Have I told y’all about the year that I went swimming and then swam for hundreds of laps over the course of many months? No? Well then grab a drink and get comfortable.
As most of you know, I stayed home with the girls when they were little. The fall that Elegant entered kindergarten, I suddenly had a lot of time on my hands. Way too much time.
Check out this handy math equation that illustrates my point:
Jen
+
too much time on her hands
=
far too many trips to the craft and hardware stores
(And also an unhappy Pete.)
I needed something to help keep me out of trouble.
At the same time, I was finishing up physical therapy for an injured Achilles tendon and was thus unable to go for my usual daily walks.
I learned that the local pool had a program called the English Channel Challenge — swim 756 laps, which is however-many miles (26-ish?) that is the distance between Dover and Calais. I signed up.
Two or three times a week, Pete would take the girls to school and I’d head to the pool to get in as many laps as I could. I am not a strong swimmer and was agonizingly slow. Also, I hate to put my face in the water because I’m pretty sure I’m going to drown, so I backstroked nearly all 26-ish miles, with a few badly-swum laps of breaststrokes thrown in there for the lifeguards’ amusement.
Eventually, I got better and started pushing myself to go a little faster. It was great for my body, plus it gave me time to think, ponder, muse, and whatnot.
Unfortunately, my mind wandered too much. Because, as a person who was a child during the 1970s, every time I crossed over the deep end of the pool, my mind thought of this:
Yes, it’s true, I worry about killer sharks in swimming pools. Please note that I used the verb “worry” in the present tense, not the past tense. My fear of sharks is an ongoing concern that I’ll probably take with me to the to grave. (And I dearly hope that will be at some point in the distant future and that it will not have anything to do with toothy sea creatures.)
I can distinctly remember being a kid and splashing around my aunt’s pool one summer and realizing that everyone else had gotten out, leaving me all alone in a pool that was about the size of my living room and not very deep. As soon as I saw that I was by myself, I swear I could hear John Williams’ signature soundtrack playing loudly and ominously. I pretty much leaped straight into the air and walked ON the water to get out of there.
My lack of rational thought in this matter has not improved in recent decades. If I am in any body of water larger than an inflatable wading pool, the irrational part of my brain (and it appears to be a very large chunk of my gray matter) starts replaying every scene of every Jaws movie.
And don’t even ask me to swim in a lake or, god forbid, the ocean. It simply won’t happen. You might argue that sharks don’t come into shallow water, but then I would have to tell you about the time my family was at Myrtle Beach, SC and I *saw* a shark in shallow water. Yes, it was a teeny little thing and no it didn’t attack anyone, but it was following behind a girl who was about Elegant’s age. I may not be a Shark Whisperer, but I do know that those big fishies well enough to know that, if I were to swim in the water, a shark would definitely mistake me for a manatee and would want to have me for lunch (with some fava beans and a nice Chianti on the side, of course.)
So, getting back to my English Channel Challenge, I usually swam for about 45-60 minutes each time and I took that opportunity to not only work on my physical fitness, but to also think and meditate and dream and plan. So, I’d be in a nice relaxed mental state as I swam back and forth across the pool with all the grace and skill of a water buffalo trying to cross a river. Then, suddenly, I’d realize that I was over the deep end. My heart rate would spike to around 200 and I would have to stop swimming and check out the water below me. Just in case. I wish I were making this up, but I am not. Then, totally spooked, I’d swim as fast as I could to get back into shallower waters. Because, you know, if a killer white shark were in the deep end of the pool, it most definitely would not cross into the shallow end.
Eventually, I finished up the English Channel Challenge and got a t-shirt as my reward. I attempted to stick with my swimming schedule after that, but found that, without the incentive of a cheap cotton garment as a prize, I wasn’t as willing to hustle across town to swim in the mornings. Plus, I went back to work, which cut significantly into my free time.
I haven’t been swimming for years, but Pete and I have taken the girls many times. He always gets in the pool with them to splash around and have fun.
I, however, always sit in a chair on the pool deck — to watch for sharks.
This post was inspired by one I read a few weeks ago at The Women’s Colony, but I’ll be damned if I can find it now to link for proper credit.
I never knew you swam the Channel. Did you cover yourself in lard before every swim like the real Channel swimmers?
that is a great recap of your water experiences.
My mom does not like the water either and there is no way you would get her in a lake or ocean past her ankles. We live at the beach in the summers too so it is actually comical if you think about the fact she spends her days on the beach but not in the ocean.
