Swimming lessons

Drown
Originally uploaded by Fith Fathing Magic.

I can’t swim. That’s probably one of the deepest, darkest, silliest things I am most ashamed to admit about myself. Well, that and the fact that I don’t know how to drive. Yeah, I know, with my luck, if I ever get behind the wheel, I would probably run over some poor unsuspecting bastard jail-walking on EDSA (The traffic is always bad there so nobody ever gets hit), fall off the Guadalupe bridge, and drown in the murky, poisonous water of the Pasig river. Not exactly the most glamorous way to exit this world, okay, but let’s leave that for another post. Right now (FO-CUS, FO-CUS), this is all about my goat-like aversion to water and my determination to frolic freely one day at the beach.

I never did learn how to swim. Believe me, I’ve tried countless of times to overcome my lack of buoyancy in the pool. I even have a copy of my High School transcript showing that I passed swimming class in my junior year. HAH! Goes to show you can’t really trust certificates and ‘official’ documents to prove anything. God knows how I managed to wrangle a C. The teacher probably knew how hopeless I was, took pity on me, and turned a blind eye when I took the final exam. I remember I used to grab the sides of the pool (do you call them gutters?) and with one hand would hop my way to the other end. Come to think of it, she probably gave me high marks for my creativity, gumption, and sheer cheekiness. Or maybe she didn’t want to see me for another semester.

It’s not the act of swimming that repulses me really; It’s the act of submerging myself in water I’m not comfortable with. I get panicky and shrill when the water reaches my shin. I blame all of this on my irrational fear of suffocating and that unfortunate incident when I was 5 or 6 when my nanny left me floating on a life preserver. I drifted alone, mildly fascinated by the contrast of temperatures between my butt (which was in the water) and my steadily toasting knees, for what seemed like an eternity. I don’t know why, but I didn’t make a sound nor called out for help. With steely countenance I calmly observed my one-inch tall sister build sandcastles along the edge of the beach.

Although nothing dramatic really happened to me that day—my nanny found me after some time and I got to eat chicken adobo with rice for merienda—I began hating dipping my toes in large bodies of water soon after. That explains why I never became a let’s-scuba-dive-and-commune-with-the-fish-this-weekend kind of girl. I must admit, though, that I like being near the sea. I love looking at it from the top of a cliff and hear the waves crashing violently on the rocks below. I always say that I would like to grow old in a house rooted by the edge of a cliff overlooking the ocean. I’d take that over white-washed beach houses anytime.

I get better and bolder throughout the years, though, at tackling my irrational fear of swimming. Thanks to the potent mix of beer, red wine, and other—ehem—mind-distracting, courage enforcing substances, I was able to dive into the Mediterranean sea during my late-night despedida at the beach last year. Dive in meaning I waded into the water hand-in-hand with a friend, stopped when the water level reached my waist, then dipped my head in to complete my wild beach-babe look. Since I couldn’t follow my friends swimming freely in the water, I sat down and let the waves lap at my shoulders. Unfortunately, my friends and I weren’t the only energetic ones that night—the waves excitedly smashed again and again, one after the other, against the sand, repeatedly dragging this squealing little piglet from the edge to the middle of the sea and back again. So much for poise and glamour.

I think I am prepared to give swimming another go this summer. I don’t see myself volunteering to become a lifeguard or passing each free weekend schmoozing with the pretty fishies, but I think swimming would be a good skill to learn. When you come down to it it’s really not about doing fancy butterfly strokes and clean, precise flips. It’s about learning how to breathe and let go, to know when to sprint and when to keep still, of staying afloat no matter what, and knowing when to stop moving, get out of the water, and call it a day. Who knows? These things might even help me on dry land.