Starting this blog has brought me closer to my childhood friends, and so many of our conversations start with “remember when?” One of those conversations was “remember when we used to ‘swim’ in buckets of water?” And boy, do I!
A couple of years ago, I was invited to a 6 am swim and breakfast date, to which I foolishly said yes – things I apparently do when I’m head over heels for someone (or is it head over fins?). The culprit of this crazy invitation and I had been going on run dates, so this must have been a logical extension for him. But what I hadn’t told him was that I could barely swim. And I wasn’t about to let him find out now. I hustled and bought a swimsuit and goggles in the next couple of days, and met him bright eyed and terrified at the pool later in the week.
Our swim date was a roaring success, despite the fact that as soon as I saw the bottom of the pool drop away from me somewhere half-way I clung to the pool ropes, wondering if I would make it out alive. I shimmied along the lane line down to the deep end, clung on the edge of the pool, flipped onto my back, and as long as I couldn’t see the bottom, made it back to the shallow end without any problems. I swam a mean back crawl that day and promptly signed up for swim lessons after my date and I had breakfast.
I did not learn to swim as a kid. It’s interesting to think of things that even I don’t consider as vestiges of my privilege these days. But really, access to clean water is very much that. Let alone enough of said water that one can swim in it.
Back in middle school and high school I was mad good at Physics. I even participated in the 9th grade Physics Olympics when I was in 7th grade. One of the questions in the problem set had to do with fluid dynamics and pressure unit conversions. And even at 13 years old, I knew that 1 atmosphere of pressure was equal to 33.9 feet of water – the height of about 4 stories.
Not having electricity growing up meant no TV, reading by candlelight, cooking on a wood stove. It also meant that water did not make it up to the 13th floor that I lived on. In the early years, this meant having to fetch water, which, without the electricity to turn the pumps on, would come up to about the 4th floor of our apartment building (that’s how you learn Physics, ladies and gentlemen). I didn’t particularly mind this task in the hot summer months. But in the winter I had to balance filling the buckets enough that I didn’t have to march back downstairs again to fetch more water with the concern that I’d splash cold water all over my feet that were already half frozen.
The upside was that I really got to know the neighbours downstairs. Sometimes, I’d go all the way to the first floor to ask aunty Ruzanna to use their tap to fill the buckets. Her son David was one of the boys that my girl gang was constantly feuding with. I’d show up with buckets at their apartment, and shamelessly taunt him about the fact that he had to be nice and neighbourly to me in this context, even if, as soon as we were playing outside, he’d just as soon upturn the same bucket of water over my head (which he would do more than once over the years).
Sometimes, I’d walk down the block to the pulpulak (պուլպուլակ – a public drinking fountain, ubiquitous in the Armenian culture). It was more of a haul with a full bucket but afforded more opportunities to socialize and catch up on neighbourhood gossip. And please don’t underestimate how dang heavy those buckets of water were – I would typically go fetch water with a 20 liter bucket, 44 pounds when full. So even if I slacked a bit and didn’t fill it all the way up, I’d still be wrestling with the weight of a healthy 6 year old (parents, back me up on this, please).
Back then, my friend Ester from across the street would come over to play in the summers. If the power came on, we would choreograph dances to music I dug up in my older cousin’s record collection: Boney-M, Joe Dassin, Robertino Loretti (I have absolutely no clue how he came by these records, but he passed them on to me, and in view of me not having a stereo, this was all there was). We would trade “treasures” – broken necklaces found in our moms’ respective jewelry boxes, old Soviet coins, pretty mother-of-pearl buttons that “went missing” off cardigans. We would make up adventure games that involved galloping on horseback (imaginary), crossing rivers (hopping over the patterns of the rub), climbing mountains (furniture), and in general wreaking havoc in the apartment. And sometimes we’d go swimming!
Early in the mornings I’d line up the buckets that I had lugged from the neighbours out on the balcony, knowing that by noontime they would be in direct sun, warming to the temperature that would pass Ester’s Q&A when she came over. During the brief hour that the electricity was turned on, I’d start filling the tub with cold water (hot water out of the tap still isn’t on the menu back home). When Ester came over she’d help me carry the now warm buckets from the balcony and empty them into the tub. With time, we got the proportions just right, so that the water in the tub was warm enough to be pleasant and cool enough to be refreshing. We’d inflate a couple of inner tube floaties for dramatic effect and hunker down in the bathtub.
P.S. Now how the heck was I going to explain all of this to my triathloning date prior to meeting him at the pool? The panic attack seemed preferable. That said, I apparently managed to impress him anyway. And I have even subsequently learned to swim decently well. Or at least without an inner tube floaty.
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