Mary walked Naomi
and Xavier to school. I suggested to
Rhiannon that she get dressed, but no, she was waiting for her mother to come
home to dress her this morning. I
suggested we pick out her socks, or that at least she show me the sock drawer,
even if we didn’t take them out of it. A
pink pair of those and we matched up some underwear to go with it. Those in hand she showed me the next draw: shirts, a jacket and some trousers. Soon Rhiannon had dressed herself forgetting she
wasn’t going to do it.
Yes. She is getting older. Her day care provider took her swimming. The baby pool was closed for repairs and the
big pool too cold for her liking. There
was a highlight to the event. When the
caregiver was showering the children, Rhiannon got to use the soap that is
connected to the wall.
“Nice,” said Mary.
“Do you know what
it smells like?”, Rhiannon asked.
“No.”
“Fresh girls.”
I am making
cinnamon buns now. Leo doesn’t think
that cinnamon buns constitute an evening meal. But
at his house, add cheese and a container
of yogurt and Naomi thinks it a banquet.
Cute, fresh girls.
Arta
Swimming pools and childhood do evoke strong sensory-intense memories. The chlorine almost burns the eyes, nose and throat. The soap tightening the skin. The waves of cold water, warm water, hot water, no water, re-push shower button.
ReplyDeleteI hadn't realized that swimming pools evoke memories like that. I can remember the one at the YMCA, the large cavernous ceiling and the pool that seemed too far to get across -- and that was trying to swim its width, not its length. My swimming teacher was a woman who had tried to swim the English Channel. There I was, wondering if I could even make it across the pool. The Metawa Pool was the one where I first thought I might drowned. Someone swam over me and I was in the deep end (over my head, but not into the six foot depth)and will never know how I made it to the ladder and out. I am pretty sure I was swimming on a Sunday that time, and wondered if it was God warning me. I learned to dive in the Shelby, Montana pool -- so hard to follow those instructions and let my head go into the water first! And the smell at the pool at the Cave and Basin, or the fear of swimming through the tunnel and not being able to make it to the other end, even though that opportunity was closed long before I got there.
ReplyDeleteWhat about the lockers in those pools? First of all,the problem of finding a quarter to put in. And second, you didn't always get the quarter back. Better to risk getting your clothes stolen and use that money for the candy machine.
There might be a whole chapter in someone's memoirs about swimming pools -- probably not in mine. But if there were, I wouldn't want to miss talking about the swimming suits that people rented at the Cave and Basin. Those had the look of the total cover ups of the 1920's. Couldn't keep my eyes off of those. I thought people had to want to go swimming very badly to pull their bodies into one of those.
And I can still hear the complaints of some women who had disposable bathing suits on when I was in the swimming pool at Jasper Lodge. They called them itchy and papery -- over sized diapers they said.
Arta