How We Learn How to Learn

I am four years old and finally, finally four feet tall. That’s really tall for a four-year-old.

I have no doubt that, if I thought I could get away with it, I probably rose up on my toes a bit as my mother was measuring me. I have no doubt that, even if my mother noticed, she pretended not to.

Why all the fuss over four feet? That’s how tall you had to be to join the summer swim program: lessons in the morning, free swim in the afternoon.

I was Sibling Four-of-Six. All I wanted was to swim. All my mother wanted was a few hours of peace and quiet.

That’s how I found myself standing in the shallow end of the pool…


… where the water is four feet deep. I am hardly four feet tall at the top of my head, which puts my nose well under water.

I hang onto the side of the pool as long as I can. When the instructor lines us up in rows, I join everyone else at the center of the pool. They stand, awaiting further instruction. I hop up and down, grabbing sips of air.

This is odd, I think, but hey! I am in the water, and it feels great!

The instructor wants us to blow bubbles underwater. This is easy! I hop, sip, sink and blow. The instructor thinks I’m an old hand.

Next the instructor calls out, “Dead man’s float!”

I look over at my sister, do what she does. This is a talent little sisters have.

***

Now, the instructor says, we are going to learn the sidestroke. We get out of the pool and lay on the cement to practice.

“Pick an apple from a tree, exchange hands and throw it away.” We lie on our sides, chanting together, picking our apples and throwing them away. Throw! is the power stroke, where we kick and whoosh our arms and shout.

Very odd, but great fun! We work our legs like scissors, kicking each other and getting a little bloody cement burn on our hips.

Then we put it all together. The instructor walks among us, poking at us with her feet to correct our strokes. Finally it is time to do it for real.

We swim across the pool, two by two. I watch my sisters. I watch the other girls. In my head I am chanting. “Pick an apple from a tree... throw!

This is easy! This is fun! On solid ground I am a hopeless clutz, pulling and hauling around a body with a rebellious mind of its own.

Now I see: I was not born for earth. I was born for water.

I think maybe I am a mermaid.


Now it is my turn to show my stuff. I jump in, roll onto my side and push off, just like my sisters.
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I reach for my apple--and sink like lead. That doesn’t stop me! I blow out bubbles as I throw it away.

I am on my side on the bottom of the pool, so I push off quick. When I surface, I sip air and pick another apple. This is easy! This is fun!

Sip pick sink push-and-throw sip pick sink push-and-throw! Who knew swimming would be so rhythmic and lovely? I am a mesmerized mermaid.

I am spending more time below the surface than I am above--again, very odd--but I don’t care. I’m nearly across the pool and finally when I reach up, I don’t find an apple but the cement wall.

I made it! I swam across the pool!

***

The instructor is waiting for me. She bends down. “How old are you?” she asks.

“I’m four feet tall!” I say.

“Are you an advanced beginner?” she asks suspiciously.

“I’m four feet tall!” I say.

“Do you have your advanced beginner card?”

I have no clue what she is talking about.

“Do you have your beginner card?”

“This is my first day,” I say.

“This is intermediate swimming,” she says. “Are you sure you belong in this class?”

“I can swim!” I say. I know I can, I just did.

The instructor calls the next girls into the pool. For the rest of the hour, I swim and swim and swim. We swim on our backs and our fronts and our sides. I do a lot of bouncing off the bottom of the pool.

I have found my place in the world. I was born to swim.

***

When the hour is over, the instructor crooks her finger at me.

“This is intermediate swimming,” she says. “You need to get signed up for beginners.”

“Oh yeah,” says Three-of-Six. “My mom told me to tell you.”

***

The instructor puts her arm around my shoulders and walks me to the locker room.

“You’re a great little swimmer,” she says. “You just went through intermediates on your very first day.”

She tells the other instructors, and somehow my mother hears of it too, and she tells the neighbors and they are all amazed.

I am a swimming legend!

***

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But that doesn’t change anything. The next week, I am busted down to beginners, where we spend most of our time putting our face in the water and blowing bubbles and learning the flutter kick without ever letting go of the side of the pool.

I look longingly out to the center of the pool and across to the other side. I may be washed up for now, but I am planning a comeback.

***

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Two years later, I am back!

I have aced beginners and advanced beginners. I have my cards to prove it.

I stride into intermediates. I ace the warm-up. I pick apples and scissor my legs and throw--and my feet never touch the bottom.

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Yes! This is the first day of the rest of my life!