At the Pool

Today my son and I pack a quick bag and head to the pool. An uncaged sun unleashes a heat that snakes around us and squeezes tight. But he and I look to the clear blue sky and laugh at all that power. And he pushes me in the water first—and this time I allow myself to sink lower into its quiet pull, and to take my time coming back up to that vigorous sun, to the heat, to people enjoying a hot afternoon in August. Then my son jumps in, splashing me, his wet face flashing pure joy as he breaks the surface of the water and clings to my arm. And I am grateful for this one perfect moment, with my boy and me in the water, his matted hair and dripping face just inches from mine. His 7-year-old smile with all the holes in it. The sun at our backs, the sound of other people’s joy in our ears. A flawless moment, this... But it, and he, slip from my grasp before I’ve had my fill. I chase after them both, but they’re gone. He disappears under the water and lifts two sturdy legs in the air. And I recognize a much smaller version of my own flat feet, and laugh.

Pulling myself up the ladder, I step wet and dripping to where we have set up our things, and settle into my chair. Put on my sunglasses, lift headphones to my ears. My son is off with kids his own age—as he should—and I sit alone with my Sunday salvation singing in my ears. Around me, the lie that I have recognized as such plays out very believably. Children splash and swim; parents sit along the side of the pool, cooling their grown up legs in the noisy water; others gather in fleshy clusters on lawn chairs under the relative cool of the canopy. Fathers and sons play ping pong, shuffleboard. Beyond the pool area, women my age grill polenta and chicken for their men, create comfort and security around a picnic table for their sons and daughters. I search the women’s faces for cracks in the façade--but today I can’t find any. They are happy here at the Westwood, their families assembled around them like pegs on a board. And there’s me, loving my son and feeling like I’m doing it all wrong—because I am not that on a sunny afternoon in August. I switch my iPod from music to Bill Hicks, listening intently, even though I know every word in his act…

At the deep end of the pool, my son waits behind a cluster of boys for his turn to jump off the diving board. The boys are older, yet their bald shoulders and skinny limbs give them each a deflated look. I watch the boys ignore my son as he steps around to be a part of their boastful banter, part of their laughter. He laughs when they laugh, and I wait to see if they will acknowledge him, will welcome him into their fold. And then a younger boy my son knows joins the group, is recognized and welcomed by the older boys. And my son—my little guy—stands rejected, quietly waiting his turn at the board…

Many years ago, I walked along a hiccupping sidewalk in a housing project in a quiet, comfortless town. An uneventful day. Me and my newly erupted body walking along in cut-off jean shorts, a tank top and pony tail on my way to nowhere. It was summer. And so when my mother’s friend Janie called to me from her front door, I had no expectations. I was too young for such things, too young to recognize that Janie was acting on pure impulse that she would later come to regret. Rachel, she hollered, there’s someone here I want you to meet. And so I turned into Janie’s sidewalk, hearing excitement in her voice—something other than my own curdled boredom—and I stepped inside. It took just a moment to adjust to the darkened interior, Janie’s apartment familiar, comforting. At the table by the window, a man with short dark hair and my eyes stood up and extended his hand. This is your father, Janie said, clapping her hands together over her plentiful bosom. The man and I shook hands. And he sat back down, and we were done with all that.

And this is what I want to tell my boy today: that you cannot make people love you, cannot make people want you—and only a desperate soul, a futile soul, tries. And I watch him closely as the boys climb the ladder to the diving board and jump, tossing remarks over their wet shoulders like shiny coins that their friends scramble to pick up. But not my boy. He dances around to an unheard melody playing in his head, excited for his turn to jump, okay with being alone—like me, my little guy, like me.
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