Happy birthday, Justoo, my love.
Buoyancy - Lessons To Myself
Coach had a peculiar way of teaching children how to swim. A few very basic lessons to build confidence, a few very basic lessons in safety and helping out others in trouble; and once they understood that the water was their friend, they were on their own. They could perform whatever antics and acrobatics they liked, and he laughed with them.
He wasn't a swimming coach by profession or by design. He just happened to be there. He didn't know much about perfecting swimming strokes and building speed, and was as happy as the students to experiment and learn from wherever he could.
He did know how to master fear and smother panic, and this he taught them well. He did know how to encourage, and how to make them go from the swimming pool every day with a sense of achievement, and this he did.
He made it a point to take promising swimmers out for whatever competitions he could. He made it a point that each one sitting on the sides almost yelled his lungs out cheering for those who were in the water. He made them all feel like heroes for the smallest victories his rag-tag teams got. Every time someone won a medal, or just missed, they all went out to dinner in town. And every time they came back without anything to show in prizes, they went out to a finer dinner in town, and money to spend, too!
The medals were few, and dearly prized. But in his six terms as the school swimming teacher, the number of children who knew how to swim burgeoned from about 70 to more than 400, and swimming stood second only to football in popularity among the sports played in school. Down to 12 degrees Celsius in the water notwithstanding, his children often told him that the swimming pool was the most fun place in school.
Coach had a favourite First Lesson for little ones who came to learn. He would throw them a challenge to sit down touching their bottoms to the floor of the pool in just 3 feet of water and count 10 seconds.
They would barely be able to touch down, and, of course, it was not possible to stay down. After much shrieking, screaming and jumping up and down, he'd tell them to stand still and announce in the voice of one who is making a profound revelation, "See? You cannot drown! The water will not let you drown. It is your friend; it will always lift you up!"
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Only a privileged few actually get to experience an absence of hope. Only a privileged few get to feel a realization that there's no getting out of this without going through it. Only a privileged few get to shed dependence on so many suffocating values and emotional crutches we have been conditioned to lean upon. Only a privileged few get to be reduced to ashes.
And then? Their bottoms touch the floor, and they try to wave their arms and cry out to Coach for attention to tell him that they are at the lowest place! But he shakes his head and raises his hands to show them ten fingers - show me if you can stay down for 10 seconds!
Down they go again, and again! But the Water is their friend, it will not let them remain below; it will always raise them up. The Water wants to drive out their fears. The Water invites them to play and be happy.
Before the little ones went down for the first time, they were afraid, but when the water lifted them up again and again, they knew that they would float upon it if they did not panic. After that First Lesson, lives changed - fear was put aside. The way forward was not so dreadsome any longer. They knew that the property of the water was not to drown them, but to lift them up.
Every time we hit rock bottom, we think we've done it, that this time we're actually down!
But 10 fingers say something else. The heart still pumping says something else.. The legs still able to move say something else. The eyes still see; only the light is a bit different now. Much that defined one to oneself has proved futile, no longer of any worth. A lot of baggage one was carrying has suddenly lost its utility, and things are kept aside to be thrown out, removed forever.
Dust rises, mould flies, the eyes smart, the nose twitches, the throat chokes; a few sneezes here and there - and then it's suddenly a cleaner house, with space for new stuff, and some old treasures shining anew. It's called spring cleaning. It happens every time a winter passes.
From the ashes of that which has been relegated to the past, The Bird rises again, ever stronger.
The Water invites fun and frolic, strength and skill.
Coach taught me that. He didn't know much about perfecting the strokes of swimming, or of life. But he did know how to make his swimming pool the happiest place in the school.
