Lovely essay, really thoughtfully done. It brought to mind an essay I read by David Sedaris called “Memory Laps at the Pool.” You brought us through your own memory laps here so well.
That’s incredible praise. I love David Sedaris! Actually have a book of his on my nightstand which I’m excited about starting. Thanks for reading, Stephanie!
I liked very much your story. When I was a child it was easy for me to learn swimming, but before that I was also able to dive through the swimming pool 😉
Luckily, I had a good relationship with my father. And despite having lost him when I was 10 year old, I have very good memories of him 😊
I agree with your last sentence as you get near the thruth is harder to see it. Maybe because you can't believe it, maybe because somebody make you not to believe...
A great piece. I've never been happy in water. I can swim but am always apprehensive, wary of something unexpected, like cramp, or something nasty underfoot, or being suddenly out of my depth. A bit of a metaphor for life...
Woe, what a read, so relatable. My parents took me to swimming classes from an early age and my first experience with water was the teacher pushing the floating lane down so I couldn't hold to it, that's how I learned to float. Later on I enjoyed everything that happened around water, but never truly enjoyed being in the water if that makes sense.
On another note, when I set to start my own business, I knew nothing about it, all I knew was that I didn't want to be like my father so I took his role model and chose to be exactly the total opposite of that.
Hah, that sounds quite like my experience. Except, I never really chose to be the opposite of my father professionally, it just happened that I am very much like my mother in that respect. So I’m a criminal lawyer, just like her, while my father is a businessman with an engineering degree.
Fantabulous essay, Andrei! I'm sorry that you had trouble with swimming. I have a friend who's my age and she doesn't know how to swim. She's joked with me about it and one time said that if I buy her some arm floaties she'll give it try. I'm honestly tempted to take her up on it, lol!
I had the opposite experience. I've always been a good swimmer and had even been considered to being recruited for the Olympics by my swim coach, but it never happened because I got sick the weekend that swimmers were going to try out for recruiters. A few years after that summer, I got burned out from swimming, quit, and haven't stepped into another competitive pool since then. My coach tried several times to get me to come back, and even sent me a lovely card, but I still said no.
I temporarily joined my current school's swim club, and while there was little pressure for members to compete in meets, and I even bought a swimsuit, I still couldn't bring myself to go to the practices to swim for fun and get into the water. I dropped out of it before the start of the 2024 spring semester. The last time I swam for fun was last summer, and before that I actually don't remember the last time I swam for fun (although I know I've swam for fun before last summer, just can't recall a specific timeframe). I still love to swim, though, and I hope one day that I'll be able to get into a pool without those memories of burnout and guilt surfacing.
Wow, this is quite the complex relationship. You’ve written a mini-essay yourself, lol. And you must be a very strong swimmer. Who knows, maybe at some point it’ll resonate with you again and you’ll want to do it. Cheers, Kimber!
Haha, I didn't mean to write a mini-essay, but your essay brought up alot of thoughts of why I stopped swimming even though I still enjoy it. I guess I just had to get them out, lol!
Cheers to you as well, Andrei, and I hope that you get to fully experience the joys of swimming some day!
Wow...WOW! This is fantastic and so thought-provoking. I think women do the same with their mothers. They rebel and somewhere along the line we hear (with shock) our mothers coming out of our own mouths. There's a reckoning that happens and late in life we feel comfortable with it.
That makes sense. I’ve had long, hard conversations with myself about my relationship with my father, and in recent years the dynamic has shifted from me looking up to him as a paragon of masculinity to me looking more closely and intimately at myself. Which I think is natural. Maybe the next step will be seeing more and more of my father in myself, in my features and voice and body and whatnot. But I’m not there yet. Still figuring out what makes me unique.
