Walk the plank

Feel the fear, and do it anyway. –Susan Jeffers

The water in the pool at my YWCA is a balmy 86 degrees Fahrenheit. I imagine it is kept at that temperature for all the AARP members, like me, who have aches and pains brought on by strenuous activity like breathing.

So as not to distract their little tadpoles, parents watch the swim classes from an enclosed room with bleacher seating, a room so badly designed that there are approximately two places to sit that aren’t obstructed by large expanses of concrete wall, the diving board, or pillars. We sit in anxious silence, craning our necks to see our little peanuts bobbing up and down in the water. Does Miss Kate realize that Tess is still under water—for a very long time? Is Tess going to slide down the sliding board into the pool or pitch a fit at the top of the slide? Does she know not to pee in the pool? These are just a few of the questions I amuse myself with in that claustrophobic room.

On Tuesday, for the very first time, Miss Kate marched Tess and her two tiny compatriots to the diving board AT THE DEEP END OF THE POOL. They had jumped from the side of the pool INTO THE DEEP END for several lessons, but here was the BIG DAY. THE BOARD ITSELF.

I immediately stood up, as if standing would save her.

Tess looked excited in that “I’m going to throw up” kind of way we feel when we meet Johnny Depp or talk to Billy Collins on the phone. She pressed her little face against the glass of the Observation Chamber to see if I was watching. I pressed my face back against hers. She stood back, amidst two classes vying for the board.

I watched as Miss Kate slid into the pool beneath the board and the first tiny child strode to the end and jumped off. Miss Kate swam with him to the edge, then back to the middle to catch the second child. As she got to the edge with that miniature human clinging to her, I watched from my soundproof booth. She climbed from the pool, took those two children to the lifeguard stand at the middle of the pool, and gave them their stickers for being in the class.

Tess stood very still, squished up against the glass. An older boy pointed to her and motioned for her to go. I stood frozen in fear that she actually would go, with no one to catch her. She stood still. I stood still, thinking Miss Kate would return. But she had forgotten Tess was standing there. Slowly, Tess turned to see if I was there, her bottom lip pulled down, a single tear falling from a big huge eyeball. I put my fingers together in a heart and mimed for her to stay.right.there.

I ran from the booth through the hall, across the lobby, into the  dressing room, and out into the Tropic of Pool, my glasses immediately steaming up completely. I walked over to Tess, who was in tears by this time. “We’ll ask Miss Kate,” I said, taking her tiny hand in mine. 

Miss Kate was mortified that she had forgotten Tess, and asked if she wanted to go. A single, sad nod.

She walked with Tess to the board. As Tess climbed the final stair to the plank, she froze. Miss Kate walked up on the board with her, gingerly pacing to the end with Tess. By this time, Tess was a stiff board herself, unable to think or move or blink or even see. She was shaking visibly, the board bouncing up and down with her fear. I, of course, was videotaping it on my little camera.

I realized suddenly that Miss Kate was looking my way and saying, “Mom!” “Mom?” I kept videotaping, separated from what was unrolling before me, too anxious to capture the moment on film to be fully present. “Mom?” Miss Kate said louder, “You’re going to have to help us!” Then, "Mom, can you come here?"

Help you? I thought to myself. I’m fully dressed. I don’t really swim. Well, I can do what some might call swimming if keeping alive counts, but without the breathing part. I wear glasses that I can’t see without. I’m deathly afraid of heights. Diving boards scare the hell out of me. Diving boards are thin and high and slippery. And bouncy. Unpredictably and thoroughly bouncy and very thin. And slippery. And high. And thin.  Over a bottomless PIT of water. And all these PEOPLE are WATCHING.

Because new classes were about to begin, the pool area – and the observation chamber – was full of adults, all watching this unfold. One man was smiling. I wanted to smack him or pitch him into the pool with his precious Blackberry in his pocket. “What do you need me to do?” I asked, quietly yelling across the VAST expanse of DEEP BOTTOMLESS SHARK INFESTED WATER.

“You’ll have to come out on the diving board with her, and I’ll go below and catch her.”

OH. MY. GOD.

Blink. Blink. Blink. Blink. Blink.

