if she can jump off the diving board. I’m scared to put my head too far under water, let alone jump off a diving board that plunges kids into the deep end of the pool. We are diligent in our lessons and learn to kick, swim with our head down, and pick up objects from the bottom of the steps in the shallow end of the pool. The weeks have given us serious skills, like blowing bubbles underwater and playing an underwater game called Teddy Bear on the pool floor. We can both swim the stroke they call “crawl.” I learn to breathe on both sides. Carolyn insists she will only breathe on her right side. Each day we grow more confident in our abilities. Today, our instructor announces all who want to jump off the diving board can do so at the end of the lesson. Carolyn is thrilled. I pretend to be thrilled too. Flying gleefully into the air, she rebounds off the end of the board – up –up –up, giggling the whole time until her descent into the heated pool water. Now it’s my turn. I walk onto the seafoam-green diving board. My knees start shaking. I am trying to be brave. I am frozen until I see my sister, who is dog-paddling from the side of the pool and yelling encouragement at the same time. “Go, Lila!” she says. “You can jump so high! It’s so fun!” As she talks, it is difficult for her to continue paddling, and she swallows water and spits it out immediately.

“Are you going to do it again? Jump?” I say in a soft, timid voice.

“YES!” she yells, hoisting her upper body above the pool’s surface. She is treading water, a new skill we have been taught. I do a tiny bounce, plummeting into the water chest first. It stings as I sink further into the deep end. When I realize I am far under the surface of the water, I look up. The top seems so far away. I use my arms, swimming up and up. I am getting tired and can hardly hold my breath. I am dizzy. Then I see Carolyn. She helps me to the top and to the side of the pool where I can hold onto the coping. “You did it!” she says. I cough. I swallowed some water. “I did! I did it!” I shout. I put my little arms around her neck, and I kiss her soft, chlorine-smelling cheek with pride.