2004-10-13 - 10:32 p.m.
There was a great, green lawn surrounded by shade trees. There was a garden, and a sturdy hammock hung underneath two of the walnut trees that lined the path that led to the life-sized doll house that was rigged with electricity, and was often my bedroom in the summer time. What I am suggesting, is that it was a really joyous spread. But in it's midst, was the fenced in pool yard. A white cemented and aqua-tiled affair, with a few steps to a shallow end that rapidly sloped to a 10 foot dive down. Some well-intentioned ninny in the late 60's had installed two shower rooms, that aside from age old spider corpses, also served to store our various 'pool toys'. Adjoined was a maintenance room to store chlorine tabs and cleaning nets, that later turned into 'the place where a parent hides Christmas gifts'. I broke in with the key one year and took a sweater that wasn't intended for me before the 25th, and wore it to school. "I do what I want." But I digress from the point, which is this: the pool became magical at stroke of 10.
I had a hot pink kit, wherein lay everything a young girl with my disposition needed: ear plugs, nose plugs, air tight googles. There were no lights in the pool, only a spot light plugged into an ancient outlet on the side of the shower room. The pool was like ink. I never swam really, face down in secluded pitch black water instantly conjured up the image of a strong hand holding me down. What I did was float, face up, just under the surface of the water, which was accomplished by what I termed 'spackling' with my hands. The image of a black sky spotted with stars viewed through gently roiling, clear dark water remains one of my loveliest, and most vivid memories, and being able to conjure it up in the bathtub just now made me feel better than I have in a very long time.
Fingers tread