2001-05-31 - 8:46 a.m.

i can't swim...

not that i haven't treid to learn... though that was several years ago...

my mom thinks it's odd because she used to take us swimming when we were babies and toddlers, and i was just fine in the water. i'm not sure when i stopped swimming, but i can't ever remember being able to. and floating? forget it. i inherited a very heavy body mass from my dad. he can't float either. i remember getting into the pools as a kid and filling myself with as much air as i could... to the point of bursting... but all i could manage was to barely keep my nose and mouth poking up from the surface while the rest of me was "floating" about six inches to a foot under the water... swimming? ha!

i used to swim in the shallow end... for as long as i could until my lungs were about to give out, then i had to stand up to breath... like i said, i don't float, so it's kinda hard to breath while swimming if you're under water... maybe there's just some technique that i never did get... i dunno... but the fact remains, i can never remember being able to swim above water...

now i have a fear of water... not water in general, but deep water... oceans, deep swimming pools... anywhere that i can't stand up and breathe... partly because of my inability to swim... i can remember going to the lake when we lived in michigan and my mom and her boyfriend would swim around just fine... me? i was relegated to wading in... but i was brave... i'd walk in until my nose was barely above water and i was on my tippy toes... now that got scary sometimes because the lake was full of underwater plants and fish... so weird things would brush my legs and i'd get images of something beneath grabbing my legs and pulling me into the lake... how did they do it? how did all these people keep their heads above water? how did they float?... i used to do the same thing at the beach too... now that i think about it, that was really dumb... the waves would sometimes pull me out further than i could stand and i had to jump and run and struggle to get back to a point where i could safely stand and breathe...

i was lucky i never did get pulled under...

then there was the time i was so determined to swim that i jumped into the deep end at my step-cousin's house... i used to do a running jump and swim over to the shallow end with no problem... but this one time, i was sick of not being able to swim... i sat on the edge of the deepest end, and lowered myself in... then i just let go and started kicking and stroking my way as hard as i could... as my lungs began to give out, i started to panic and wonder if i had gone far enough... when i thought i was going to burst, i stood up, hoping i had made it... i didn't... as my feet touched the pool floor, i ached for air, but where was it? i reached up and still had about another foot... i freaked... my chest was on fire... i kicked and struggled like i never had before... until i couldn't muster another moment without breath... i stood up and as soon as my face broke the surface, i was gasping and wheezing and coughing up a storm... i hopped my way over to the edge and crawled my way along the edge until i got to the steps in the shallow end... where i plopped down and stared up the hazy los angeles sky for an eternity...

that day still haunts me when i'm asked to go swimming... only a few people know about it... that day, i was the only one outside... if i hadn't made it, someone would've found my body floating around lifeless... fuck i'm lucky...

so i don't swim... i can't... and i don't really want to...