Swimming

(Inspired by a prompt from Natalie Goldberg's Old Friend from Far Away to "Go, Ten Minutes" on Swimming)

Kids practice diving
from the starting blocks
as a coach barks instructions

One boy flops onto the water chest-first,
a girl head slams the surface.
Wrong, wrong, wrong,
the coach bellows.
Go down, not out.

I sit in the whirlpool
before my 1,500 yards
luxuriating in the hot water jets
remembering.

Coaches barking orders,
belly slaps onto waves,
head rushes when scalp scratched water's tip,
the red skin, tingling flesh,
all wrong.

I don't dive anymore.
I'm afraid to.
Watching the kids and the coach
barking orders,
I remember.

You crouch low,
curling the toes on the edge of the block.
Fingers curl beside each set of toes.
You use the joints as leverage.
Lean back, tense up, and then like a bullet,
shoot out.
A good dive from the starting block
takes you just below the surface,
two, maybe three inches.
You do not slap,
you glide,
past the ribbons,
and you surface fast
swimming hard.

The kids are small,
gregarious.
In practice, they don't mind
the belly slaps, the head slams,
the tingles, the pain.

I get out of the whirlpool
and make my way to the shallow end.
I lay my eyeglasses on a kick board,
don my goggles and jump in.
No dives for this old lady.

I swim several laps,
then feel the water undergo a sea change.
The coach has finished the diving drill,
and has dismissed the kids.
They play in the open area
as he starts his laps in the lane next to me.
I pump out 1,100 yards without a pause,
and feeling pleased,
lift my goggles,
don my eyeglasses,
and reach for the kick board.
The coach flip turns, resting in the shallow end.
He flashes a conspiratorial smile,
and gives me a thumbs up,
as if he too no longer dives.