Swimming was pretty much the only normal suburban kid thing I learned how to do when I was growing up.
When my mother was getting married to my father in Greece, my profligate aunt convinced my grandmother to get an in-ground swimming pool. My mother would have never permitted such a thing--she knew that nothing says trashy like getting a swimming pool before a much-needed new roof. But I'm very grateful, in retrospect, for that pool, because I know my mother at the time would never have allowed me to swim in a public pool or (gasp) the ocean because of 'germs.' And while I never took gymnastics or learned to play soccer and learned to ride a bike very late, compared with normal early 80s kids, I could swim, unassisted, by the time I was three or so.
I continued to swim in my grandmother's pool every summer, and while I didn't swim enough to burn off all of the ice cream I ate, I swam enough to be able to swim a half a mile very comfortably. I knew, although I would never have admitted to myself that I wanted to be athletic, like the cross-country runners who could fly through the woods like deer or like the heroines I loved in the 19th century novels I read who could 'follow the hunt' on their horses or simply play a game of pick-up basketball with some cute guys. So perhaps it was the sun, but one year I concocted a plan: since swimming was the only thing I could do, I would join the swim team.
The swim team, unlike most athletic teams, did not 'cut' anyone from its ranks. And to understand why, let me explain something about swimming. Swimming is a sport with zero spectator appeal. Now, you're going to say 'omg! Michael Phelps.' I ask you: what does a pool look like with Michael Phelps in it?
Splashy water. What does a pool look like with a mediocre swimmer in it?
Splashy water.
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| Is he cute? I can't tell, but I think it's a he. |
Phelps has eye-candy appeal (hell, eye-candy, eye-CAKE and PIE) appeal out of the water. But swimming is not really a glory sport for most athletes, and the high school swim team was willing to take anyone able to swim for a an hour and a half or so, four or five days a week after school.
With dreams of participatory glory, I practiced swimming all summer. Realistic as ever in my aspirations.
Band kept me sort of in shape, or at least prevented me from hitting the couch and the refrigerator after school for the fall season. When winter began, I was so excited...and even, my first few practices, passed a number of my fellow novices in the 'beginner lane.'
Quickly, this honeymoon period ended. Quoth Coach B: "Now we have to teach you how to do a flip turn and dive. It's easy. Like doing a handstand in the water, head-first, like when you were messing around as a kid."
Given my overprotected childhood, he might as well have said: "It's easy. Like standing on your head and translating the
Rubaiyat from the original into Urdu, just like you did as a kid."
All of the other newbies learned how to do a passable dive and flip turn within one session. I never did. And what I quickly learned was that succeeding at short distances in swimming (and all distances in high school swimming are relatively short) is really about having a high-quality dive and flip turn, just as much as the actual swimming.
Instead, I would just sort of flail hopelessly into the pool, grab the edge of the pool when I completed a lap, and then make my sorry way back. Crawling, metaphorically and literally.
One day, before practice, Coach B was recapping the previous meet: "Hey, Mary, I think you musta discovered a new psych-out strategy. 'Cause I took a look at the girl's face in the lane beside you when you were doing that thing you're doing to get into the water, and she was like
what is that girl doing."
I crouched and hid (which is hard to do when you're a pasty chick in a bathing suit). I huddled beneath my bad 80s mall hair and my towel.
To make things even more mortifying, after practice I heard two 'popular' girls talking:
"That was SO MEAN for him to say that about HER."
"Omg! He was just being FUNNY."
Then they saw me. "Haha, I'm totally okay with it," I said. Kind of like Hamlet says: "Haha, I'm totally okay, mom, that you've just married my uncle." That night, I didn't bother to dry my hair underneath the hand towels like the other girls and instead sat in the activity bus, waiting to be driven home, as my wet hair froze white in the icy late November air.
I think even the very best swimmers--even the ones who had prescription goggles so they wouldn't have to wear their contacts in the water--probably got mad every now and then when they watched the diving team, who also practiced at the same time. Diving was like the antithesis of swimming. All of the diving team, seemingly without effort, had about 2 percent body fat. They spent most of practice talking to one another and laughing, showing off their muscles, while the swimmers were grinding their shoulders against the waves. Occasionally, the divers would practice flipping off the high board, and then, as a reward for their efforts, nip out into the cold to smoke a few cigarettes.
Swimming did meet the requirements I needed to get into the National Honor Society in high school (I was vice-president, just in case the president was assassinated, presumably). But after that one season, I never practiced it seriously again as a sport. I am a daily runner, and I ride horses, and do yoga, and I'll do casual laps in the summer, but I still can't do a flip turn or dive.
However, unlike competitive swimming, I'm willing to give ginger cookies a second 'go.' This is my modification of Ina's recipe a few posts ago. The dough is much less sandy and dry and easier to work with, plus I added some white chocolate.
White Chocolate Chunk Ginger Cookies
Adapted from Ina Garten
--makes 24-28 large cookies--
Ingredients
2 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
2 teaspoons ginger
2 teaspoons cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon cloves and nutmeg (optional)
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup dark brown sugar
1/4 cup of oil
2 large, beaten eggs
1/3 cup molasses (mild, not blackstrap)
2 cups of good white chocolate chips
Directions
1. Preheat the oven to 350F. Line two baking sheets with parchment.
2. Sift the flour, baking soda, spices, and salt together.
3. Combine the oil, eggs, and molasses. Spoon the dry mixture into the wet. Gradually fold in the white chocolate chips.
4. Spoon onto the baking sheets (dough is still sticky, so I suggest using a cookie scoop if you have one). Bake for 12-14 minutes, depending on the size of the cookie.
