Bye, bye love!

One of the loves of my life

5 REASONS TO LOVE A POOL

1. Everyone, no matter how much they weigh, feels weightless in water.

 2. Every human began their life in the warm watery environment of the womb.

3. It cools one down on a blistering hot day - can you say aaah?

4. Anyone, no matter how uncoordinated, can do the doggy paddle or sidestroke.

5.We all had a fish tail once.

Growing up I was fortunate to have had a neighbor who had a cement pool in her back yard. And even more fortunate that she let me -- a freckled-faced bratty kid -- swim in her pool. It was glorious to be in the blue diaphanous water.  I mimicked the elegant strokes of Esther Williams from her movies and slowly had a free style of my own. Lolling around and floating there I spent hours with fantastic fantasies. In one, I grew a mermaid’s tail just like Lenore (Ann Blythe) in Mr. Peabody and the Mermaid.

The neighbor, Alice, was a nurse who had been involved in a terrible car crash and suffered several broken vertebrae. She was told by doctors she would never walk again. She decided that if walking was impossible then perhaps swimming in the weightless atmosphere of water was possible. She invested in hope and had the a huge hole dug and cement poured. The pool was built complete with cabana house. Then Alice began to do the crawl. Over time, the swimming strengthened her back muscles and slowly her crawl led her to eventually walk in the water. Later this evolved into walking on land - upright and proud.

In the late 90s, when I was house hunting, I saw the house that I now live in for sale. The cement pool in the backyard circa 1955 was it for me. It called to me like a mermaid’s song and I bought a home that was $20,000 over my budget.  I have never regretted it. When I suffered a broken pelvis in an accident that required a walker, Bumble threw me into the water. I was weightless and pain free. I crawled and crawled.  Eventually after weeks of lap swimming, I slithered out of the pool onto dry land a healed strong woman with gills. Just kidding.

The pool will soon be closed for the season. A green canvas pool cover will blanket it through the fall and winter. The turquoise mix of hydrogen and oxygen molecules will be put to sleep. Bye bye love – I will miss you! And we will rendezvous again next Spring.