Reflections at a Waterpark

This piece was originally written in the summer of 2002, while I was attending school for massage therapy. With its summer theme, I thought I'd insert it here in 2010. Its message is still encouraging to me, eight years later.

I have a penchant for combining either work (writing) or study with people-watching in public places. Today’s venue is the local suburban water park where I like to relax in the sun from time to time.

After fifteen grueling minutes of studying the origins and insertion points of muscles in the human body, I am easily distracted by a lifeguard across the basin pool.His hair is blonde and unkempt like Rod Stewart’s, his sunglasses are tapered like Bono’s, and his nature is goofily overzealous.It is one o’clock and just up the hill, the bigger pool by the rec center is opening for the day.

“Rod” stands up, raises his arms all Evita Peron-like and bellows, “The big pool is open, everyone!  It’s open!”  Then he sweeps his arms in the direction of the hill, as if to shepherd his adoring ten and eleven-year-old followers.  Some start off toward the hill, others just stare up at his exuberance, dumbfounded.  He is not the normal lifeguard they are used to, who sits in hawk like stillness with the exception of a whistle twirl every once in awhile to let people know he’s alive.  Rod the lifeguard watches the ones who leave and nods, satisfied.  “Yes!  Go!  Big pool!  All right!”

Then Rod decides he likes this standing position of power and stays there, surveying the basin pool before him, the sidewalk behind him and the other lifeguards in the chairs across from him.  He tries to catch the eye of one, waving at her.  When she finally sees him, he points to the huge black cloud just beginning to occlude the sun.  He hugs his arms around his chest and yells, “Brrr!  Cold!”  The female lifeguard simply nods and looks elsewhere.  Rod is not daunted by this blow-off.  In fact, he begins to jive and dance and “stir the pot” in his standing position, most likely to a steady, driving tune that plays in his head.  Maybe his whole lifeguard world is like one big rock video to him.  Hey, at least he’s happy.

I go back to my anatomy textbook.  Now it is time to conquer a large, two-page list of muscle types.  Somehow, the steady noise of rippling water, flags flapping in the breeze, voices of children, and an occasional “GO!” from the lifeguard directing traffic on top the waterslide, becomes a pleasant din that forces my concentration more than if I’d been sitting home in a quiet living room.

“Uh-oh, she’s studyin’,” says a rough, low voice.  I look up and my deck chair neighbor is back from her smoke break with her two daughters.  She has a deep tan, spunky short hair and the mannerism of a truck stop waitress, but she’s friendly as she points to my textbook and says, “Yep. Been there, done that.  It’s tough.  I’ll bet you thought, ‘oh no’ when we got here with our loud little girls!”

I smile and explain that sometimes noisy environments actually improve my studying and retention, and she says she can relate because she was the same way when she studied to be a personal trainer.

On my left is a sixty-something grandma, looking very classy in her dark swimsuit with a gold ringed sash tied in front.  She has brought her two grandsons to the pool for an afternoon of fun in the sun.  We talk about the weather and the pool and swimming…and she admits, patting her middle, that she really should be doing more of it, because she needs to lose twenty pounds.

“When I retired,” she says, “I retired from everything…including exercise!”  I told her I thought she looked pretty darn good for a grandma.

It’s amazing how women who hang out for about five minutes or so can form an instant sisterhood, whether it be deck chair neighbors, standing side by side in a restroom lounge, or next to each other in a grocery check-out line.

I lean back and turn my face to the sun—and yes, I have remembered to use sunscreen.  I begin to reflect on my life, at present.  What if the me of this moment could time travel back to the me of six months ago, curled up and crying and hollow?  If I told her that she would be lying in the warmth of the sun again, happy and well…on the brink of a new career and enjoying new love…would it have given her hope? Would it have dispersed the dark clouds around her that felt like they would never go away? The twists and turns of life never cease to amaze me.

“Goooo!” the lifeguard cries again, like a cosmic reminder to just keep moving, one day at a time.

When I think about it, what else can we do?

Goooooo!