Do I Look Like a Water Aerobics Person? (Part One)
An athlete's identity crisis at the pool.
Wow, what a terrific Final Four. Hope y’all enjoyed it. Fun to text with several of you throughout the tournament. Such amazing players and coaches. A turning point in women’s basketball, perhaps women’s sports overall. What grace under pressure; what talent; what class; what brilliance!
Welcome (and welcome back) to Stronger Women. Energized by your interest and support after Post #1, as well as my own passion for this project, I’m now aiming to post a new column most Monday mornings. We’ll see. Has to be fun - for all of us. Let me know how it’s going for you. Thank you!
Today there’s a new guy at the pool’s reception desk.
“Here for water aerobics?” he asks.
I stare at him, perplexed. “Isn’t the lap pool open?”
“Yeah,” he says, “I just thought…”
Oh, please don’t think that, I say silently. When you look at me, I want you to see a swimmer. An athlete.
“Adult or senior?” he asks.
Okay, touché, New Guy. I hand him my pass.
The people who do water aerobics — in my local pool, at least — are seniors. My generation, mostly. So why does it bother me to be perceived as a water-aerobics person?
One of my favorite people is over there doing water aerobics right now. (Hi Raoul!) The routines can offer a challenging, whole-body workout. I did water exercise myself while rehabbing a knee replacement last year.
Yet New Guy triggered my defensiveness: Not me! I’m a swimmer!
A few years ago, I had to quit playing golf – after quitting basketball, volleyball, lacrosse, tennis, and rowing. I’ve got hypermobile joints. They tend to fall out of their sockets. Ouch. More on that — including good news about one remedy — another time.
Swimming is one of the few athletic experiences I can still enjoy. It’s one of the places I feel most myself: graceful, strong, euphorically alive. Cycling is another.
(I also feel that way when I’m writing.)
I need to swim. Swimming is powerful, like a dolphin. It’s rhythmic, like a bird’s wings flapping up and down. It’s meditative: breathing in; breathing out. And flip turns! All those childlike spins when you somersault, topsy-turvy.
I feel like I can swim forever - and do, sort of. I’ve been swimming my whole life.
I swear I’m not a snob about water aerobics. Bless you, Raoul and water aerobians everywhere. I know you’ll let me join you someday if I humbly jump in feet first, foam dumbbells in each hand.
But New Guy seemed to glimpse a Future Mariah who doesn’t swim anymore. Which scared me. I think I’m afraid of losing Mariah the Athlete. I really love her. She’s been my best friend all these years.
I step into the locker room and change into my Speedo, reminding myself it’s okay to fear aging. Don’t we all? So much is beyond our control. Death, for instance.
And it’s okay to want to keep swimming forever. To cling, even, to this thing that makes you so happy and healthy. To want others to see you as you see yourself — even now, many years after your last swimming meet, golf tournament, rowing regatta: as an athlete.
Grabbing my goggles and cap, I walk past New Guy again en route to the pool.
“Have a good swim,” he offers, waving.
“Oh, I will,” I promise, waving back.
Can you relate? I’d love to hear your thoughts. And if you do water aerobics, please don’t be offended. I’m just exploring my own pride, ego, fear, internalized ageism. Go water aerobics people!
And if women’s b’ball is bouncing around on your mind, those comments — and any other comments — are welcome, too.
I'm coming back to the beginning of your column, Mariah. Thinking about your identity crises and dealing with your identity as an athlete as you age. I'm not going to be traveling much any more. From my 20s to my late 50s, I was on the road several times a year, often every month, for work and for research and for fun. Now I don't want to go to on road trips or flights, so am trying to figure out what it was that travel gave me and explore ways to have experiences that provide that same "whatever" while staying much closer to home. I'm re-reading "When Wanderers Cease to Roam" by Vivian Swift now, too.
I’m 76 and a swimmer, my mom taught me, she grew up summers on a lake in NE Pennsylvania. I swam in the women’s pool in college for exercise, it was separate from the men’s and 25 yds opposed to their Olympic size for the swim team. I went to Maryland which had 30,000 students and no women’s sports. Pre title 9. I took up running in the mid 1970s and became a competitive distance runner for decades which I totally loved. My first Boston was 1978, my last 2003, we felt like pioneers. We had to wear shoes and clothes from the boys department as there was nothing for women then. I still swam at the pool in the apartment complex. Now I go to the Y all winter and swim in the sea all summer. I moved to Cape Cod 50 years ago when it was cheap and all young people so I have great places to swim.
I don’t do any classes at the Y, but I’ve gotten to know many of the water aerobic “gals”. The Y is across the bridge in a blue collarish town, the women are mostly seniors and many have never exercised, they come in all shapes. They worked in the service industry mostly and some have only recently learned to swim at the Y. The classes are packed! I swim after they are done but I got to tell you they are having a blast, oldies but goodies blasting, lots of laughter. It’s not my jam, I’m a loner and love my zen laps but I like the energy they bring.