My father and I had a special relationship because my birthday was the day after his. I had him up on a pedestal until I was around 35. He was in the hospital with Hep B and I was told (after several visits with my kids) that we should get vaccinations before we see him again. I asked him if that meant the kids might get sick (perfectly reasonable Mama Bear question) and he got all pissed off at me, claiming I was saying he was "unclean" or something melodramatic like that. That's when I saw him for the passive-aggressive person my mother always said he was after their divorce. He was faulty and much more human to me then. It was a good but unhappy moment. I cried about it to Mom later because having him angry at me was terrible. But what a good life lesson! I was proud of my mothering ability. I do see my father in myself, but I also see myself as an improvement.
Ahh, yeah, that’s a great illustration of what we’re talking about. It sucks, getting our worldview shifted around like that, but it’s also pretty freeing. I don’t think you can claim to have reached maturity if you still keep your parents on a pedestal.
This is a great piece of writing Andrei. That initial experience as a young child was so frightening and you convey that fear to the reader so well. Once, when I was young and on holiday I taught someone I had just met to swim. I had no qualifications, only patience, and although fearful, they were determined. They had thought that as an adult they had missed the opportunity and for me it was such a rewarding experience. The first thing I did was to teach them to float, as it’s such an important skill, and gives a non swimmer a real boost of confidence.
Yes! That was the very first thing I learned as well. Before I was able to do it, it baffled me that it was even possible. What, me, jumping into the water and not sinking? And by some secret combination of moves actually floating? It sounded crazy. But I learned, and then at some point I was able to swim animal-style. It took a surprising amount of time for me to learn to swim on my back. Still can’t keep a straight line when I do it.
This brought up so many of my own swimming pool memories. I was never a good swimmer. I couldn't even float on my back; my legs would sink. I never learned how to dive. I tried but would end up in a belly flop.
I recently took a swim lesson determined to enjoy it. And I did.
Appreciate it a lot! Swimming is…both good and bad. My own memories, as you’ve read, are nothing short of ambivalent. I never really enjoyed swimming, but I enjoyed what happened around swimming, if that makes sense.
What a fascinating essay! I'm familiar with these places, Hotel Perla and Mamaia (spent part of my childhood in Constanta). You described them beautifully. The Black Sea is where I learned how to swim, my father taught me, a little bit of a different experience with water than yours, but same actors - father, sea, the hotels watching over the waves like sentinels. I liked how your story ends, the water as a metaphor for searching the truth. Well done!
Thanks a lot for all this! Wow, I didn’t expect to find someone who actually knows these places. I’m really happy it resonated with you in this special way, Blimunda.
Enjoyed this piece. Brought back memories of the early morning Swimming lessons - in the outdoor pool - brrrr! - but to this day- thankful to know how to swim. -PS-
I love the form of this essay and the way you describe and tie together your own experiences through this motif of swimming. It almost reminds me of "Water Margins" by Anne Carson in her book Plainwater.
Thank you for sharing such striking, powerful memories. I also have a complicated relationship with water. But fortunately I did learn at 14 by mere chance. The body somehow knew what to do finally lol. I still fear the deep but also am quite fascinated by it. Water is a paradox, indeed, as you wrote!
Thank you for checking it out! I was about to send it to you privately, knowing you’d enjoy it and fearing it might have gotten lost in the pile of unreads. And by the way, you know how we talked about getting stuff published here reprinted in literary magazines? Well, this one got picked up by a magazine (Eunoia Review) the day after I posted it here. Will be published late August. So it’s definitely a worthwhile path to take!
I’ve been gone a few weeks, but it was on my to read list :D. Congratulations on getting accepted! That is fantastic news, and with a great publication too. I’m glad they take reprints. Not many do, but should!
Gosh, superb piece Andrei, especially those closing sentences about the ocean. Skilfully crafted, a fantastic insight. Thank you for sharing so openly again.
Lovely essay, really thoughtfully done. It brought to mind an essay I read by David Sedaris called “Memory Laps at the Pool.” You brought us through your own memory laps here so well.
That’s incredible praise. I love David Sedaris! Actually have a book of his on my nightstand which I’m excited about starting. Thanks for reading, Stephanie!
