Public pool…been a Minute
Hot day morning Monday. For Grandma needed her throat procedure in the afternoon scheduled at 1:30 pm. Where I spent the night before waiting to hear from the auto shop when my car is fixed. By 8 am I head over to the auto shop driving my Chevy back to Grandma’s place for a couple of hours.
To pass the time she takes me to Denny’s for an early morning breakfast food. It’s been a while since I’d been inside a Denny’s. Unfortunately, Grandma couldn’t eat due to her scheduled procedure which was a concern on my part if she’ll be alright as she tells me she’ll be fine calming my nerves.
By 12:45 pm we’d be ready to head out under the 90 decrees hot sun. After about a 10-minute drive to the hospital with the AC on full blast. Went into the back building with 20 minutes to spare. Readying the wheelchair as Grandma guides me to move her into the waiting room. Nobody inside the place but the doctors behind the front desk scheduled the patient (Grandma) as she pens-in the paperwork for her throat procedure. Thirty minutes pass sitting down waiting as the reeling heat bothers me next to the window. We talk a little bit until we talk about the hot weather as I’d been sweating easily in the last few hours. Seeing Grandma fill out the paperwork, I move toward the front desk asking if theirs any public pool in the area. Yet somehow one of the ladies gives me an address so that as Grandma has her procedure I’ll be able to kill time on a sunny day.
The doctor’s hall Grandma into the procedure room as I leave the hospital in my Chevy to wait. In turn, put in the address from a sticky note the lady from the front desk gave me on my phone. Get the directions to my surprise the drive was 5 minutes away. No swim trunks buy my gym shorts under my baggy shorts. As it is a Monday not a lot of people are in the pool. I pay $5 to put my things to the side take my shirt off circling the pool area. I felt self-conscious but I didn’t care the water was there. Jumped in the refreshing blue waters.
The weight of heat fell off my body. The water felt so relaxing. Swimming holding my breath. All around felt like a kid again. The cool down in the pool waters. Very therapeutic for me despite it being 5 years since swimming in a public pool I need to get wet to rid myself of my body sweat. Soaked up the water even as I held my breath underneath the surface. Thinking about all the times I’ve gone to the beach boogie boarding the waves, Grandma’s Hawaiian vacation in Oahu, my aunt taking me to a beach, proximity to the airport watching the planes fly over my head towards the ocean.
Every time I stepped near the water were happier times. Times that make me feel content that life is like water, it crashes and flows but it’s very peaceful looking out on the horizon. Forget all my worries and strifes relax and rest to cool off the stress life pulls on people. I make it my business to stay in the pool as long as I can swim freely along with everyone else. Eventually, I got out and dried myself off to pick up Grandma after a phone call telling me she was ready to leave. I tell her I found a public pool I dived into as the cold water cleared my head like a cleansing.
This made Grandma happy and fond of past times when around water. I wasn’t grateful then, but today driving Grandma home reminiscing about the ocean waters and the calm relaxing waves either in the ocean or pool. Telling her I hadn’t swam in public for so long. All Grandma could do was somehow give me a funny look on her face. Telling me I need to go swimming more often, every time I did I have happy memories.
