Into the Water
The Depth of the Water
I always miss the water that pulls me to its depth. Whenever I enter the swimming pool, it is the unknown depth and the territories it claims that calls me to explore its mysteries. Something is hidden there, I always thought. Even when the same pool I visited several times already, the charms are still there. I am not sure what is changing, and I am never able to perceive the changes it has, but it is there: the ever-changing flows of the water.
It was one hot day when my girlfriend and I visited one of the swimming pools in the city where we live. It was Sunday evening, the time that we decided to avoid the crowd. The plan seemed to work, the pool was —according to my girlfriend— not as crowded as the last time she was there. There were three areas in that swimming pool complex. One is the big, Olympic sized pool, the second is the one for children, and another one seems to be a pool for leisure. It contains a fountain, and we saw people played with a ball there.
For me, it was the biggest pool that interests me the most. The invincibility of its depth is a mystery I would like to explore. People were swimming, visible on its surface. Their bodies moved from one side to the other in an almost endless cycle. I missed the feeling of my body fully covered and drowned in the water. It was 4 years ago that I last swam. Ever since I stayed dried on land.
Another thing that I always draw me in the pool is the sound. The various chattering from the people there combines into a swirling noise that floats in the air. It diverges into different directions, hit multiple surfaces available in the pool, and layer itself on top of each other. The speech is inaudible, and it is good so.
When I sink myself in the water, I will hear another sound: the flow of the water, in or out its drain system. The noise on the surface is damped as if it is coming from another place. It became a sound quite a distance from where my body floats in the water. And where there exists a fountain, the sound of the water thundering reminds me of a waterfall. It is so similar to the nature I miss.
A City by the Sea
I was born and grew up in a city by the sea. It has a harbor, and we could see ships anchoring there. Two ships always caught my attention. The first one is the big ship that carries passengers to another island in our archipelago; the second is the tanker ship that takes oils. I never know where they take the oil. I know only that some areas of the island are blessed with oil wells. Many oil companies have an office in that city by the sea.
The Swimming Pool on Top of a Hill
I associated the swimming pool on top of a hill with the memories of my childhood. The private swimming pool is located in one housing complex owned by one of the oil companies. It was an outdoor swimming pool. If one comes to swim so early in the morning when before the tenant cleans it, then one would float among fallen leaves, the morning mist, and the toads. I swam with my mother in that situation once.
The weather was usually good for swimming. It was around 30 Celcius degrees on average. Most of the time, the sun shines, even stingy at midday. I avoided swimming during the midday because it was too hot and the sun was burning our skin. I tried that also, what I got after was a severe headache and blurry eyes. It was too hot.
My favorite time would be in the afternoon during weekdays. That way I would find a pool which is not too crowded and not too hot. I always went there with my brother, with various motivations. At one time, we just wanted to play with our toys in the water, utilizing the shallow pool. We would role-playing in a science fiction world, heavily influenced by the mecha anime that we often watch. There was always a monster chasing us, and we had to combat them with our gears—the toys.
Another reason being there was: swimming as a serious sport encouraged mostly by my mother. One vague memory of mine with her was when she took me to that pool with hand buoys. I was perhaps four or five years old and called that swimming style using the hand buoys as the “doggy stroke.” I saw a dog swims once, and that dog paddled in a similar way I was doing with the buoys. After I was big enough and trained to swim “properly,” to swim with my mother means to do “serious swimming.”
The Lessons of Mr. G and Mr. Z.
My parents did not really teach me how to swim. The persons who methodically taught me how to swim were Mr. G. and Mr. Z. I didn't really know who they were except that the two were the swimming instructors in that swimming pool. Sometimes they were also acting as the lifeguard there.
Mr. G. and Mr. Z was the swimming instructor version of the good cop and the bad cop: they were the bad instructor and the good instructor. But I have to make this one clear: By bad I don't mean someone that is not able to give a proper lesson. What I mean is someone who was magnificent at providing instruction and a great coach that pushes your ability (and your lung) to its maximum potential.
My brother and I started our lesson with Mr. Z. He seemed to be experienced in teaching small children how to swim. We learned the basics from him. Only after we absorbed the basic, we were transferred to Mr. G, known to us as the instructor for the older kids.
Mr. G. was a really disciplined instructor. When he said twenty sets, he means twenty of them—neither more nor less—and that means trying to catch our breath and prepared to have sore feet and hands afterward. After the lesson with Mr. G, we were always hungry. We ate french fries and burgers at the bar at the pool, usually ended with ice creams as a dessert.
I always remember how Mr. G. taught us because that striking call to swim is something I am grateful for later in my life. That is the sound of discipline, of challenging and trying to overcome oneself.
“Into the water! Twenty sets, you boys!”
