Swimming Lessons

I have two young daughters, both fierce and beautiful in their own ways, but the experience of teaching each one to swim was completely different.

My eldest, a girl who was born with a deep and early awareness of existential themes etched into her artistic soul, would begin the first week by simply sitting on the side of the pool, watching and waiting. The next week, she might edge a little further in, sitting on the top step. I quickly learned that, to honour who she is, I must learn patience and that fine balance of being encouraging without being forceful. She will always get there, but in her own time, and it is for me to trust this unfolding and be a consistent voice of care, while stepping back just a little and then a little more, waiting for her to come to me until she is fully in the water and has forgotten the fear. I can’t describe the feeling of seeing apprehension evolve into shrieks of joy.

My second-born could not be more different. Given the first experience of parenting, you can imagine my surprise when I watched her jump straight into the water, so very full of confidence that she would figure out what to do once she was in there- and she did! Actually, it should not have been a total surprise- her high activity levels were evident pre-birth. I remember having to buy extra straps to keep in her prams and car seats as an infant, and these days she is mostly up trees or upside down. She hugs with the force of a loveable hurricane. In her case, my job is more to resist the compulsion to continually urge ‘be careful!’, lest I undermine her gloriously in-built confidence, while also somehow protecting her from actual serious harm. What an adventure!

Both of my girls are, of course, a marvel in my eyes and neither of their ways is ‘better’. Having known them intimately from the moment of their inception, none of what I see in the swimming pool is a surprise. I must learn to care for and nurture the raw seed of what they are until it flourishes however it is longing to flourish.

For some reason, these memories surfaced for me today as I continue to think about the tensions between intentional action and surrender.

What can I learn from my eldest daughter’s gradual approach? What can I learn from my little one just diving in with abandon? How do I know when it’s time for one rather than the other? How do I identify, honour and nurture my own innateness and help it flourish?

Personally, I’ve discovered that, for me, sharpening this intuition is much more about my physicality and instinct that it is about analysis; I have to be near the water, IN the water, to get any sense of it. To trust these senses after a lifetime of being detached from them is both exhilarating and terrifying, but once you are fully in the water, however you got there, you’re in!

Then comes this moment, this wonderful moment, where you close your eyes and you can no longer distinguish between your own skin and the water around it, where the temperature reaches an equilibrium, where you could close your eyes and imagine yourself in a bed of tissue paper, so held you are. Doesn’t that sound so wonderful, to be held?

I think that’s where I’m trying to get to, although I acknowledge that exertion is not the way to get there. Still… I have to bring myself to the water’s edge for anything to happen. That’s a good place to begin.