When I Am Weightless

For 28 minutes, I am weightless. Arms, legs and abdomen gliding and turning beneath the water in habitual motions. It’s an unconscious decision to propel myself forward. It’s muscle memory in its purest form.

In the water, I am 11 again, trying out for the JCC, YMCA and Holy Trinity swim teams, wondering who will take me. Who will see my promise? Who will see how the inherited genes of a swimmer are blossoming in me? In the water, I am beautiful and graceful, surrounded by splashing and seeing reflections on my goggles.

I am a child, gliding through freedom.

For 28 minutes, I am not asthmatic or overweight. I am not 41 going on 42 or 43 going on 44 or whatever. I am ageless and perfect, my strokes measured, my muscles taut. I cut through the water, stroke after stroke, thrusting myself forward. My legs are my propeller as my arms urge my body ahead. Faster, faster.

I am flawless.

In the water, time washes away. Worries are diluted. There’s just my strong body, the weightlessness and laps that I lose count of. I keep going, not wanting to stop, not wanting this peace to come to an end.

I am strong. I am beautiful. I am everything.

I don’t want to watch the clock, but I do to track the time. I know how much time I can devote to this. I know that when 28 minutes pass, I have to get out. There’s a life outside the pool that requires my presence.

I want to linger.

Though I want this, continuing the swim back and forth, back and forth or even diving down and up again like I did as a girl, I can’t. Responsibilities await. Life doesn’t stop just because I am in the water. So, I duck under the lane lines and glide to the stairs, still feeling free and young and strong.

And that is the end.

Gravity reminds me how much I have changed. It’s an unrelenting foe, a cruel nemesis. It’s the home wrecker stealing my peaceful existence. Emerging from the water, my limbs are lead, heavy and stubborn. Water pours off my body in sheets. I am neither 11 nor pure muscle and bone. I feel every additional ounce of my mass as I step onto the pool deck, taking one heavy footfall after another toward my towel.

Another day, I will return and begin again. I will reenter the water, a weightless, ageless, beauty honoring her inherited swimming genes with lap after lap until my time runs out. I will be free again, if only for those moments. I will hold onto the peace until the moment it dissolves under the pressure of gravity.

Swimming will bring me home.