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Water
I want to be that girl, pausing to run her foot through stratospheres of the shallow section at dusk; like I haven”™t just been in all day””one last taste, the 20 minutes before closing. Clothes dripping from my clinging suit underneath, light hair matted back with wet ponytail, waning pinks blues and greys as the day goes all faint and dim and watercolors. The public pool is emptier now; there is less background splash and squeal, quieter and cooler. I have on a long sleeved t-shirt and mesh boy shorts that pass my knees. Oversized suits me. The bleached friendship bracelet around my ankle limp, soaked and faded by time””it”™s not from anyone in this place: A chain from the past. The wild sting of chlorine as my eyes wrestle with the residue of sterile and chemical and unnatural. I”™m tan. The life guard passes behind me, a flash of red crossing my background as, trotting by, I stop at the corner of the pool, glide my foot through the water's forces, dripping, look up to you on the deck to see what you said from the cater-corner as we both move to approach the point where the corner of the pool, and we, meet, laugh. I am eight, I am skinny and scrawny but athletic, I swim like a fish but don”™t much care for 100% perfect technique or if my instructor frowns because I”™m having a laugh in class. My only worry is my friends being catty or dramatic and cliquey at a sleepover or misunderstanding something I say or maybe my mom not letting me do what I want to do or go where I want to go because I am actively avoiding chores. These are the limited politics of the time, and already this amount of politics bothers me. I spend hours with headphones on and music playing thinking about these tragedies. You are one of my newer friends. I only see you at the pool for swim lessons but we come early or swim after with one of the other girls or whoever wants to play. The boys don”™t cheat at any of the games and no one”™s a gossip. We say what we want to say. Think what we want to think. Disagreements aren”™t disagreements at all. Misinterpretations don”™t exist even though we talk underwater and have upside down tea parties. If we're wronged in some way we just go our own way swimming away to the deeper places. The pool is a huge sea with room for everyone. We defy all the ropes and boundaries. There is no clique. I am in no clique. I don”™t need to mind angling it up so that we are all in the same group for our Social Studies project. I don”™t need to mind if you sit by someone else at lunch. We don”™t need bracelets or matching lunchboxes or keeping people out to say something about how it is. If you don”™t like what I say that”™s fine, if you want to hang out with someone else, that”™s fine: I”™ll just float on my back or hit the slides until it comes that we”™re both doing the same thing again, together, diving board, deep end, gravity defying handstands! We don”™t go to the same school. I can”™t even remember school. We are who we are. The smell of chlorine is there, but it”™s faint. There is still water. There”™s still time. The bracelet is wearing away. I am eight and this feels like freedom. I hang on to it and never look back.
It is summer.
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