I liked very much your story. When I was a child it was easy for me to learn swimming, but before that I was also able to dive through the swimming pool 😉
Luckily, I had a good relationship with my father. And despite having lost him when I was 10 year old, I have very good memories of him 😊
I agree with your last sentence as you get near the thruth is harder to see it. Maybe because you can't believe it, maybe because somebody make you not to believe...
Thank you very much for this story 😊
Thank you very much for reading!😉
Beautiful, evocative essay, Andrei, thank you.
Thank YOU for reading and sharing, Jenna! I had a blast writing this.
A great piece. I've never been happy in water. I can swim but am always apprehensive, wary of something unexpected, like cramp, or something nasty underfoot, or being suddenly out of my depth. A bit of a metaphor for life...
Yes, it is! In more than one way. Water is weird. Thanks for reading, June!
Woe, what a read, so relatable. My parents took me to swimming classes from an early age and my first experience with water was the teacher pushing the floating lane down so I couldn't hold to it, that's how I learned to float. Later on I enjoyed everything that happened around water, but never truly enjoyed being in the water if that makes sense.
On another note, when I set to start my own business, I knew nothing about it, all I knew was that I didn't want to be like my father so I took his role model and chose to be exactly the total opposite of that.
Hah, that sounds quite like my experience. Except, I never really chose to be the opposite of my father professionally, it just happened that I am very much like my mother in that respect. So I’m a criminal lawyer, just like her, while my father is a businessman with an engineering degree.
Wow, fascinating professions in the family!
I suppose so, yeah.
Fantabulous essay, Andrei! I'm sorry that you had trouble with swimming. I have a friend who's my age and she doesn't know how to swim. She's joked with me about it and one time said that if I buy her some arm floaties she'll give it try. I'm honestly tempted to take her up on it, lol!
I had the opposite experience. I've always been a good swimmer and had even been considered to being recruited for the Olympics by my swim coach, but it never happened because I got sick the weekend that swimmers were going to try out for recruiters. A few years after that summer, I got burned out from swimming, quit, and haven't stepped into another competitive pool since then. My coach tried several times to get me to come back, and even sent me a lovely card, but I still said no.
I temporarily joined my current school's swim club, and while there was little pressure for members to compete in meets, and I even bought a swimsuit, I still couldn't bring myself to go to the practices to swim for fun and get into the water. I dropped out of it before the start of the 2024 spring semester. The last time I swam for fun was last summer, and before that I actually don't remember the last time I swam for fun (although I know I've swam for fun before last summer, just can't recall a specific timeframe). I still love to swim, though, and I hope one day that I'll be able to get into a pool without those memories of burnout and guilt surfacing.
Wow, this is quite the complex relationship. You’ve written a mini-essay yourself, lol. And you must be a very strong swimmer. Who knows, maybe at some point it’ll resonate with you again and you’ll want to do it. Cheers, Kimber!
Haha, I didn't mean to write a mini-essay, but your essay brought up alot of thoughts of why I stopped swimming even though I still enjoy it. I guess I just had to get them out, lol!
Cheers to you as well, Andrei, and I hope that you get to fully experience the joys of swimming some day!
Maybe! Probably not.
Wow...WOW! This is fantastic and so thought-provoking. I think women do the same with their mothers. They rebel and somewhere along the line we hear (with shock) our mothers coming out of our own mouths. There's a reckoning that happens and late in life we feel comfortable with it.
That makes sense. I’ve had long, hard conversations with myself about my relationship with my father, and in recent years the dynamic has shifted from me looking up to him as a paragon of masculinity to me looking more closely and intimately at myself. Which I think is natural. Maybe the next step will be seeing more and more of my father in myself, in my features and voice and body and whatnot. But I’m not there yet. Still figuring out what makes me unique.
My father and I had a special relationship because my birthday was the day after his. I had him up on a pedestal until I was around 35. He was in the hospital with Hep B and I was told (after several visits with my kids) that we should get vaccinations before we see him again. I asked him if that meant the kids might get sick (perfectly reasonable Mama Bear question) and he got all pissed off at me, claiming I was saying he was "unclean" or something melodramatic like that. That's when I saw him for the passive-aggressive person my mother always said he was after their divorce. He was faulty and much more human to me then. It was a good but unhappy moment. I cried about it to Mom later because having him angry at me was terrible. But what a good life lesson! I was proud of my mothering ability. I do see my father in myself, but I also see myself as an improvement.
