by Sandra Cisneros from a bookstore facing the beach, where she
recounts stealing away to a Greek island to fi nish her fi rst novel and
fi nds herself healed by the sea; I started looking up Greek- island
apartment rentals that night.
Only recently did I see the pattern: For some indeterminable
reason, I felt drawn to the water, calmer when I was near it. Even
just a glimpse from a hotel window seemed like enough.he Reluctant Swimmer’’ met twice a week, Monday and Friday,
from 8 to 8:45 p.m., at a large, modernized Y.M.C.A. near Man-
hattan’s Union Square. I enrolled in January, temporally resolute,
wanting to try something new before my new-year nerve wore
off. Because the course is designed for people with a fear of the
water, it’s limited to only four students, giving each person ample
time with — and a chance to be saved by — the instructor. I arrived
on my fi rst day outfi tted in an extra- large swim cap and the only
swimsuit I had — an ill- fi tting bright orange one-piece — to fi nd
that I was the only person in the course. I was, offi cially, the most
reluctant swimmer in New York.
Paul Hunt, my instructor, fi st- bumped me hello. We spent our
fi rst class humming, which forces you to close your mouth and
push air out of your nostrils. I could hum just fi ne with my head
above water, but as soon as I went under, I felt as if I were choking.
I gurgled violently and unintentionally breathed in, causing trails
of snot to web around my already- wet face. Paul, an aff able man
who taught with the playful fi rmness of a well- loved camp coun-
selor, suggested that I practice in my bathtub that night when I
got home. Next, he convinced me that I could fl oat on my back,
and eventually I did — albeit with a pool noodle under my legs,
his arm under my back and my hand on the wall. I slowly leaned
back as though I were being lowered into a grave and kicked my
legs up, unconvinced that the water would support me, prepared
to sink and shatter my butt into a million pieces. Instead, I stayed
afl oat, stunned at the lightness of my body.
A few minutes later, as we scooched our way down the wall
over to the deep end, Paul told me that my brain was not used
to being in the water and that the reluctance I felt was real and
physiological — my brain protecting me from a perceived threat.
Somewhere around a depth of seven feet, I switched into a visceral
terror, gripping onto the wall tightly; by the time we arrived at
the end of the pool, nine feet, I was so convinced that my life was
over that I felt compelled to confess all my secrets to him, as if we
were seatmates on a nose- diving plane.
‘‘The Reluctant Swimmer’’ lasted eight weeks, and after each
class, I took notes. That fi rst night, dripping water onto the subway
as I returned home, I wrote that,
in class, ‘‘I felt true, tangible fear;
not anxiety, not nervousness,
not stress, but the high kick your
brain does into a true panic with
a real reason.’’
By the next class, I could do a
turtle fl oat (drop into the water
and wrap your arms around your
knees, bobbing to the surface
back fi rst) into a jellyfi sh fl oat
(face down in the water, with all
your limbs hanging away fromyou) into a plank position. After a few classes of kicking while
holding onto the wall, I upgraded to diff erent forms of fl otation
support: a kickboard, then a pool noodle, then just my arms,
held straight out as if I were receiving a present. Floating, both
on my stomach and on my back, became the resting state it was
intended to be. In the very last session, I jumped into the deep
end, fl oated to the surface and kicked across the entire pool on my
back — alone. When I was done, Paul told me I was good enough
to enroll in a swim course for beginners.y months of learning how to swim followed a two-year period of
learning how to date women, which I was better at. I had spent
my early 20s in a domestic partnership with a handsome, broad-
shouldered man who made me enormous sandwiches and kissed
me on the forehead in the morning. When we broke up, I spent the
following year casually dating, going through boys like water. But
then I kissed a woman in the hazy hours after a happy new year —
and then again a few days later — and I discovered I liked it better
than anything else in the world.
So I came out with little fanfare, announcing not an identity but
a girlfriend. I never considered that I might have long had feelings
for women, but instead happily convinced myself that this was a
sudden turn that righted the course. Recently, though, evidence of
an earlier, latent queerness kept emerging, like apples fl oating to
the surface of a barrel.
As a child, I learned about an omnipresent and homophobic
God, so I trained myself not so much to suppress my impure
thoughts as to let them just fl oat away, unexplored. But the truth
still told on itself. In middle school, for example, I watched the
cheerleading fi lm ‘‘Bring It On,’’ more or less a movie about girls
in short skirts, every Friday night, without fail, for a year, ‘‘for no
reason.’’ One year for Christmas I asked for a vest. Since college,
my favorite song has been Charles Mingus’s ‘‘Girl of My Dreams,’’
and when my roommates and I would pile together on the couch,
planning our future weddings over rosé and brownie batter, I would
anguish over trying to fi gure out how to integrate the song into
my future ceremony. I couldn’t demand my future husband dub
me the girl of his dreams, I knew, but it didn’t occur to me that I
could go out and fi nd my own.
Once, about halfway through my long relationship, I went to
Paris on my own. After dinner one night, I downloaded a dating
app for the fi rst time just to see and edited the settings to include
women, safely swiping thousands of miles away from my home.
I matched with some people, and a woman sent me an invitation
for a meet-up of queer women later that night. I deleted the app
before I could respond or remember the address. I fl ew back home
to my boyfriend, who met me at the airport; it was the longest we
had been apart in years, and we fell into each other’s arms with
relief. I was lucky: I had a supportive partner whom I loved, and
strong land legs. Who was I to want more?
All those years, I sat on all those shores, in Honolulu, in Queens,
in Miami, in Los Angeles, watching people in the water, letting my
admiration mask my envy. In truth, I was wickedly jealous: not of
their skill but of their willingness to go out and learn, to get what
they wanted and then to have it every day. I didn’t realize what I was
really feeling until I recently read an old diary, curious to know more
about the last time I was fl ailing. So many entries detail that same
longing. One night, for instance, I was at a bar, content to share aI let the water
wash over
my ankles and
burst intotears of sudden
relief.
47
‘T
M
P. The New York Times Magazine“
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