Swimming Towards 50

By Cindy Reed

Helen Mirren tugs her white Lycra swim cap over her sleek silver bob, then pops on her pink swim goggles. She smooths her swim skirt and eases herself into the water.

Santa is already here. Santa is always swimming laps before I arrive and he is always still going strong after I leave. Santa’s belly is not akin to a bowl full of jelly, but he is white-bearded and has a kindly smile. He puts me in mind of a right jolly old elf. Santa favors the breast stroke at a slow but steady pace.

I’m pretty sure Alanis Morissette was at the pool two nights ago too, in an ill-fitting one piece that she’d obviously given up hand washing and run through the spin cycle on high a few too many times. Alanis, of course, gives no fucks about the swim cap, letting her trademark long brown mane trail wildly behind her in the water. You look at her and think, “That is so Alanis.”

These are the people who swim laps after the people who really swim laps are done for the day.

For the past week, I have been one of their number.

I like to arrive just as the pool staff is taking in the lane markers after the official adult swim time is over. One lane stays reserved for lap swimmers and that’s where you’ll find Santa. Helen Mirren likes to split the lane with him. They have a system.

I don’t know how to use the lanes. I swim next to the marked lane, though I occasionally have to dodge guests from the resort that shares the pool.

I am nearing the half century mark, and I am determined to stay active. I’m determined to keep moving, to keep up my physical health, to maintain my mental health. But I’ve never done anything like this before. 

I’m new to pool etiquette. I’m new to belonging to any kind of athletic facility. I’m new to lap swimming. Last night was my fourth trip.

It’s the perfect pool for me. The “laps” are some random length unrelated to any regulation pool.

But they are my laps, damn it, and if I want to say I swam six laps - or three, or ten - then I will.

My daughter lets me count a lap each time I touch a wall, so when she swims with me I get to double the number.

When she’s not with me, I watch the clock. A half hour, that’s my goal.

I am winded at the end of each length and I have to take breaks. I hang on the edge of the pool as Santa keeps his metronomic pace. Helen Mirren takes breaks too, but mostly to change up her equipment.

She likes to use props, which makes me feel more comfortable with my fledgling attempts. Sometimes she’ll breast stroke with a pool noodle tucked under her elbows or clutch a kickboard in lieu of a full on crawl.

Maybe I am supposed to be doing that. I don’t know what I’m supposed to be doing.

I swim, each stroke a moving meditation.

You can’t not focus on your breath because of the whole drowning thing. So I follow my breath. Sometimes it is gasping, sometimes my timing is off and I swallow water, sometimes one breath barely gives me the energy I need to make it to the next.

I breathe and stroke, breathe and stroke, avoiding the kids jumping in the shallow end, wondering if I’ll ever have the guts to split a lane like Helen Mirren and Santa do.

When my half hour runs out, I lie prone on the cement pool deck, unable to move.

No one seems to notice, so maybe the post-swim collapse is a common occurrence amongst the people who swim laps after the people who really swim laps go home.

I stagger to the locker room.

I am so tired it is probably dangerous for me to drive the two miles home.

But I am swimming towards 50, and I think I am going to make it.

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The Benefits of Failing

By Cindy Moy, founder of Hot Flash Sisters

When I was a journalism student, the manager of the campus radio station asked me if I would take over a current affairs call-in program on Sunday evenings.

“Once the calls start, the show pretty much runs itself,” he said. (Liar!)

I showed up on Sunday night with two fellow journalism students, MaryLou and Chip. We spent a few minutes talking about current events and waited for the phones to light up.

No one called.

Fifteen minutes into the show, we ran out of things to say. In desperation, we ran public service announcements and called our friends to ask them to phone in.

No one was home. (Cell phones didn’t exist yet.)

Finally, Chip got a guy in his dorm to pick up and we went back on air. It did not go well. The poor guy had no idea what we were talking about and had been drinking most of the afternoon. He hung up on us.

Chip spent the last six minutes of the show doing his impression of the 80s television character ALF. (Which, for the record, was brilliant. I still crack up when I think about it.)

I learned a lot from those painful 30 minutes:

1. The station manager didn’t listen to the show. He never said a word about it.
2. Never believe the person that says something is easy.
3. True friends will stay with you and watch every long second tick by.
4. When you start at the bottom, every other show you do will look brilliant by comparison.

I’m happy to say that the show got better. (How could it not?)

The mettle I gained from that first fiasco helped me later:

1. The time I was thrown into an interview with a person about which I knew nothing. NOTHING. Not even his name.
2. The time an official blew off my repeated requests for an interview, so I staked out his office and approached him on the way to his car. (He agreed to come on the show.)
3. The time two guests nearly came to blows in the studio.

 Is failure painful? Yes.

Does failure have its benefits? Depends on what we learn from it.

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Lessons Learned in a Children's Hospital

By Cindy Moy, founder of Hot Flash Sisters

Over brunch my friend Lisa tells me that she was one of the architects on several buildings for the local children’s hospital. One of the lessons she learned after talking to parents of the patients was the need for family bathrooms: If an older boy/patient wears a diaper, how does the mom change his diaper in a regular bathroom? Does she take a teenage boy into the ladies’ room? Does she go into the mens’ room? What if it’s a father bringing his daughter for an appointment?

Lisa, the only female architect on the project, designed two family bathrooms on each floor of the buildings. The family bathrooms were eliminated by the head of the project for cost reasons—the other architects didn’t understand the necessity.

Lisa fought for the parents. The compromise was one family bathroom on every other floor.

Several of my male friends are stay-at-home dads. They understand the need for family bathrooms. A little perspective changes us immeasurably.

My nephew was a patient at that very same children’s hospital 18 years ago. Here are a few lessons I learned while he was there:

A baptism in a hospital emergency room moments before your 21-day-old nephew has brain surgery is much more nerve-wracking than a church baptism, but the love you feel for him is steadfastly the same.

That steadfast love will be the only thing holding you upright when your tiny nephew is carried down one hallway to surgery in the children’s hospital and his mother–your little sister no matter how old you both are–is wheeled the other way by EMTs because the children’s hospital personnel is unable to treat her after complications from childbirth cause her to collapse.

Your sister’s husband will not know whether he should stay near your nephew’s surgery or go with your sister. Tell him to stay with your nephew. The doctors need a parent close by to make decisions.

The universe will send you an angel in the guise of a nurse’s aide carrying an armload of linens while you're feeling helpless. This angel will gently place her hand on your arm and softly say, “Honey, it’s gonna be alright.” Go ahead and rest your forehead on her shoulder for a moment. She won’t pull away.

You are emotionally strong enough to look after your sister. You are not quite physically strong enough to push her wheelchair back to your nephew’s ICU room later and you may have to park her behind a post outside the cafeteria while you catch your breath. You won’t realize until later that on the other side of that post is a table where a couple is eating french fries and your sister is now at the table with them.

The absurdity of parking your sister at a table with strangers, after the emotional trauma of the past few hours, will reduce you both to hysterical laughter followed by hysterical crying. Let it happen. When it’s over you’ll have your second wind and be able to push her the rest of the way.

Your tiny nephew will grow into a strapping teenager that winces whenever you and your sister start telling stories about those emotional early days.

This young man will try to escape when the stories begin because he knows that at some point you and your sister will start crying and insist on hugging him. Let him go. The poor kid has been through enough.

If you watch closely as he escapes you’ll see his scowl turn briefly into a smile. It’s almost as though he enjoys the attention and the love.
 
<blink!>
Smile’s gone. Maybe you imagined it?

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