Wednesday: I went swimming without goggles. As I spent much of my childhood in a swimming pool without goggles, this was not a situation that caused concern. Certainly no red flags were raised. The day before I nearly swam into a big ball of snot. Swimming in a public pool is like eating a hot dog: you know it’s there, but you don’t think about it until you find the cow lip in your bun. But, you know, snot’s gross, but in a pool full of chlorine, probably not life threatening, so I got on with it.
Friday: Get through work no problem. Walk home. All useful stores, medical clincs, pharmacies, hospitals are now closed for the weekend. Starbucks is, of course, open. Notice, upon arriving in my bathroom, that there is a strange yellow liquid seeping out of my bloodshot eye. Oh, shit.
Saturday: Try medical clinics anyway. No luck. Eye getting worse.
Sunday: Wake up with thick yellow gunk gluing both eyes shut. Start panicking. Not only do I have an ill-fated psuedo-date (more on that later), but I’m starting to seriously consider the possibility of a)going blind and b)having an infection that could travel to my brain and kill me. Spend evening surreptiously applying moisturizing eye drops and wiping gunk out of the corner of my eye. During dinner (a lovely seafood risotto with a nice Chilean cabernet) it began to feel as if something quite sharp inside my eye, and by the time I got home my eye was puffed up as if I had spent the night crying (I didn’t).
Monday: Got three hours of non-consecutive sleep, and spent the night not sleeping with cold wet cotton swabs over my eyes. Stumble to a doctor’s office at 9am, point at my eyes at the receptionist’s desk, and get in to see a doctor in record time considering I had no appointment.
Doctor: well, you have an infection.
Me: …duh.
Doctor: I don’t know if it’s viral or bacterial.
Me: what’s the difference?
Doctor: Viral conjectivitus (pink eye. I have motherfucking pinkeye) is highly contagious.
Me: I work with small children. Who touch me. A lot.
Doctor: Well, let’s start you on antibiotics. I’m not an eye specialist, so if the antibiotics don’t work, it’s viral, and we’ll refer you.
Me: So…in three days, I’ll know whether or not I should have been working?
Doctor:…..yes.
Me: I have a problem.
Boss: What’s wrong?
Me: Well, take a look at my eyes. I have pinkeye. Two of them.
Boss: It doesn’t look like anything’s wrong.
Me: Liar.
Me: The doctor doesn’t know if it’s viral or bacterial, but if it’s viral, it’s highly contagious.
Boss: Are you ok?
Me: Yes. But I work with 14 high octane eight year olds who touch me. A lot.
Boss: Well, it doesn’t look so bad.
Me: As long as you’re ok with me working with a potentially highly contagious infection of the eyes…
Boss: Yeah, that’s fine.
Me: (hands behind my back) Children, today – no clapping games. No lap sitting. No high fives. No touching. Ok?
Children: WHYYYYY?
Me: My eyes are very sore. If you touch, your eyes will be very sore.
Children: Ohhhhhh. Ok. Teacher! Monster!
Me: Yes. Hey, don’t touch!
Children: Oops, I forgot.
I am very, very clumsy. I walk into open doors. I once managed to cut my eyelid, while wearing glasses, by walking into a piece of wood. When I took dance classes, I wasn’t allowed to be anywhere near the wall with the stereo on it. I fall down when I’m standing at the whiteboard.
But there are two things that I’ve always done very gracefully: play the piano, and get out of a swimming pool. This last is very important, and something of which I am very proud. This is the most dangerous part of swimming: the potential to look like a beached whale, no matter what you look like or how well you swim, is huge. And I do it very well. I have this great little hoist-flip-sit thing that leaves me, very neatly, sitting on the side of the pool with my legs dangling, and from there standing up without landing on my belly is easy.
Today I went to the swimming pool for the first time in….oh dear, years. Turns out I haven’t forgotten how, the graceful movements, the rhythm, the gliding elegantly through the water all came back with the first breath, the first plunge. But ohmygod it was painful. One length in and I was clutching the side of the pool gasping for breath. I struggled through 20 lengths of the pool, slowly, gracefully, counting my breaths until the end of the length when I’d gasp again, forcing myself to plunge back under.
Then, when I finally pulled myself to the wall at the end of the 20th length, looking forward to a hot shower and a warm pair of jeans, I started to haul myself out of the water (haul being the operative word).
And then, I fell back in with a mighty splash. I teetered on the edge of the pool, ass slipping, and then the whole weight of my suddenly whale-like, unco-ordinated, unco-operative, mutinous body hit the water.
There was no control, no ritual, no counting of breathes, pointing of fingers, stretching of legs. There was just…a splash, and some flailing, and a complete lack of grace.
There is a problem when the hardest part of swimming is re-learning how to get out of a pool.