Let’s take a journey back to the Morganton Recreation Center pool. It’s 1969 and I’m standing on the diving board on my stick legs, appendages the color of cotton balls sprinkled with freckles, spots that were—at the time—the bane of my young existence. I’ve put my thick granny framed bifocals (yes, bifocals at a young age—imagine for yourself the cuteness factor) on my Pippi Longstocking towel and have maneuvered my way onto the board, blind as a bat, bright white zinc oxide covering my nose. I hear my name called, but as I spin around, I can’t see well enough to tell who is calling my name, lose my balance, and fall off the diving board on top of another kid who has the bad luck to be swimming below me.

That’s all to say that swimming has never really been my thing. With a particular emphasis on never.

Add a gigantic fear of heights (oooh, nooo, I might fling myself off the tiny walkway going around the four-mile high lighthouse), and you can approximate the quaking legs that took me over to the diving board on Tuesday.

Miss Kate walked back to the end of the diving board as I went up, squeezing past me and slipping into the pool below. Tess stood motionless, frozen, three-quarters of the way down the diving board. She looked so tiny, her little stick legs shaking, and the top half of her body completely still. She couldn’t turn around, couldn’t move forward, couldn’t breathe.

I stepped onto the slick, tiny, high diving board, knowing that I had no choice. There was nothing I could do but go forward to her, realizing in a flash that the chances were higher than 50% that I would end up in the pool with her. In blue jeans. With a phone in one pocket and my precious camera in the other.

In case you don’t know, there is a part of the diving board that is bordered by nice high strong metal bars. It’s that part of the board that is also stable, not flexible. It’s after you have to let go of those bars very early on in walking the plank that things GET REALLY SCARY. Not only are you left to your own devices vis a vis balance (HELLO. I HAVE NO PROPRIOCEPTION IN MY RIGHT ANKLE BECAUSE OF NINE MONTHS IN A FRACTURE BOOT AFTER “COMPLETE DISRUPTION” OF ALL MY TENDONS AND LIGAMENTS IN THAT ANKLE AND A FRACTURE IN MY TALAR JOINT. BEFORE THAT, I SPENT A WHOLE YEAR NOT DRIVING BECAUSE OF DIZZY SPELLS. HELLLOOO? BALANCE? DIVING BOARD?)

I might as well have been walking over a fire pit on a bosu ball, I was shaking so much. But there was Tess, shaking ever more, and so very small. And so I went to her.

When she felt me near her, she panicked, reaching behind with flailing arms, nearly pushing me off the board. Oblivious to all this board drama, Miss Kate shouted up to me. “Okay, now walk her to the very end of the board.”

Um.

The very end of a diving board is very bouncy. It’s the most bouncy part of the whole board. It’s the most bouncy thing in the world.

I walked forward, holding Tess’ shoulders and trying to comfort her. The board shook harder and harder as she protested. I told her she didn’t have to jump in—that we could just walk back and try it another day. She turned slightly and grabbed my legs, then suddenly turned back around and jumped into the water, shocking me and leaving me on the now-deeply-bouncing board, moving from the force of her flinging herself into the universe, as children are wont to do.

Miss Kate was busy with Tess, helping her swim to the edge, as the horrible truth revealed itself to me: I had to turn around and walk back to the other end of the diving board.

Okay. I know it doesn’t sound like much. For Dara Torres and her insufferable abs, it would be nothing. For me, it was akin to sleeping in a nest of snakes. Or wearing heels.

In an instant, I hesitated, and then realized that doing it quickly would far surpass going slowly, in terms of strategy. I turned slowly because of the whole balance thing, and then tried to seem nonchalant as I lurched desperately forward for the metal rails.

37days Do it Now Challenge

Sometimes, you have to walk the plank for someone else, it seems. Especially when they are scared and tiny in the distance. Sometimes you can’t afford to hesitate or worry about people watching or take the time to change into the right clothes or train for it. No, sometimes you just have to do it. Now.

And sometimes, perhaps, you’re not saving someone else, you’re saving yourself. Sometimes you have to walk that plank for yourself. Go.

Comments

[jacki janse van rensburg]

oh, my! i do sooo admire people who can write about seemingly mundane things in their lives, and leave the reader breathless and totally involved!

i love your blog, and will be back!