I love love love to swim. We swam all year long on swim teams growing up.
I think that all of us 70′s children are permanently scarred by the Jaw’s movies!
I don’t blame you about the shark fear. Its not as irrational as you think.
I do swim in lakes and rivers, and when given the chance, the ocean. That being said, I have to own up to one time when swimming alone in an outdoor hotel pool in Phoenix, I experienced *exactly* what you described and panicked and swam as fast as I could to the side and hopped out, panting for breath. I was afraid of sharks. In a swimming pool. In the middle of a city. In the middle of a freakin’ desert.
But you can’t fight irrational fears, you just gotta roll with them.
Jen you are so funny. I mean that in the most complimentary way
Those of us with young children know that the sharks won’t get us due to all the incessant splashing and ear splitting screaming going on. And I may be chubby and out of shape, but if I saw an actual shark I bet I could walk on the water.
I always worry about Jaws in water you can’t see through… In the pool I tease my kids by swimming underwater and pinching their butts. I am probably going to give them a complex. Oops.
I’m fine with pools but I will NOT go in the ocean. Too murky!
O.M.G. I love this! I love to swim but have no where to do so where I can get in some good laps unless I want to drive the 40 minutes to the big city. (uh, not so much thanks) I take the boy over to the campground in the summers, but you can’t do much with a two year old in tow and a bunch of campers loading up the pool. But really, I just want to tell you this story to feed your fear…
While in college, each year the water polo team would put on a fundraiser. Are you sitting down? Are you sure you’re ready? Okay then….they’d host a showing of Jaws. In the pool. Like, grab an inner tube and float around in the diving pool (read: really really deep pool) while watching the movie. And just to make sure you’re having fun, the team would swim around and randomly grab people and pull them under during the best (ie scariest) parts of the movie. I’m grinning just thinking of it. It was SO.MUCH.FUN! I keep thinking it’d be the perfect “birthday party” for a bunch of teenagers. : )
I am impressed you swam the English Channel – that’s quite a feat!
This is so irrational and totally cracks me up!
I used to have that same fear but only when swimming in a murky, dark lake we used to go to when I was a kid. Not that there are many freshwater great whites . . . but one can never be too careful!
Evidently I used to watch too many mafia movies because a fear I had for *years* was opening my car trunk. I was sure I was going to find a dead body in there. That’s not irrational–it could happen : )
So you don’t do the whole waterskiing/boating thing either then. sigh. You’re missing out.
That movie has messed with so many minds! I was just kid when I saw it— I was freaked so badly, I was even afraid in the shower… now that’s irrational.
All I have to say is that I’ve always believed the yearly showing of Jaws on TBS each year around Memorial Day is a Public Service Announcement! I WILL NOT swim in the ocean because of TOTAL FEAR of sharks. When I was in my early 20′s I stayed home from a family trip on a cruise for this very reason.
I completely agree with you sister!
PS – I love all the swimming you did, though, and am very impressed
The shark fear is not irrational. Well, maybe being in a pool and fearing sharks is, but not in the ocean.
Sharks do come in shallow water and in water where they “shouldn’t be.” When I lived in SF, there used to be a bunch of sharks in the Bay.
Oh Jen! That’s no fun at all! But I have to say how totally and completely impressed I am that you did the Channel Challenge. That freaking rocks.
I learned how to swim (do the crawl) as an adult, so I could do (very-short-that-anyone-with-a-pulse-could-finish) triathlons. I still panic and freak out early in the season when I have to put my face in the water. My fear is definitely drowning, though, not sharks!
This has nothing to so with sharks, but I took swimming lessons for 5 years and I STILL can’t swim. I’m gives me an anxiety attack when my face goes in the water.
I think it’s because when my Mom gave birth to me they gave her ether as an anesthetic and she had a nightmare that she was drowing. She told me this story every time we went over a bridge, or went on a boat or went to the beach.
I love this story…from a fellow child of the 70s.
I swear I must be the only person who’s never seen that movie!
I didn’t learn to swim until I was ten, and then had a healthy fear of the water. I can swim, but it’s not a thrill for me. Zack, on the other hand, is a dolphin.
Just another reason why I haven’t ever seen Jaws. I’d probably never go into the water again. Great post!
I love to scuba dive, but Jaws is never far from my mind when I do. Hate that!