Yesterday I hung out with my pal Henry from 10:30 a.m. to 11:30 p.m. (He was in bed by then, though. He's eleven.) In the morning he did math enrichment & I read his mom's New Yorker. Then we went to the pool. He looked rad in his orange goggles, & I looked like this:
He met up with his friend Will & ditched me for ping-pong. It was cool, though. I read my magazine (see above) & listened to two bionic moms with six-packs (no exaggeration) talking about one's recent separation. The custody carpool gave me a headache just thinking about it.
Henry came back to get money for the snack stand & disappeared again. From behind my sunglasses I stealthily watched a group of teenage boys play keep-away with a tennis ball. One of them looked exactly like Dylan from Modern Family. Every once in a while, one would dunk another & hold him under water for a few seconds longer than he probably should have. One boy lifted a girl up onto his shoulders & then dumped her off backwards. To watch it, it looked pretty violent, & I just kept thinking about all the water going up their noses with every dunk. But then I remembered all those days at the community pool, the feeling of someone coming up behind you & dragging you under water, fighting your attacker with all four limbs, skin slick with sunscreen--it was kind of comforting to watch them.
I know that sounds wack, but seriously. I could remember being that age when it's such a big deal just to be touching & the water makes you move slower & there's so much bare leg kicking up against other bare legs--even if it was one boy dunking another, even if it was a group of girls doing synchronized back flips & crashing together on take-off, I remembered how it felt so good to be in a pool on a hot day with your best friends & no sense of what time it was or where you had to go after.
And how you always made sure to surface with your chin up so your hair smoothed back & you didn't look like a dweeb, 'cause that's the worst.
No comments:
Post a Comment