As a youngster, I grew up beside a shallow beach; you could wade out a hundred metres, and your knees were barely submerged. The summer meant splashing in the shallows, my head always above the water, sunbaking and a regular peeling back. I never learnt to swim!
But I enrolled my three kids in local swimming classes when they were toddlers. I sat poolside over the seasons as squealing splashes morphed into kick-boarding, duck-diving ring-recovery, tentative strokes and eventual confident laps. Each graduated in turn; I even joined the pool-management committee.
I am a Paramedic at St. John’s Hospital. It has extremely stressful moments, but in a different way, I also found the pool environment quite unsettling. The constant, excited squealing, the super-saturated humidity, the chlorinated atmosphere – while I enjoyed both engagements, they each delivered their own tensions and anxieties.
A wintery Tuesday, the chlorine-tainted humidity, talkative groups of Mums occupying the available seating. I was making my way to a spied, distant seat as a toddler darted away from its mum. I sidestepped, lost my footing, and in I went.
As I fell, I remember my absolute panic, even as my feet hit the tiled bottom. The immediate blurred, watery vision, kid’s close by, but terror, irrational, but consuming! I issued an unheard bubbly scream, my legs straightened, I thrashed the water, oblivious to the reality of it now being below my waist. I gulped for air, looking around wildly for salvation, as a hand reached out. I grasped it and dragged her with me into the wading pool.
My subsequent admission of aquaphobia and my inabilities had my Pool Management colleagues suggest I withdraw from the committee. My youngest daughter demanded that I learn to swim and became my tutor, supervising twice-weekly sessions at the pool.
Five months on from my watery baptism, I swam my first 50 metres, albeit using a combination of overarm, breaststroke, and a little dog paddling. I’m sure it wasn’t a pretty sight, but I got to the other end. I felt like an Olympic champion!
I continued to progress and was at the pool several nights a week. I found delight in quietly sliding under the water, revelling in a newfound solitude: an abrupt, absolute and amazing sphere of silence. Children’s chatter, instructor’s instruction, the operational noise of the facility; I even think the overpowering chlorinated atmosphere disappeared.
The silent, underwater space came to me as an intoxicating discovery. Twelve months after commencing my journey, I bought a snorkel. That next summer, revisiting my childhood beach, I found unseen wonder. Six months later, I started scuba training.
The initial anxieties dissipated as I learnt to control my breathing, to adjust and enjoy this new world. Suspended alongside the fish, occasional dolphins and turtles, seahorses, the kelp forests. What an exhilarating experience! My accidental fall through that watery barrier has changed my life!
I learnt to adapt this new serenity to my paramedical duties. My life is following a far less stressful path.