The Swimmers

by Julie Otsuka

One of us—Alice, a retired lab technician now in the early stages of dementia—comes here because she always has. And even though she may not remember the combination to her locker or where she put her towel, the moment she slips into the water she knows what to do. Her stroke is long and fluid, her kick is strong, her mind clear. “Up there,” she says, “I’m just another little old lady. But down here, at the pool, I’m myself.”

Even the most rotund of us steers her majestic bulk down her lane with ease and aplomb, as though she were the stately Queen Mary. This body of mine was built to float!

if too much time is spent up above we become uncharacteristically curt with our colleagues, we slip up on our programs, we are rude to waiters even though one of us—lane seven, little black Speedo, enormous, flipper-like feet—is a waiter himself, we cease to delight our mates. Not now. And even though we do our best to resist the urge to descend—It’ll pass, we tell ourselves—we can feel our panic beginning to rise, as though we were somehow missing out on our own lives. Just a quick dip and everything will be all right. And when we can stand it no longer we politely excuse ourselves from whatever it is we’re doing—discussing this month’s book with our book club, celebrating an office birthday, ending an affair, wandering aimlessly up and down the fluorescent-lit aisles of the local Safeway trying to remember what it was we came in to buy (Mallomars? Lorna Doones?)—and go down for a swim.

the shock of the water—there is nothing like it on land. The cool clear liquid flowing over every inch of your skin. The temporary reprieve from gravity. The miracle of your own buoyancy as you glide, unhindered, across the glossy blue surface of the pool. It’s just like flying. The pure pleasure of being in motion. The dissipation of all want. I’m free. You are suddenly aloft. Adrift. Ecstatic. Euphoric. In a rapturous and trancelike state of bliss. And if you swim for long enough you no longer know where your own body ends and the water begins and there is no boundary between you and the world. It’s nirvana.

One of us refuses to swim in her usual lane (lane seven) if her ex-husband is swimming in lane eight. One of us is her “new” husband of five and a half years and for the past five and a half years he has been swimming contentedly in lane six (“I know my place”), pretending not to notice a thing. “Let them work it out.”

flip turns. Some of us can do them, but many of us cannot. “Too scary,” says one of us. Another says they aggravate his lower back. A number of us aspire to them—“It’s on my to-do list”—while others shun the very thought. “I tried one once and thought I was going to drown.” One of us always fears she’ll start her turn too late and smash her head into the wall. “And yet I never have.” One of us is a former All-American whose stylishly savage turns are the envy of us all. He’s got just the right amount of splash. One of us recently mastered her flip turn at the age of sixty-three. “It’s never too late!”

You’ll see. Once you get into the water you’ll never want to get out.

the exceptional responders among us insist that the closure might not necessarily be such a bad thing. “This is just the beginning,” they tell us. And, “It’s an opportunity to stop shuffling around in our flip-flops and finally go up there and start living life ‘for real.’ ” No more quick dips into the water whenever the going gets tough. We’ll fall in love with our spouses again (the stranger you married). Push past our comfort zones. Volunteer at the homeless shelter. Ask for a raise. Write a “gratitude” letter (Thanks, Mom!). Improve our balance. Our posture. Our attitude toward life itself. No more complaining for me!

She remembers that she is forgetting. She remembers less and less every day.

And about men in general: “You must pretend to take them seriously” and “It’s not always about you!”