Diving

When I was nearly five, my mother and sisters and I accompanied my father on a business trip. It was summertime, and someone must have thought it was a good idea. While my dad was doing business things in central Pennsylvania, we stayed at a motel in Lancaster. It had a small outdoor pool with a low diving board, and the door to each room was painted a different color: aqua blue, bright orange, lime green, and chocloate brown. I was relieved that the door to our room was chocolate brown. Not only was I a great fan of chocolate, but I privately thought the other colors were garish--- a tad too bright, and just a little too "modern." I had an inexplicable dislike of all things "modern": Danish modern furniture, neon colors, saxophones, sheath dresses. Fortunately for me the motel, although single-storied and with most door colors poorly chosen, had something of a timeless mountain chalet look about it, and I was able to overlook it's faults and relish my pleasure in knowing that the door to our room, at least, was in good taste.

The motel pool was the central attraction for my sisters and me. I had a green bathing suit with large cream colored shapes on it that looked like squares with the corners sanded down. I had not been sure that I liked it until one sister suggested that it looked like something out of the Flintstones. I was a great fan of the Flintstones, particularly Pebbles, and even though I looked more like Dino in my suit, there was enough proximity to Pebbles there to allow me to comfortably wear the suit.

Jan, the eldest, at twelve, was an elegant diver. She could execute a tidy swan dive, her petite figure compact and self-contained, her concentration and self-consciousness blending in a neat, graceful arc. She would come up for air scowling as we admired her. Paige, at nine, could dive, too, but her dives were faster and more casual. She was a natural swimmer, and could wipe the water from her eyes in one quick gesture using her thumb and forefinger. I tried to copy the move, but only succeeded in poking myself in one or both eyes, and then having to use both hands anyway. I was a veteran dogpaddler, much to my sisters' disdain, and they regularly urged me in unison to put my face in the water and swim. Of course, I could put my face in the water, and demonstrated that talent readily, but my favored underwater style was to wriggle like a fish to the side of the pool. I could open my eyes underwater, but in the murky pool, I could not see the side until I was inches from it. The old 8mm movies from that trip show what seems to be a dark-haired, green suited blur torpedoing straight into the side of the pool. In reality, I stopped just as soon as I saw the blue-painted side and came up to wipe my eyes with two hands. I flatly refused to perform the crawl stroke as I had been learning it at the high school pool for the past several weeks.

No one else staying at the motel seemed to be interested in using the pool, and we had it all to ourselves. We swam and my sisters dove, and they called out instructions to me and I whined back at them. At some point, they decided that I needed to learn to dive. At first, they made me stand on the side of the pool with toes lapping over the edge and arms pointed straight above my head. Then they bent me over at the waist and tipped me into the water. I learned the meaning of the phrase "belly smacker." But, as they goaded me into trying again and again, I began to achieve a certain prowess of my own. In my mind, I was as agile and self-contained as Jan. I would stand at the edge, toes lapping over, arms above my head, bend at the waist, bend my knees, and launch myself into the water. The 8mm film shows a Dino-like creature squatting with amphibiously outturned knees and splashing into the water and swimmuing straight into the poolside wall. I thought myself prodigious.

Once I was an established diver, my sisters decided the time had come for me to use the diving board. I stood at the end, toes lapping over the edge, raised my arms, bent my waist, squatted, and tipped into the water. I executed this dazzling move again and again.

Heady with the power of their instruction, my sisters then decided that I needed to learn a backwards dive. This, they said, was even easier than the frontwards dive. All I had to do was to arch my back and tip over backwards. They demonstrated, each one. Jan stood on the edge of the board on the balls of her feet, and effortlessly threw herself backwards in a graceful arch. Paige stood on the edge of the board on the balls of her feet and casually leaned back into a loose, but nonetheless respectable dive. Then they walked me out to the edge of the board and turned me around. They both gave running patter of directions: Balance on the balls of your feet, let the heels hang over the edge, lift your arms, arch your back, just fall, trust me, it works.

I whined. A breeze came up and the sun disappeared behind a cloud. I trembled. I pulled my arms down. I chickened out and turned around. They insisted. I turned back and balanced on the edge, lifted my arms and began to cry. I lost my balance and fell in. "See?" I yelled. "I told you I couldn't do it!" They made me get up and try again. I whined. They said I had been doing so well, that I couldn't stop now. They called me a baby, and pretended that they would never again play with me or acknowledge any relationship to me. They begged me and promised that once I had done it, I would want to do it again and again, just like the frontwards dive that I had so recently mastered.

Reluctantly, I climbed out of the pool and stepped up on the diving board. They cooed encouragement and followed me onto the board. I turned around. They reached for me and peppered me with advice: Back up, balance, arms up and tight against your ears, just lean back, arch your back, just go--- And I went.

It was an unremarkable dive. It was stiff and awkward. If I recall correctly, I felt a little wrench, a little strain, a little muscular warning that signified a brush with some danger. I immediately righted myself in the water and swam madly for the side. My sisters were all beaming smiles and affirmation and applause. "You DID it!" they announced to the empty lounge chairs around the pool.

I knew, though, deep in my heart, that I would never, ever do that again. I knew that it was an accidental success, mere happenstance that I had fallen in at a lucky angle that saved me from terrible injury. I was sore and tired and ready to dry off and head for the chocolate colored door behind which I could find clothes and perhaps an episode of Gilligan's Island.