Below the Mist
When I finally moved to another city across the sea, I swam at different pools. They bring with themselves different stories, but one thing remains the same: the sound of the water when I dive and let myself surrounded by it. That vague noises of the outer world, as if they are coming from the nether world. Whenever I swim, I jump into another world, unlike my everyday world. The other world does not contain literal sounds, it was always vague and symbolic. And those symbols does not require interpretation because it does not perhaps have one in the first place.
Under the Crowded City
There was one swimming pool which was hidden from the eyes of the many, although it was never a secret place. It was there, at the center of the crowded city below the mist. The pool requires you to walk under the city, further from its noisy center. And if you see beyond the bamboos that grew sporadically from the ground that leads to it, you will find it. You just have to walk patient enough along its long stone stair. You will find it old and tired.
I remember that it is always had falling leaves on its water. I remember the many people there in the shower, trying to find a place we can use to put the belonging we bring with us. There were so many people, I touched their skin, wet and slimy. I don't like the slimy feeling I had when my shoulder felt others. It wasn't a private pool, it was a public one. After a while, I learned to ignore that slimy feeling.
It was a swimming class we had in high school. We were grouped into different swimming ability, ranging from a total beginner to advance, which also contains local athletes from our high school. My iron training with Mr. G. made me enter the advance group. I don't really like grouping like that, at least not publicly. I feel uneasy when I am labeled as those advance swimmer and looked somehow different from my classmates who were grouped into lower ability. I understand the pedagogical reason behind it, but still, it made me feel uneasy.
The only part I enjoy was the meeting outside the pool. There, my closest classmates would wait for me. Regardless of whatever different classes we belong to in the swimming class, we would together enjoying foods offered by the various food stalls in front of the swimming pool building. I like the meatball soup better than the other. The city was rainy, and the warmth of the soup made me relax. The rains made me gloomy.
The Sunny Rooftop
It was a swimming pool on a roof inside a sports complex. I went there three times a week with a single objective: to recover myself, to make myself healthy again. I had an intense sports regiment during the last half of my undergraduate days. After tiring battles with myself, I was left with a weakened body and an exhausted mind. I couldn't sleep well at night, I lost interest in a lot of things.
It was that swimming pool on the rooftop, my personal sanctuary under the sunny skies. The water was warm because of the sun, the pool was full most of the time with students taking swimming lessons, or children playing in the water with their parent. It was noisy but endurable. I like the sensation when I finally submerged myself in the water, canceling all the noises that swirled around me. They were all muffled. I entered a meditation below the water surface.
Sometimes I wish that everything would fade into that almost silence state. The world with less noise. Everything was too loud, too invasive. They invaded even my head and made my inner world noisy. I felt that I was being pushed and pulled in many directions at the same time. My world was invaded; an overrun world is no longer mine. It belongs to someone else, something other than me.
Under the sunny skies, I often asked myself: how was the world where everything was water?
Up On the Hill
Another pool that I know is located on top of a hill. My friend A. told me about it, and we went there a couple of times. It was one of the times I cherished in my life. The pool was always empty, and we could swim until we became so bored with it.
I remember the time when I went there alone. The mist was coming down, and there was only the sound of the water splashing. Another sound I remember was the sound of the radio in the background. It played requested songs, and the radio announcer was sending greetings around, receiving many phone calls. It was in the afternoon. People send greetings on the radio during that time, the time they come back from work, and enjoying the sunsets.
After that solitary moment, I continued to drive my car higher, parked my car in front of an art gallery owned by a renowned artist. I sat on the chair at their cafe, waited for my order.
About six or seven years earlier, I received my first payment as a guitarist. I sat in the middle, in front of an art installation in the form of a fountain. I was so nervous that my legs felt numb. I performed about thirty minutes, I think, during a vernissage of a new exhibition. Performance in front of many prominent artists. My friend S. asked me to help him cover the duration since it was quite long.
My first money after doing what I love the most. The time was priceless. After I finished my last piece that night and bowed to the clapping audiences, I tip my toes and almost fall to the floor. An old woman helped me, saying: “Be careful, young man. Tonight is freezing that it freezes even the bones of such a young man like you. Here, take a sip of this tea, and you will feel well again. You earn it after such a performance, I thank you for that.”
The old woman handed me the teacup on her hand and asking for another from the waitress. I sat on a bench a bit farther from the crowd, put my guitar case down, and drank my tea slowly. My adrenaline was still rushing. I did not pay proper attention to the exhibition itself.
Flowing Sounds of the Water
Into the depth of the river, my water goes: I look down its stream and follow its trail Not long after I lost my track
Nature has its own pace Unconquered Yet lovable And the love that we let to flow with the river Returns to the universe
Bremen, 30 September 2016 #memoir