My Chlorine Community
Community can be a strange thing. It’s been 10 years since I hopped in the pool for my first swim practice and seven since I've lived in my hometown. My experience on my high school swim team wasn’t all rainbows and butterflies either (if your high school experience was, you’re lying), yet there’s still an emotional thread that’s kept me connected.
My brother swam for four years after I graduated, and I’d occasionally—and oddly—encounter the dry, spectator side of swim meets. Most of my teammates weren’t just four-year friends; they were friendship bracelet weaving, monkey bar climbing, Ring Pop sharing connections from years of summer and club swim leagues. I met my high school coach, Rado—sans the ‘Mr.’ only for his swimmers, not for his students, mind you—when I was part of the eight and under team at our summer swim club.
Unfortunately, our community has come together for more sad than happy lately. Two years ago, six months apart, two former team members suddenly died. Though I was away from home for both events, I found comfort in the connecting I heard (hundreds of past and present teammates attending funerals), saw (via Facebook) and feel when I light my memorial candle for Mark and Emily and wear my Lahser High School swim team sweatshirt to bed on the anniversaries of their deaths.
Like a bad dream, the strength of our community thread is being tested again. Rado—the stubborn, grouchy man with a heart so secretly soft he accepted a team of 50 female swimmers when it usually maxed at 30—is sick. He’s had a hard life, and as a team we’ve been protective him. He’s been protective of us too, doling out more than one “you are the Lady Knights, not the ladies of the night” speeches when rumor broke about someone’s behind the bleacher post-football game antics.
It’s times like this that make me wish I could drive in and be there; though I know my physical presence won’t change anything. So, I’ll be mentally and emotionally present instead; thinking about the team—the swimmers, divers, parents, siblings, coaches, practices, meets, songs, trips, laughs, fights, cries—wearing some old school team apparel and sending the most positive waves possible to a community connected by chlorine.
My brother swam for four years after I graduated, and I’d occasionally—and oddly—encounter the dry, spectator side of swim meets. Most of my teammates weren’t just four-year friends; they were friendship bracelet weaving, monkey bar climbing, Ring Pop sharing connections from years of summer and club swim leagues. I met my high school coach, Rado—sans the ‘Mr.’ only for his swimmers, not for his students, mind you—when I was part of the eight and under team at our summer swim club.
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| The female half of my homecoming group in 2003--all swimmers. |
Like a bad dream, the strength of our community thread is being tested again. Rado—the stubborn, grouchy man with a heart so secretly soft he accepted a team of 50 female swimmers when it usually maxed at 30—is sick. He’s had a hard life, and as a team we’ve been protective him. He’s been protective of us too, doling out more than one “you are the Lady Knights, not the ladies of the night” speeches when rumor broke about someone’s behind the bleacher post-football game antics.
It’s times like this that make me wish I could drive in and be there; though I know my physical presence won’t change anything. So, I’ll be mentally and emotionally present instead; thinking about the team—the swimmers, divers, parents, siblings, coaches, practices, meets, songs, trips, laughs, fights, cries—wearing some old school team apparel and sending the most positive waves possible to a community connected by chlorine.