the pool

Competitive swimming was my sport before COVID hit and I quit. I still consider the pool to be my home, not the tennis courts. I wish I could have continued this sport, and it is one of my biggest regrets, but in actuality this is one of the harder sports to pursue in high school because you are required to practice every day and wake up at 5 am. It's funny, because I still talk to my old teammates and ask about how everyone is doing and stalk people's times on SwimCloud (skull jk I do not do that).

Here is an essay from freshman year(yeah some grammatical structures suck) I wrote dedicated to the pool.

With my T-shirt barely covering my smooth swimsuit underneath, I pulled open the rusted heavyset doors of the SRJC Swim Center and the powerful, unmistakable smell of chlorine embraced me in an eager hug. Even now, as I enter Coaches’ Corner in Sebastopol, the false impression of that chemical in the locker room draws me back to those sunlight-dappled afternoons…
The pool was absolutely glamorous. It’s colored with various shades of aquamarine, reminiscent of spectacular concerts as the water refracts the vibrant patterns of swimsuits. Like constellations against the midnight sky or rhinestones on a pageant queen’s dress, the scintillating sparkles on the water’s surface wink invitingly. The entire 25-meter pool has a tiled double-sided “T” at the bottom, and flags in patriotic colors hang in a line five meters from each end to alert backstrokers of the incoming wall. Eight lanes and diving boards are bestowed with my fellow teammates’ belongings: water bottles, neon green kickboards, foamy pool buoys, and fins in complementary-color combinations. My toes gripped the cool, smooth turquoise tiles of the pool’s edge as I stretched my cap over my bundle of hair and pressed on my goggles so tightly, any area in contact with my face ached. After taking a sharp breath, I summoned a burst of strength through my arms and tucked them neatly behind my head as I plunged into the pool with a near-perfect dive. My arms propelled the water behind me with every stroke like the oars on a boat. It was easy to be one with the water; it mended to your movements and gently held you afloat. When I breathed out underwater, bubbles as plentiful as a school of fish in lustrous, metallic colors tickled my belly as I glided past them. Like a koi, I shaped my mouth into an O and came up for air; the soft white splashes I see through my peripheral vision resemble those of the famous Japanese print—the Great Wave Off Kanagawa. It’s pretty, enchanting, and I daydreamed lying on them like fluffy clouds, until I almost crashed into the wall.
At last, we finish the warm-up and stop at the wall, panting, the breath and heat of others fogging up our goggles. “It’s like a hot tub in here,” a boy named Lucas commented. The water felt thick, like jello, and I pressed my hands against my burning flushed cheeks in an attempt to cool them down. It’s January, and the pool staff must have decided to accommodate the frigidity by pumping up the thermostat at least five degrees.
“Have you heard about the coronavirus in China?” I questioned my neighbors, but they stared at me blankly. Suddenly, I became aware of my exposed face, mouth, and nose; the proximity between me and the others that would usually feel intimate but now, like the repulsive end of a magnet, just made me want to jump out of the pool and run. This particular day turned out to be one of my last practices before Covid hit America and shut my safe space down.
But I didn’t know that then, and as we routinely trained with drills and sets incorporating the four strokes of the Individual Medley, I thought it was another day. I start with Butterfly, graceful and magnificent, and though the circling of arms does evoke the opening-closing wings of a monarch, the undulating movements of the lower body remind one more of a dolphin. After a flipturn, I seamlessly transition into backstroke. For some meters after I push off the wall, I do nothing but kick with my entire body underwater. The surface of the water from below is magical. I’m a manta ray flowing by, at peace with my situation in the deep sea, never burdening myself with the peculiarities—the wonderful things that sometimes can get too wonderful—of the surface. I close my eyes and simply bask in the sparkling magic.
Breaststroke was what I was once an expert at but lost skill. Now, it serves as a test of patience as I proceed slowly through a lap, legs opening and closing like a young frog. Finally, I sprint to the end with freestyle, speedy as an arrow through the water splitting it right down the middle. The rest of practice is similar—following sets with specific intervals written out on the whiteboard. An aching pain starts in my abdomen, but I still, though begrudgingly, begin another lap at the wall even if I wish so desperately to rest. After pushing through under Coach Missy’s strict but caring orders, the gruesome practice ends in only the glorious feeling of accomplishment.
I noticed a woman donned with purple plaid standing off to the side and carrying a tray of treats. “Is that your mom?” I implored Vinnie, otherwise known as Draco Malfoy due to his glossy blonde hair and air of self-assurance. He nodded, and I gasped in realization as the “Happy Birthday” began even before we were all out of the pool. The receiver of these wishes reddened but looked pleased. There was a chorus of “thank you’s" as we lined up, picked a Rice Krispie, then raced to the locker rooms. A sweet scent of strawberry shampoo lingered in the air, and soon there is laughter and play filling up the warm, sand-colored room. Since there are only four stalls, several people squeezed into one. Giggling mischievously, we filled up our swim cap with water and dumped it over the wall into the next shower. We chattered about our latest drama and a treasured book series, because I still had time to read back then.
Chewing a chocolate-drizzled, honey-almond KIND bar, I sauntered over to the familiar beige bleachers after everybody had left, my nearly-broken Roxy flip flops dangling as I used my backpack as a pillow to nap on and waited for my parents to pick me up. It was as if I owned the place. And maybe I did.
There was a thunderstorm once. Swimming in the rain was nothing new—because water is water—but in a flash the lights went out and in the distant mountains we could discern purple cracks in the sky like tears in a piece of paper. Hastily we clambered out of the pool, raced to the locker rooms, and changed in the dark without showering. Outside the rain caused a racket, even the traffic lights had gone out, I couldn’t spot my mother anywhere. I chewed on my sweatshirt sleeve and held myself tight, but in a huddle of shadowed bodies that I knew were my friends, I knew that nothing bad was ever going to happen.
Due to Covid, I stopped swimming and didn’t return even after facilities started opening up. I miss the place terribly; I spent so many of my afternoons there that I’m able to recount its nitty-gritty details, from the cart of rainbow pool noodles to the diving board I was scared to go on to the “Persons having currently active diarrhea” sign that I memorized when I was bored… To the new water polo pool that had just opened up this year, which was only a covered construction site back then. It was a place of belonging. A home. A family. No matter who you were—or others thought you were—at school or anywhere else, you came to the pool and you were a swimmer.