The best summer I can remember was the summer between seventh and eighth grades. That's because I spent almost every day at the local pool with my best friend. As a California girl, who had only been in Oregon for a year, I was used to doing a lot of swimming and playing in the pool, and it seemed only normal to keep doing that in Corvallis. My friend Sandy and I would meet at the high school pool, which at that time greatly resembled the pool at Gerlinger except for being outdoors, and would spend hours playing, diving, swimming, flirting with the boys, and telling secrets. We had great tans, could hold our breaths forever, and thought that every summer would be like that.
By the next summer, though, we had both drifted off to different groups of friends, and neither of us went to the pool so often. As the years went by I swam less and less, and finally not at all.
This summer, though, bids fair to be as close a repeat of that long-ago golden summer as is possible when one is grown up with a job and responsibilities. Last year my friend Jean coaxed me into trying lap swimming. Jean swims at least twice a week as therapy for her bad back, and she told me it would probably help mine too. I swam with her a few times at Amazon Pool last summer, then a little more dedicatedly last fall at Gerlinger during the free staff time after 5 p.m., but I really didn't get into more of a routine til this spring, when we started in at Gerlinger again after her hip replacement had healed. When Amazon opened, we started going there again.
Amazon underwent a major facelift a few years ago, and the pool areas are really nice now: a big pool for laps and recreational swimming, a diving pool, a pool for the littlest toddlers, a pool for the kids with a slide, and some water features like sculptures that you can get wet with. But I have to say, the women's locker room seems much as I remember it from pre-renovation days. The lockers certainly eat quarters just as resolutely as they ever did; many of us just trust to other people's basic honesty and the fact that no one would want our old jeans, and leave our clothes unlocked.
We usually try to get to the pool around 1 p.m. Jean meets me at work, and after a nice bike ride from the library, a change, and a quick rinse, we are into the warm pool and splashing away in the sunshine with the scent of weedy grasses wafting in from the park behind. Since I prefer the side stroke, I can watch the water and the sparkle of the fountains kicked up by the energetic swimmer in the next lane, and enjoy the deep blue of the sky and the background music of water falling, kids hollering, and divers splashing.
Jean is a serious lap swimmer. You can tell this because she has goggles, earplugs, and swims the crawl. I am a believer in "if you are in the water and moving you must be burning calories". My hair is braided and tied up, but I don't sport goggles or earplugs (though I have to admit that lately I've been considering both). I swim along fairly slowly in my old black suit, making a yoga breathing experience out of the movements of the sidestroke and enjoying the warm silk of water and cool surprise of air on my skin as I go. I never do quite as many laps as Jean, so I just keep swimming til she catches me and tells me it's time to stop. Since she's in better shape than I this actually works out perfectly because I'm always ready to stop by then.
The reward for our dedication, aside from the pleasure of swimming itself, is to sit in the hot tub for a few minutes while our muscles relax, and talk. There's always plenty to say. I don't think we've ever experienced a time in our friendship when either of us ran out of conversation! In fact, we need to be careful - if we stay too long talking in the lovely hot water, we come out so relaxed that the bike ride back to the library is a lot of work.
Next fall I'm sure we'll start swimming at Gerlinger again - it's free, which is a big inducement right there, and for me, close to work. But it just won't be the same as letting the wind blow us dry as we perch near the pool planning our next meeting. Shall we swim in two days? Go picking cherries tomorrow? Sing by the river on Thursday? In the mix of sun, water, and laughter, the summer is suddenly full of possibilities.