The Window in the Pool

I woke up this morning with a dual image: two swimming pools, widely separated in time and space. The first was Sam Lindsay Memorial Pool in Kitimat, where I lived in my early twenties, and the other was at the Villa Vera resort in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico.

Each had a window in the side, allowing an observer to look in. Yet how different were my associations of the two.

Through the first window, I was observed by my swimming instructor. With patient encouragement, Jeff Clark made a careful assessment of my technique and showed me how to improve. He also helped me overcome my fear of water. In his class, I developed a strong breaststroke that would last a lifetime and carry me countless miles through pools, lakes and oceans.

In the Kitimat winter, the pool window symbolized the shame and frustration of being so slow to relax, develop body awareness and coordinate legs and arms. But my persistence and Jeff's help paid off and I learned to swim. Once I crossed the barrier, a mile was as easy as a length. I knew then that I could learn anything.

The Mexican pool was also tiled in blue, but there the similarity ended. I stood with my husband and daughter, barefoot on the sunny deck, and looked in. To our surprise and delight, beautiful pictures had been worked into the mosaic: realistic whales, sea turtles and other creatures of the deep seemed to swim before our eyes.

In one pool, I was the struggling subject, observed and found wanting. In the other, I was the observer, standing with my loved ones in a sun-warmed tropical garden among the miracles of nature, looking through thick tinted glass at one small miracle of human creativity.