there was a small community swimming pool at the park down the street from our old house. to be a member, you had to live in the neighborhood. they would give each member of your family a little elastic band with an orange tag, on which was engraved your membership number. the elastic band was too big for my six-year-old ankle, so i would tie the tag to the shoulder strap of my bathing suit (which had a skirt, mind you). i remember trying not to sit on the rough cement sides of the pool in my new bathing suit, for fear that i would ruin the material.
on hot summer days my mother would take my sister and me swimming. she would slather us up with sunscreen, put us in swimsuits and pink flipflops, and we would flip and flop down the street to the pool, carrying our towels under our arms. i would jump feetfirst into the deep end (to this day, i have never learned to dive) and let the air out of my lungs until i could sit on the bottom. i would hold my breath and look up at the watery trees waving against the sky, watching the children on the waterslide appear under the surface as if from nowhere.
my mother, apparently, was worried about us walking home in wet suits. when we tired of swimming (or she tired of watching us, whichever came first), she would hustle us into the tiny wooden hut that housed the restrooms. we would take our bathing suits off and she would wrap us in large brown beach towels for the brief walk back to our house.
on one of those days, after we had left the park and were heading home, i was walking several yards ahead of my mother and sister. i seem to recall feeling as though, as a grown-up six-year-old, i didn’t need to be herded down the street like my little sister. it was a warm, sunny day, perfect for swim tags and new bathing suits, but instead i was encased in a huge, ugly towel, which was draped over my shoulders. we had had to leave the pool before i was ready, before i was finished watching swimmers trail bubbles in their wakes, before i was finished playing with the surface tension of the water and jumping feet-first off the low diving board. but we had left anyway, because my mom was through, or my sister needed a nap, or we had to be home for something-or-other. i felt trapped by my mother’s wishes, by my sister’s babyishness, by my own youth. i wanted out.
impulsively, i grabbed the ends of the towel, unwrapped it from around myself, and took off running down the street toward our house. my bare feet slap-slapped on the pavement, the towel billowed out behind me, my bowl haircut, well, my bowl haircut didn’t really blow in the breeze. but it didn’t matter; i was leaving my slow mother and sister several houses behind on the sidewalk. i was alone and free, doing exactly what i wanted to do.
unfortunately, john and pat farmer were outside. john and pat farmer were an older couple who lived across the street and, in my haste, i hadn’t noticed them sitting outside on their front porch. they had noticed me, however, and made no attempt to hide their hysterical laughter at the sight of the naked child tearing down the street, her towel behind her like a threadbare cape. utterly humiliated, i quickly pulled the towel back over my shoulders, and raced into the house.
it was an adam-and-eve fig-leaf moment, if ever i’ve had one.