Sitting and staring

I feel drawn to bodies of water. The ocean, with its smell and the mesmerizing sound of the waves. Rivers and streams, as they flow over rocks and fallen tree limbs, just to send the water to whatever bigger body of water they're flowing into. Even the pond at my parent's house, as fish make bubbles at the surface that expand in perfectly round rings all the way to the water's edge.

All this, despite the fact that I am terried of water. A real-live paralyzing fear.

It's only been a handful of years since I've started putting my face under the shower. I use to wet a washcloth to clean my face. Yep. That's how bad it is.

Even so, I want desperately to dive in. But instead, I just sit and stare at it, wondering what it would be like.

A few years ago, on a whim and some encouragement from a co-worker who had done the same thing, I signed up for a swimming class. It was called "Chicken of the Sea" and was billed as a class for women who are afraid of water.

Wrong!

It was just a beginner adult swimming class. There was no discussion of how to overcome a fear of water.

I try to live by the "you won't know until you try" idea (which has gotten me into trouble more than once), so I figured, what the heck. Just be brave and do whatever they tell you to do.

So I did.

I put my face in the water and I glided across the water using a kickboard, learning to turn my head in and out of the water. Nobody in that class knew how scared I was. And I felt a huge personal accomplishment to get as far as I got.

Then came streamlining. We started at the side of the pool. No kickboards, no noodles, no nothing. Just us and the water.

We were supposed to place our dominant hand on top of the other with our arms extended straight out in front of us. When the teacher gave us the signal, we were to take a deep breath, put our faces in the water, then push off the side of the pool and glide. When we ran out of breath or stopped gliding (whichever came first), we were to surface, take a breath and start kicking our feet and pulling ourselves forward with our arms.

Wait a minute! That last part is actual swimming. This occurred to me as I pushed off. If I can do this, I can swim.

So I took my breath, pushed off the wall and glided. It was wonderful. As small as it might seem to some, it was truly one of the biggest accomplishments of my life.

My breath started to run out, and I started to panic. I tried to surface, but instead of going up, I went down. If I'm sitting on a chair, I push down with my arms to stand up, right? Well, you don't so much do that in the water. If you push down, you go down.

And that I did.

I pointed my little gliding hands straight down so I could theoretically push myself up to the surface. Only I was going deeper and deeper. We were in 4 feet of water. It was one of the worst feelings of my life.

I started flailing and my teacher rushed forward and grabbed me. He was this huge guy with shoulders about time and a half again as broad as mine. I should've felt save in his arms, but I didn't.

I was coughing and sputtering and crying. As he turned me around to take me back to the wall, all the other ladies in the class sort of looked away (at the ceiling, at each other, anything but me, really). I got a lot of encouragement, but I was done. I had made it through four lessons in a six-week class.

I share this to say that I have no idea why I'm drawn to water yet so deathly afraid of it. I spent a good bit of time this past weekend sitting on the balcony of our hotel room, listening and watching as the waves of the ocean rush in and out. It's incredible. And if we hadn't had to check out at 11 a.m.  yesterday, I'd still be sitting there.  

I do intend to learn to swim before my life is over. I definitely want Biscuit to learn. 

We never really had access to a pool, but once I hit my teenaged years, I missed out on a lot by not being able to jump into a pool.

So until I get brave enough to take some more lessons (I'm planning to go private next time, so if I flail, nobody but me and the teacher will see it!), I'll just sit here on the sidelines and enjoy the wonder of it all.