Lead Me Where

Some days, I live, work, play, move with seven potential stories to tell rolling around in my head. I pull them each out, mentally, throughout the day. Try them on, tell myself the account that I’d bring to you, decide which to share, which to store away for later, which to forget.

Some days, like today, I know I’ll write- it seems like a given that I’ll always write- I just don’t know what I’ll write. So I come, late, and I think, and later still, I write.

I thought, earlier, suddenly, that I’d get married soon. There was no immediate pretext, not even a healthy amount of context; I was vacuuming the dining room, the chairs all pulled out, when the thought occurred to me. The experience of being simultaneously of marriageable age and single can, for me at least, be summed up in one word: trying. Try to be charming. But try to always be yourself. Try to make things work. Try to figure things out. Try, try, try.

So, while the vacuum sucked week-old crumbs off the ancient carpet, I suddenly became quite convinced that the simplest way to end all this trying was to marry someone, as soon as possible.

I know, of course, that there is much more involved in identifying, marrying, building a life with one’s soul mate. Of course I know that the trying does not end with “I Do,” but continues and, most likely, intensifies after marriage. Life is work, this I know. But it seemed like such a viable option at the time.

Then I went to work, and The Jen texted me four minutes ago asking how “my babies” were. She puts the phrase “my babies” in quotes, as if emphasizing that those are my words, not hers. I don’t put it in quotes; I’m rather attached to my little athletes. One little boy, while I was away in Michigan, informed my coworker, accomplice, parter-in-crime Syd that I had gone to Heaven. He was shyly shocked, and yet almost disappointed, when I appeared at the pool again today. I’m not sure if he was glad to see me alive and well, or struggling with the theological implications with my apparent powers of resuscitation. But I rubbed his little dark head in passing, and he dimpled a smile back, happy.

The groups are small now, for the summer. The sun is barely thinking about setting by the time I pull into the parking lot, and in the two hours that I’m there, it barely makes and downward progress. The sand on the beach behind me, outside the windows, glows yellow, bold, under the sun’s bright influence.

Inside, summer season means some move up, and the boss came around with a heavily marked list, to verify, check in, update. Four of my older guys moved up, to another group of coaches. Of course, they’re in the lanes next door and I flashed one a thumbs up, grinning at his dark, goggled face, before he swam off again. Four others, the littler ones, moved from one of my groups to the other. They came an hour earlier, for the big kids’ practice. Worked hard, swam hard. Made me proud.

There was a last minute decision, something Syd and I had tossed around earlier. Is she ready? Are her strokes strong? What do you think? We asked the boss. Decided yes. She’s tall for eight, will only get taller, and she doesn’t look up much to match me eye for eye, standing there on the white deck. I told her she works hard. Told her she is strong. Told her that her technique is good. She listened, eyes calm, quiet. I told her she had earned it, told her that I was proud of her. She does well.

She was happy, I think, in her quiet, thoughtful way. Content. But she was content where she was, before the promise of a new group, a promotion. I suppose that’s all that matters. Try hard, of course. It’s your job to try; it’s everyone’s job. And be proud of the day, the work, the life, because content comes when hearts are happy, and the only chance for happy is right now.

~Natalia