For a few weeks now, our beloved outdoor pool has been empty. The blue crystal that shone over to us even when we were just passing by, on the way to school perhaps, is gone. Left are the empty pool itself, the benches we were lying on all summer, and, of course, the high-dive. It is hard to imagine, but also hard to forget, how filled with laughter and activity this now empty place was. Yes, it is fall again. The grassy areas around the pool are turning yellow, the trees under which we lay for a few hours each time we came here are turning color and, then, shedding their leaves.
For me summer hours at the pool are at the nadir of my experiences with my boys. We have come here for the past five years. How much have they grown during this time. Neither could swim when we first started coming. This year Jacob, my middle son, challenged me to a head-first dive off the high-dive. He is not afraid to jump and he is not afraid to dive down all the way to the bottom of the pool to fetch a rubber block or just a quarter he sees. He even tried a summersault off the high-dive, but didn’t land as well as he had intended.
When I walk down to the fence around the pool I feel as if I can literally see us in there, Jacob jumping, Noah plowing through the water like a dolphin, and Gabriel still with me, almost. He, too, likes to jump, off the edge of the pool into my arms. I know the ache I feel, all over my body, is about wanting to hold on to these times, these moments.
Compared with modern entertainment standards for children (and, perhaps, adults) this pool has nothing to offer. The high-dive and well, a few lap-lanes, and a larger area for general play and messing around, and a rather small kiddie-pool. Yes, there is a small concessions stand and it is possible to sit by that stand and look down to the pool area. No lazy rivers, no tubular slides, no artificial waves, just a pool. But we love this pool. It’s the one place where we can go as a family, almost always, all of us.
“We”, yes, it is the sense of togetherness that almost haunts me in all of this, as I fear, I know, that it is temporary. It is finally dawning on me that these moments from the summer and the previous summers are precious moments. They are, in this shape, not going to return. I used to say to myself and others how strange it was to realize in the present that an encounter or event in the past was perhaps the last of its kind. Now I have to say that I am beginning to be aware of this possibility at the very moment something is happening. There have been uncounted moments this summer when I was reminded of their momentariness.
Lifting up Gabriel to the hoop so that he could throw in the ball, playing some Frisbee in the driveway with Noah, going for a bike ride with Jacob and hitting our local labyrinth for a meditative walk with him, seeing Noah zoom around the drive in his roller-skates, Jacob—in Houdini-like fashion—sitting on a scooter following Noah around the drive.
Perhaps, what I am sensing, too, is that despite these moments of appreciated togetherness I will not be able to stop the process of knowing my children less and less. This is a strange concept, perhaps, but one that makes intuitive sense to me. As our children unfold, more and more of their personalities begin to take shape in definite thoughts, expressions and behaviors. I realize: these are my children, but they are not mine. They belong to themselves. What is inside them, what compels them is far beyond my knowledge and anticipation. All I can do is be prepared to be surprised.
If all goes well, this process of decreasing knowledge of each other will not mean mutual estrangement from each other. Rather, it will be funneling into the mysterious gift of friendship based on familial ties, based on deep familiarity. If all goes well, we will remember our hours at the pool as those moments of shared physical and emotional closeness with each other. If all goes well, we will recognize in them the closeness and romance inherent in any relationship that comes, stays for a while and then leaves. If all goes well, we will always be able to build new romance and closeness with each other.
For me summer hours at the pool are at the nadir of my experiences with my boys. We have come here for the past five years. How much have they grown during this time. Neither could swim when we first started coming. This year Jacob, my middle son, challenged me to a head-first dive off the high-dive. He is not afraid to jump and he is not afraid to dive down all the way to the bottom of the pool to fetch a rubber block or just a quarter he sees. He even tried a summersault off the high-dive, but didn’t land as well as he had intended.
When I walk down to the fence around the pool I feel as if I can literally see us in there, Jacob jumping, Noah plowing through the water like a dolphin, and Gabriel still with me, almost. He, too, likes to jump, off the edge of the pool into my arms. I know the ache I feel, all over my body, is about wanting to hold on to these times, these moments.
Compared with modern entertainment standards for children (and, perhaps, adults) this pool has nothing to offer. The high-dive and well, a few lap-lanes, and a larger area for general play and messing around, and a rather small kiddie-pool. Yes, there is a small concessions stand and it is possible to sit by that stand and look down to the pool area. No lazy rivers, no tubular slides, no artificial waves, just a pool. But we love this pool. It’s the one place where we can go as a family, almost always, all of us.
“We”, yes, it is the sense of togetherness that almost haunts me in all of this, as I fear, I know, that it is temporary. It is finally dawning on me that these moments from the summer and the previous summers are precious moments. They are, in this shape, not going to return. I used to say to myself and others how strange it was to realize in the present that an encounter or event in the past was perhaps the last of its kind. Now I have to say that I am beginning to be aware of this possibility at the very moment something is happening. There have been uncounted moments this summer when I was reminded of their momentariness.
Lifting up Gabriel to the hoop so that he could throw in the ball, playing some Frisbee in the driveway with Noah, going for a bike ride with Jacob and hitting our local labyrinth for a meditative walk with him, seeing Noah zoom around the drive in his roller-skates, Jacob—in Houdini-like fashion—sitting on a scooter following Noah around the drive.
Perhaps, what I am sensing, too, is that despite these moments of appreciated togetherness I will not be able to stop the process of knowing my children less and less. This is a strange concept, perhaps, but one that makes intuitive sense to me. As our children unfold, more and more of their personalities begin to take shape in definite thoughts, expressions and behaviors. I realize: these are my children, but they are not mine. They belong to themselves. What is inside them, what compels them is far beyond my knowledge and anticipation. All I can do is be prepared to be surprised.
If all goes well, this process of decreasing knowledge of each other will not mean mutual estrangement from each other. Rather, it will be funneling into the mysterious gift of friendship based on familial ties, based on deep familiarity. If all goes well, we will remember our hours at the pool as those moments of shared physical and emotional closeness with each other. If all goes well, we will recognize in them the closeness and romance inherent in any relationship that comes, stays for a while and then leaves. If all goes well, we will always be able to build new romance and closeness with each other.
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