1st time in the pool
Posted on | May 3, 2006 | 25 Comments
A smattering of days, and he’s suddenly different all over again. My heart sometimes aches with the velocity of his changing, like Penelope’s tapestry, each day it must be unraveled and made anew to accommodate the greater love and wonder that I feel.
We went swimming tonight. His first time in a pool. His body abruptly feather light, his pale skin nearly transparent and beautiful. Eyes big, and lashes wet. But seeing is Daddy at the edge produced a thousand grins. Laughing as I blew bubbles near his cheek, he wanted to hold on to the tiled cusp of the pool. Even there, especially there, with the feeling of weightlessness, he wanted to climb.
In the locker room afterwards, sitting on the low blue bench by the wall in his new monogrammed terry robe from his grandma, he watched a three year old boy closely, transfixed. When the boy left, Bean went to each place he had been—touching the bright yellow metal locker, and then the mirror where the boy had stood, pulling on his swimming trunks. This is why I keep coming to the page: the fragility of memory will not hold this sweetness.
The way his hair still smelled faintly of chorine tonight, even after his bath; or the way he now reaches for his stuffed monkey, cupping his face into its fur to go to sleep. I want to capture everything, and startle to realize how I’ve already lost the urgent memory of when he was newborn, or how he used to push up before he could crawl, like some funny seal pup.
There must be some secret in this: that memory only holds so much. Perhaps we would not move with agility into the future of each moment, if we could fully contain the memory of each passing day. But days like today beg for more. More noticing, more attention. I want to saturate myself with this moment: the way the three of us, walking to our car after dinner, were an orb of family. Bean’s tiny legs wrapped round my waist, his arm touching his Daddy’s chest, and around us both, DH’s muscled arms.
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May 3rd, 2006 @ 8:27 pm
Awwwww….Floatie Bean! Great shots! Did Daddy take those pics? I mean you’re talented, but I doubt you took them! Photography Ventriliquism!
May 3rd, 2006 @ 9:44 pm
What a lovely post, Christina. I often catch myself soaking up Pearl, trying to burn moments into my mind as deeply as I can.
And what great photos. How worried he looks at firt, then smiles and calming down and getting adventurous.
I took Pearl into the hot tub recently and she was pretty scared at first, too – it has been a long time since we were last in it.
May 3rd, 2006 @ 10:12 pm
The first time in the pool is so amazing. Jack was like a little fish, he had no fear and went right under! Everyone was amazed that it was his first time! How great that you are able to get your thoughts out in writing. I have such a hard time getting the words right, I worry sometimes that I won’t remember everything exactly the way it was. But I guess that what makes all the memories seem so lovely!
May 3rd, 2006 @ 10:38 pm
Ooh, I loved sharing this memory with you. Thank you.
May 3rd, 2006 @ 10:49 pm
So beautifully written! Sometimes I ache over the things I don’t remember. My nearly-three-year-old son’s months as a newborn are such a blur to me now. I like your perspective on memory. There’s just so MUCH worth remembering, and our minds can only contain a finite amount of it.
May 3rd, 2006 @ 10:54 pm
You write such lovely posts, always…and I think this is one of my favorites. “…the fragility of memory will not hold this sweetness.” Brilliant and beautiful.
May 4th, 2006 @ 3:58 am
Oh christina! What a perfect post! I think you are so right about not being able to keep all of memory, because if we could keep it, how could we ever move forward??
May 4th, 2006 @ 8:40 am
wow. i love that last paragraph. there really is something there.
May 4th, 2006 @ 9:29 am
toddlers in the water remind me of ducklings…they make me so happy. Waddle, waddle
May 4th, 2006 @ 10:14 am
You are so right. How could we move forward and leave this beauty? So well you write it!
May 4th, 2006 @ 11:17 am
beautiful. i too ache when i realize i’ve already forgotten so much, things i swore i’d never forget. but i have….
May 4th, 2006 @ 12:14 pm
Damnit, Christina! Don’t make me cry!
May 4th, 2006 @ 12:19 pm
To fully contain the memory of each passing day, I’d have to pause at the top of the slide. A person like me has to content himself with the remembrance of red toenails, for, like you (sometimes sadly, but joyfully, too), I can not pause.
May 4th, 2006 @ 12:22 pm
Just trying to be present in the moment, to remember certain things is the best, I think parents can do. Looks like you had a blast in the water. This is funny, Christina, I was going to post about swimming yesterday, but I didn’t have time!
May 4th, 2006 @ 1:11 pm
In moments like these, we, at my house, look at each other – sometimes we say it aloud, sometimes we just know that we are each thinking it, sometimes all five of us at the very same moment…
we take that moment and imprint it in our minds, the scent, the sight, the feel.
I’ve taught the boys to do it too.
Life’s tiny moments. We each have a book of them in our heads – and when one of us mentions them, we all know.
More than memory.
Sense memory.
May 4th, 2006 @ 2:55 pm
Oh, I also wanted to say this his big eyes and little curls are so gorgeous:)
May 4th, 2006 @ 3:59 pm
Such lovely snapshots and a beautiful account of his first time in the pool. Brings back memories of when my daughter was taking baby swimming lessons and took to water like a fish. Later she had a bad experience at a pool in Jordan and now doesn’t like being in a pool or the ocean without something to hold on to. Starting early helps eliminate the fear. Lovely post!
May 4th, 2006 @ 4:23 pm
so sweet. oh, i know what you mean when you write “I want to capture everything.” I sometimes sit and stare at Porter when he plays, I try to soak him in and remember EVERY bit of his little expressions when he is trying to figure things out. we ended up in the ER with him monday night during our trip to VT – makes everything all the more precious and fragile. sweet sweet babies.
May 4th, 2006 @ 6:34 pm
“…the fragility of memory will not hold this sweetness.”
Beautifully said.
By the looks of it, your first swimming lesson with Bean went far better than ours with Julia. LOL.
May 4th, 2006 @ 6:54 pm
Man, I so love how you write. This line is just plain simple truth: “the fragility of memory will not hold this sweetness.”
May 5th, 2006 @ 9:39 am
I can never figure out which I like more: your brilliant words or your pictures… beautiful..
May 5th, 2006 @ 3:57 pm
“Perhaps we would not move with agility into the future of each moment, if we could fully contain the memory of each passing day.” So thought provoking and moving, your writing gives me chills!
May 6th, 2006 @ 11:23 pm
Beautiful. You express so clearly what so many of us mothers feel inside, but for some reason we can’t quite express, and it stays trapped inside. You truly have a gift.
May 8th, 2006 @ 2:03 pm
i feel this too. every day is a memory game for me, trying to brand his smiling gaze into my mind, his wobbly round butt on the floor, how he brightens when his hands beat the drum, how he nurses-each gulp and gasp and hmmmm and glance. i take the pictures, but they don’t capture what i see at all. i write about it, but when days have passed i can’t remember the smell in language. i know it will never end, this deep yearning to capture the moment. relaxing into it and knowing that i will not remember it specifically is so painful, but the only way i can get my head out of the scrapbook and into my baby’s hair….
thank you.
May 9th, 2006 @ 6:26 pm
I’m always trying to clutch these moments, always berating myself for not doing enough to document the wonder. Thanks for the reminder that just BEING with the moment in its entirety is a blessing.