[Frivolitea]

One of my two children jumped, unaccompanied, from that very same board. The other hid in the back of every line of wet little swimmers in order to avoid the Board. She never did go off. (Maybe when she is an adult she will search out Susan Jeffers book.) I guess this is just to say that I let each of them follow his/her own inner inclination, his/her own timing.

[Paris Parfait]

Your beautifully-told story reminded me of my own scary moments as a girl on a high diving board. It wasn't the jumping that scared me; it was the diving. Am so glad I found your blog. Am I the last one who didn't know about you??!!

[Carmen]

Oh Patti, what a wonderful story with a great message. You have such a way with words... it was as if I was standing there watching. Tess is the most adorable little thing ever.

[Jill B]

That's a really good description - thanks for bringing us into your world!

[Rick]

I wish you had included the part where you tossed the smirking man in the pool as you exited the area. By accident. Your glasses being fogged and all, it could only have been an accident, right? That firm hand between his shoulder blades?

Congratulations on getting Tess safely past the business end of the board, Patti, and then managing somehow to get yourself safely off the back end of the board!

[abirdinthehand]

Great summer story. I was reading fast just to see how it ended! What I really liked was the way Miss Kate so instinctively took Tess' hands then leaned in and put her head so close as Tess took those tiny mincing steps. She is lucky to have such a caring teacher. Wonderful that the "single sad nod" turned into that terrific grin in the last photo.

[aurora fox]

our children do force us to grow up, dont'they?

[Mary-Sue]

oh dear. am i the only one who laughed til she pee'd reading this post? i'm going to have them read me this post whilst in labour -- they say laughter opens things up :o) you are SUCH a great mum, Patti. love reading you always...

[Ann Moore]

Thanks for the knee shaking reminder of my own panic at the plank. I spent nearly 11 minutes at the end of one trying to do a back dive to complete my swimming certification. I was 12.
After 10 minutes and 59 seconds my instructor pushed me off...
This was a great piece. I can still feel the gritty of that aqua board under my feet

[Sally]

>

So true, so true.

[Rondelle]

Oh my gosh, tears of laughter here, what a fantastic story!!!!

[mary castagnoli]

I was holding my breath from the point of your miming: "stay.right.there".
I was the only one in my 7th grade synchronized swimming class that had to use nose plugs to do a surface dive. My swimming instructor was a former California surfer - she really didn't get me. I also resembled Mr. Magoo around a pool - without glasses or contacts in addition to lousy pool acoustics, I couldn't hear worth a flip. Nightmare P.E. days were brought back to me with "WALK the PLANK", that's for sure. You get a Purple Heart for this one!

[Debbie]

OOOhhh...I so needed a Patti fix. I have been without internet connection for a bit so I sat down today and caught up on life's little moments- the important stuff. I could so relate to this experience. Hmmm... when I was an adolescent I was pretty convinced that I was the only girl in the world who couldn't swim. The only girl who missed all of the pool parties because I was so afraid of getting pushed into the water. Nice job, Tess! Excellent parenting job, Patti !

[Betsy]

My palms are completely sweaty...

[Kelly Warren]

beautiful, beautiful, beautiful story. i'm the mother of twin 5-year-olds and can totally relate...

[Terri]

I love the way our kids make us brave--even against our will! I was holding my breath, I could feel the wobbling.

[Kim]

I'm so stinking proud of you! And isn't it amazing what things we will do for our children?

[jylene]

thank you, patti, for the best laugh i've had in a while! i love this story and i admire the fact that it is written down in detail for tess to be able to read it later. it will probably become family folklore! i can just see myself in the exact same situation if this had been my daughter. i'm not a swimmer either, but i would have done the same thing if i had to, as would most moms i imagine. but the way you tell a story-- fabulous!!!

[janey davis]

My daughter Jylene sent an urget email "Oh my God you have to read this!" It reminded me of my own tiny one, Jennifer, who to took
swimming classes at a very young age and swam only with her eyes shut.The task was to swim ACROSS the pool. And there was her mother in the "parents observation deck" a full floor above the pool and enclosed in glass, watching in horror as my brave little
swimmer,with her eyes tightly closed swam in one gigantic circle,many times the width of the pool! Just one note to you Patti, my mother took (and passed) her only swim class
at age 50! It was one of the highlights of her life! There's still time to join in the fun! Janey