I don’t know why I insist on swimming in the deep end. I wasn’t born with a swimmer’s body. I took lessons as a kid but never could get the hang of it. Sometimes I can sort of tilt my body forward and kick and stroke and turn my head this way and that, but I know I’m not really doing it right. I’ve just always been attracted to the deep end and I can’t explain it.
To me, it might as well be the ocean. It is literally unfathomable. I lack both the nerve and the skill (but not the desire) to touch the bottom. Suspended on the surface, my limbs working busily underwater, I thrill at the possibility of sinking.
I can tell that the real swimmers–the ones who were born with the right physique and/or excelled in swim class–don’t know what to do with me. At worst, they criticize my technique. At best, they politely withdraw or avert their eyes. Maybe I embarrass them. Maybe they think it’s their duty to point out that I’m in over my head. Or maybe I’m just in the way.
Sometimes I visit the other parts of the pool. They have their own thrills: the handstands, the treasure hunts, the splashing, the part that gradually goes down and down until your toes are barely touching. Inevitably, though, I find myself slipping underneath the buoyed divider into that dark, unknowable world.
I don’t belong here. I don’t deserve this. It’s deeper than that.