Ahh, yeah, that’s a great illustration of what we’re talking about. It sucks, getting our worldview shifted around like that, but it’s also pretty freeing. I don’t think you can claim to have reached maturity if you still keep your parents on a pedestal.
This is a great piece of writing Andrei. That initial experience as a young child was so frightening and you convey that fear to the reader so well. Once, when I was young and on holiday I taught someone I had just met to swim. I had no qualifications, only patience, and although fearful, they were determined. They had thought that as an adult they had missed the opportunity and for me it was such a rewarding experience. The first thing I did was to teach them to float, as it’s such an important skill, and gives a non swimmer a real boost of confidence.
Yes! That was the very first thing I learned as well. Before I was able to do it, it baffled me that it was even possible. What, me, jumping into the water and not sinking? And by some secret combination of moves actually floating? It sounded crazy. But I learned, and then at some point I was able to swim animal-style. It took a surprising amount of time for me to learn to swim on my back. Still can’t keep a straight line when I do it.
This brought up so many of my own swimming pool memories. I was never a good swimmer. I couldn't even float on my back; my legs would sink. I never learned how to dive. I tried but would end up in a belly flop.
I recently took a swim lesson determined to enjoy it. And I did.
Great piece.
Appreciate it a lot! Swimming is…both good and bad. My own memories, as you’ve read, are nothing short of ambivalent. I never really enjoyed swimming, but I enjoyed what happened around swimming, if that makes sense.
What a fascinating essay! I'm familiar with these places, Hotel Perla and Mamaia (spent part of my childhood in Constanta). You described them beautifully. The Black Sea is where I learned how to swim, my father taught me, a little bit of a different experience with water than yours, but same actors - father, sea, the hotels watching over the waves like sentinels. I liked how your story ends, the water as a metaphor for searching the truth. Well done!
Thanks a lot for all this! Wow, I didn’t expect to find someone who actually knows these places. I’m really happy it resonated with you in this special way, Blimunda.
Enjoyed this piece. Brought back memories of the early morning Swimming lessons - in the outdoor pool - brrrr! - but to this day- thankful to know how to swim. -PS-
Thanks a lot for reading! It seems like the piece did exactly what I intended it to do:)
Indeed !
I love the form of this essay and the way you describe and tie together your own experiences through this motif of swimming. It almost reminds me of "Water Margins" by Anne Carson in her book Plainwater.
I shall check it out! Thanks for reading this one!
Thank you for sharing such striking, powerful memories. I also have a complicated relationship with water. But fortunately I did learn at 14 by mere chance. The body somehow knew what to do finally lol. I still fear the deep but also am quite fascinated by it. Water is a paradox, indeed, as you wrote!
Thank you for checking it out! I was about to send it to you privately, knowing you’d enjoy it and fearing it might have gotten lost in the pile of unreads. And by the way, you know how we talked about getting stuff published here reprinted in literary magazines? Well, this one got picked up by a magazine (Eunoia Review) the day after I posted it here. Will be published late August. So it’s definitely a worthwhile path to take!
I’ve been gone a few weeks, but it was on my to read list :D. Congratulations on getting accepted! That is fantastic news, and with a great publication too. I’m glad they take reprints. Not many do, but should!
Yeah! Very surprisingly CRAFT does too, which is really great news.
Great essay. Still waters run deep they say, lots of memories buried in those depths!
Thanks for reading, Alexander!
Gosh, superb piece Andrei, especially those closing sentences about the ocean. Skilfully crafted, a fantastic insight. Thank you for sharing so openly again.
😳 Damn. Thanks, Nathan! I’m glad they resonated with you. Not to brag too much, but I suspected they might. Cheers!
Powerful.
Thank you, Sherman! Your essays are among my biggest influences, you know.