And yet we swim? why is that?
Watching 'Oceans' the other day - I watched the sea turtles flip/flop their way down the beach toward the surf - of the 1000s that started out, the one that made it (at least on film) flopped instinctively into the water and dove for safety. Nobody had to teach him, nobody was there to guide, encourage, cajole her/him into the water. Water was life - Water was safety - Water is survival.
I watched the mamma seal coaching her pup toward the hole in the ice. Once there, the pup stuck her head into the water, looked around, the mamma blew a little at her - and she slid in - and under the ice. No sputtering panic and arms flailing to wipe the water out of its face; no gasping, no dear-in-the-headlights look (seal-in-the-shark-mouth?) at discovering the new-found sensation of complete submersion. The mamma coached, encouraged, but deep down the pup knew (was genetically programmed) what to do. Hold your breath and swim.
Humans? Not so much. Sure, there are Mamma/Baby swim classes where the infants learn to play, hold breath, swim, etc with the close supervision of their parent, but with the vast number of pool drownings each year by infant/toddlers, I'm drawn way wide of the speculation that presumes swimming to be a natural human enterprise. After teaching swim lessons for 5 years, my experience tells me that swimming is oh so NOT a natural human endeavor.
Fear and Water go hand in hand, like closets and claustrophobia. But I can testify, not simply from an observational experience, but from an experiential experience. I've been to the mountain top that is the pool slide and I have looked down from those lofty places and have had to walk myself down the ladder for fear of what lay at the bottom. I've been to the tippy top of the high dive, scooted out toward the terminal end of the springy board, only to have to balance my way back on wobbly knees toward the safety of the hand-rail, and then force my way down the ladder past the line of would-be leapers, like a salmon swimming downstream.
I know those fears, but I also can say I have overcome those fears. They have not forever claimed me and I've been to those mountain-tops and have flung myself with abandon from those lofty places (although I still firmly believe that the human being's feet were never NEVER meant to swap orientation with one's head - but that's another story). As I've been to the tippy top, I've been to the very bottom (of the pool, that is) - I've taught the very basic beginner swim class where the greatest challenge the student overcame was putting her face in the water and blowing bubbles - and I cheered her on. I've patiently tread water in freezing cold water (such is an outdoor pool in a small North Idaho logging town in June) giving instructions to the lifesaving class. I've hunkered down (in attempt to keep my shoulders submerged in water that's warmer than the air), time and again teaching/instructing/waiting for that moment when the idea of floating becomes a reality - and lights come on - and doors open up - and the possibility of really SWIMMING begins to take root.
Now, I will admit - there is joy to be had with the more advanced classes - those who know all the basics. Standing on the deck giving instructions, helping give 'proper' shape to the motion of their arms and legs - providing encouragement to what they already know, that being, the ability to trust in the water. But I found more joy and excitement, a greater sense of pride and accomplishment having walked (swum) with a non-swimmer into and through this advanced stage. Maybe someone can sympathize, empathize, or rationalize this from their own experience. IDK.
But the greatest, GREATEST - hands down - biggest challenge to meet is an adult non-swimmer who had decided he/she wants to become a swimmer. Friends, this is where a lifetime of fear and anxieties come back full force - everything that's ever been cause for fearing the water weighs itself into the limbs of the wanna-be swimmer, preventing them from the very basic, and yet so necessary skill of floating. Everything they've been told about themself and what they can and can not do - everything they've told themself about what they can and cannot do -every fear of what might happen, could happen, or most certainly will happen in that 4ft of water plagues their mind and settles into their heels, rooting their feet into the bottom of the pool; they are incapable of exercising even the most basic practices of trusting in the water (ie floating) until the burden and weight of the years of fears are in someway addressed. The question is how? when? Will this happen?
Now, as tempting as it may be to focus my frustration of NOT being able to make them float (let alone swim) on THEM; as tempting as it may be for me to blame them for being afraid - how compassionate is that? How patient and kind is that? How loving is that? How responsible are they for their fears? How much responsibility have they taken for their fears, for the messages about themself they've been receiving over a lifetime? A trusting relationship cannot be built on a bed of underlying fears.
Non swimming adults can and do learn to swim; maybe not as adeptly as their younger counterparts, maybe not as fluently and freely as they might have in a previous age - but they do, and can take great joy in the places this new found freedom will take them.
Swimming is no more an innately human endeavor than living a life of faith is. True - humanity is created in the image of God and our souls are most at rest we find full rest in the one who created us. But a lifetime of perceptions, mis-perceptions, self-evaluations revealing inadequacy; leaders, friends, family preying on those inadequacies. This all creates an atmosphere where folks are fearful of stepping outside the norms, out of bounds for fear they'll be chastised, ridiculed, and mocked or worse, outcast. How to swim with a population of people plagued by fears? Patient, persistent, presence; realizing that their fears and anxieties neither define me, nor describe me but also realizing that in swimming with them, I will better understand the nature of fear and of their fears - and maybe some of my own.
(to be continued)
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