Take a Dip
THANDO NDABEZITHA reflects on how psychologically liberating a splash in the pool can be.
In 1995, I started BIG SCHOOL,
where there was a SWIMMING POOL and teachers enthusiastic
to find the next
PENNY HEYNS.
The smell of chlorine always brings back childhood memories of hot summer days in a city the cool local youngsters aptly dubbed “Heatermaritzburg”. Early 1990s. We are five: myself, two of my older brothers, my best friend and her sister. A fearless gang of kids swaggering down the streets of a newly racially integrated Pietermaritzburg suburb, hoping to spot a backyard with a pool and a fence that can easily be scaled for a quick dip in the water. As the youngest, I was never allowed to join them for the stolen swim – I had to be on the lookout for any approaching adults and sound the alarm.
In 1995, I started big school, where there was a swimming pool and teachers enthusiastic to find the next Penny Heyns, who incidentally would make the country proud at the Atlanta Olympics the following year by becoming the only woman in the history of the Olympics to win both the 100- and 200-metre breaststroke events. Sadly, as enthusiastic as I was about splashing about in the water on those torrid days of our swimming term, I was never destined to be a Penny Heyns. And neither were my peers. But the experience of suddenly having access to a pool, with teachers who were eager to make us fall in love with the water and feel confident in it, was life-altering. It gave me immense confidence – the type that comes with unquestioning childish bravado – to believe that my survival breaststroke could save me from anything.
In high school, my focus shifted to field sports and cultural extracurricular activities as I became more conscious of my maturing body. By the time I got to university, it never occurred to me at all to go to the pool next to the student union for a cooling dip during the sweltering Grahamstown exam periods in November/December.
“Why did you lose your love for swimming?” my mom often asked me over the years. I was too embarrassed to admit that the ostentatious little swimmer had turned into a self-conscious young woman much too coy about her curves to wear a cossie.
But they say true love sets you free … or, in my case, sets you free of your inhibitions. That, along with a running injury, saw me – almost a decade later – donning a bathing suit to tread the heady chlorinated waters of my local gym’s indoor pool to get low-impact exercise with a partner who thought I was Melusina.
When I look back on those years of letting a form of body dysmorphic disorder keep me out of the water, I am filled with regret. If I could speak to that young woman, I’d tell her, “Wear that one-piece – or bikini – and take that dip. Life is too short.”