second entry

The summer of 1987 was a hot one. We kids consumed a lot of homemade orange-juice popsicles, and had frequent water fights which normally began with squirt guns and quickly escalated to kitchen pots and washing pails. One very hot day that summer, my mother decided she, being eight months pregnant, had had enough of the heat, and announced she was taking the six of us kids to the pool at Brudenell. We're going to Brudenell! the message was passed and shouted and interpreted throughout the house and yard in various forms. We're going to Boodenell? Whats boodenell? As usual, the younger kids' mystification at this sudden interruption of aimless routine was swept along as we older ones tried to co-tackle the rushed logistical task of getting some form of bathing suit for everyone, and shoes when possible. Daily life in a big family is like that, even when there is agreement about what is to happen, it takes forever to get there. The Brudenell Park was only 15 miles away, but in the country in the summer with six young children, it was a huge project to get us there, and we only went a few times.

On this day, we arrived at Brudenell and jumped out of the van, no doubt leaving the doors open, and dragging our towels, as we skipped over the burning pavement toward the soft grassy path that led to the pool and our blissful outdoor swim. (I suppose I must have been helping to herd the little kids, or maybe was even carrying Mike or Tim, who were only two that summer). We slowly made our youthful way, rambling and rushing at once, filled with purpose and yet lacking any direction until, coming around the final corner, the tall chain link fence that surrounded the pool met our gaze, with as much immovability and promise as any cathedral, emerging from the fields or through the trees or from between city streets, ever greeted its medieval pilgrims.

And so we dashed off, toward the entrance in that imposing fence. Just as we arrived, however, we heard a whistle blow, followed by a loud “Clear the pool! Clear the pool! Open swim is over!” Dumbfounded, we paused and asked my mother what was going on. I can imagine her reaction, somewhere between bewilderment and outrage. She walked directly to the lifeguard who was bellowing about clearing the pool. “What’s going on here,” she asked—or more probably—demanded. “We’re clearing the pool,” the young man replied. “But why, it’s supposed to be an open swim,” my mother objected.”

“Because the lifeguards are having a race,” he said.

Now in those days being a lifeguard was truly the summit of summer employment for a late high school or college student. And this young man was reeking of the smugness of lifeguard power, self-assurance in his physical beauty, and of liberally applied coconut sun tan lotion. The absurdity of clearing the pool, at the height of open swim and in the full heat of the day, and the arrogance of doing so in order to have an audience for the lifeguards’ personal display, struck my mother as preposterously idiotic and blatantly unjust. Now something to know about my mother is that, deep in her soul, she believes in rules, in the orderliness of the cosmos and the music of Bach, and how that order is reflected in prosaic matters of fairness and personal discipline. True rule following, my mother has unknowingly taught me, however, can be quite subversive. For sooner or later, the rule makers get caught in their own contradictions and the rules are there to take the bastards down. And this is what that smarmy, 19 year-old lifeguard had coming to him.

“Well, if you’re having a race and it’s during public swim, then the least you can do is let those of us who want to, join in the race” my mother declared, certain of the justice of her demand. The lifeguard now really looked at my mother, up and down, surveying her five foot five frame, cutely covered by a maternity bathing suit. “You wanna be part of the race?” he mocked.

“Yes, she said, I do.”

Now whether it was the impeccability of her logic or the fear of the trouble this determined rule-following pregnant mother of six children might cause him – she clearly wasn’t afraid of talking to his supervisor – he paused, and finally said:

“Okay then.”


The pool had by now been totally cleared and, as it turned out, there were an odd number of lifeguards, six sculpted young men and one rather stocky woman, who seemed an obvious liability to either team. My mother’s presence now seemed to the men comically appropriate: she could even the teams. If, as they decided to do, the three men of each team swam first, by the time the women got in the pool, the race would seem to be over anyway.

And so the swimmers lined up, four a side, each assigned two lengths of a stroke in a race of reversed IM order: the first swimmer beginning with freestyle, the second doing breaststroke the third backstroke, and the final swimmers assigned the two lengths of the hardest stroke, butterfly. I suppose they switched the normal order of the race because the organizers didn’t know how to swim butterfly, but it is crucial to the poetic justice of this story, because what they did not know, was that my mother had swum competitively as a child, and what they certainly did not know, was that her favorite stroke, was the butterfly.

If you know my mother, this somehow won’t surprise you. Butterfly may be the hardest stroke, and that would probably be enough to make it her favorite, as she never believes in the easy way of anything when the harder way just might be good for you. But if it is the hardest stroke, the butterfly is also the most beautiful, and the most graceful, way a human being can move in the water. Of all the strokes, it most closely resembles what swimming animals actually do. Like with dolphins or whales, the power comes from a full body underwater kick that propels the swimmer from below, up out of the water in a smooth arch, until gravity gently returns the swimmer to the water to begin the stroke again. I suppose that’s why it’s called the butterfly, because it moves suddenly up and down, as though weightless, like the carefree flight of a butterfly in the air.

The two teams of four swimmers lined up, with my mother and the other lady at the end of each line. There were dozens of spectators, all those people who had been rudely evicted from the pool. And then there were a half a dozen children peering through the chain link fence, standing ready to cheer for their mom. The whistle blew and the first two young men dove into the pool, thrashing about in a display of strength but rather mediocre swimming technique. On the return lap, the swimmer in the team opposite my mother’s established a lead. The second set of swimmers dove in their turn, and the lead was lengthened. And the same thing happened with the third swimmer, too. Evidently the one team had been self-selected by the three fastest lifeguards. By the time the third swimmer on my mother’s team approached the end of his second lap, my mother’s competitor was already half a pool length ahead. That swimmer’s team members began to exchange high fives, slapping each other on the back. Judging by their gestures in her direction, it seemed they were probably also joking about the pregnant woman who wanted to race against them.

But my mother stood her ground at the edge of the pool, goggles down, poised, waiting for her teammate to touch the edge. When finally he touched, she dove fast, and kicked underwater for a dozen yards. When she came up for her first stroke, it was clear there was now a real swimmer in the pool. She plunged back into the water, kicking hard, breathing only every two strokes, fast and sleek, she, and my unborn brother Nate, butterflying in an outdoor pool in PEI as though it were the final heat for Olympic gold. Well, it was Olympian. By the time she reached the end of her first length, she had reduced the lead by half. The triumphant lifeguards quieted, and again turned their attention to the race. During that final lap, I know I was flailing my arms and yelling with my five siblings, cheering on our quietly outrageous mother. But now when I recall that moment in my mind, it happens slowly; I see her rising into the air, graceful, drops of water shimmering, her skin glistening in the hot afternoon sun, eloquent, and strong.


It was only one of the races she won for us.