Reflections on the Seventh Week of Spring – Grouchy

YMCA Caring Sign

Tuesday I frog-kicked on the gentle swells in the YMCA pool between two regular lap swimmers. Eva, a former lifeguard who hobbles down the steps then flits through the water like a comely shiner, swam freestyle in the far lane. Beside me in the wide middle section, Mike, a Mennonite, did sidestroke with arms only because he had weak legs after multiple surgeries. And closest to lifeguard Ryan, still wet from teaching preschoolers to swim before we’d arrived, three women marched and swung their arms through the water in the first lane. All of us were models of the signs on the pool wall:

Caring

Show a sincere concern for others

Respect

Follow the golden rule

    Then Jackie arrived.

    Strutting across the tile deck with her chest held high, Jackie wore an insulin pump like a corsage on the neckline of her bathing suit.

    To make room for her, Mike pushed his floating lane rope a foot closer to the exercising women. I pushed mine six inches closer to Eva.

    Jackie pulled on flippers and flutter kicked through the space between Mike and me.

    I kept my shoulder against the rope so I’d poke Eva, not Jackie, while we swam lengths.

    Into this collection of retired folks with sagging bellies and pale white complexions came a new swimmer―a young African American woman with a six foot, Olympic body clad in a teensy purple bikini. Hair knotted in a bun atop her head, she joined the exercising group and twisted her top torso from side to side while she marched―knees higher than a drum major―and expended an inspiring amount of energy. Her splashes joined the swishes of the lap swimmers and the burbles of the fountain circulating pool water.

    Jackie had her lane. All was right in the pool.

    Ten lengths later, waves smacked my sides when a swimmer thrashed passed me.

    Uh-oh. Lane positions had changed.

    I breast stroked to the shallow end and touched the wall in time to hear Jackie.

    “RYAN!” She stood with her back against the wall and her hands on her hips. “Why didn’t you do your job and tell me someone was swimming in my lane.”

    Sheesh. Either Jackie’s blood sugar went haywire again, or she never passed plays-well-with-others in kindergarten.

    The bikini swimmer halted three feet in front of Jackie. “Are there lanes?”

    LeeAnn, my shower buddy who packs a mini pistol in her bra when she hikes alone through park trails, answered from the exercise lane. “There are three lanes in the middle.”

    The woman spread her arms wide. “I moved from Florida yesterday. I didn’t know. Do I have to sign up for a lane?”

    Jackie stepped around the woman and swam away.

    Since I couldn’t put myself in the woman’s shoes―she was bare foot―and I wouldn’t visualize myself in her teensy purple bikini, I made an assumption based on our national climate of unconscious bias and fear of the other. I imagined she figured she’d been challenged for swimming while black.

    “You’re fine.” I stepped closer to the bewildered bikini swimmer. “She’s just grouchy.”

    I called to Eva. “May I share your lane so we can make room over here?”

    “No.” Eva frowned. “You do backstroke.”

    But, I didn’t argue, with my elbows pinned to my ribs and flapping my forearms like a wounded bird when I’m in a crowd.

    Eva turned toward Jackie. “I’d rather swim with Jackie.”

    Jackie veered away from the center and ducked under the rope.

    To give Eva and Jackie more room, I moved the rope a foot before asking the new swimmer, “Why did you move from Florida?”

    She grinned from ear to ear. “I got three great job offers. They were too good to pass up.”

    “Congratulations and welcome to Meadville.” I dove under and frog-kicked toward the deep end.

    Swish. Burble. I’d restored peace for the next five lengths.

    Then Mike left, and Jackie moved back to the middle.

    Heading toward the shallow end, I glimpsed Jackie standing against the wall.

    She talked at the bikini swimmer.

    With my head bobbing in and out of the water for breast stroke, I couldn’t hear her words. Maybe Jackie explained the rules of “swim and let swim as long as Jackie got her lane?”

    The bikini swimmer frowned.

    Maybe not.

    She and I reached the deep end at the same time. Ryan’s toes hung over the edge above her lane. I turned to sidestroke back and heard his firm deep voice. “You have as much right to be here as anyone else.”

   When I reached the shallow end, I pushed the rope back toward Eva to give Jackie extra room.

    The bikini swimmer did four more lengths and left.

    I finished my seventy-four lengths―five sixth of a mile―and headed up the tile stairs to the locker room.

    Jackie’s shouts pierced the hum of the fan and the whoosh of the shower.

    Had Jackie heard me call her “grouchy” so was angry with me again?

    Back in April, she had complained to other swimmers behind my back because I’d stood up for a nervous beginning swimmer who had chatted with me in the locker room.

    Jackie came to the pool ten minutes after us and put her flippers by the end of the far lane where the beginning swimmer gathered her courage for the long lap. “I need that lane. You’ll have to move.”

    The woman gasped.

    “She’s only swimming one lap,” I said.

    “Okay.” Jackie flicked her fingers toward the end of the pool. “Go ahead. I’ll cheer you on.”

    Clutching the side after every other back stroke, the woman inched down the lane.

    Jackie glared. “Your friend is a beginner.”

    “She’s not my friend. I just met her in the locker room.”

    “Well, she shouldn’t be in this lane.” Jackie shook her index finger at me. “It’s for lap swimmers.”

   “She’s swimming a lap, and she was here first.”

    Jackie humphed, dove into the water, and swam past the woman making her cringe, cling to the side, and progress down the lane even slower.

    “Next time you swim with her,” Jackie shouted at me when the woman finished. “It took her twelve minutes to do two lengths.”

    After three days of chatting with Jackie as if we were still swimming buddies, her anger subsided.

    Would she need three days to cool down after this incident with the bikini swimmer?

    LeeAnn hung her swim bag on the hook by the stall next to me. “Boy. Jackie was on a rampage again.”

    “Is she angry at me?” I rubbed a towel against my wet hair.

    “No. She’s angry at Ryan.” LeeAnn slipped out of her suit and rummaged in her bag for soap. “She apologized to Ryan for yelling at him then turned around and shouted to Eva complaining about how Ryan hadn’t done his job.”

    Glad I wasn’t at the hot end of Jackie’s anger, but sorry for Ryan, I toweled my arms dry. “I thought Jackie might have heard me tell the new swimmer Jackie was grouchy. I didn’t want the new woman thinking the incident was racial.”

    “It wasn’t racial.” LeeAnn turned on her shower. “Jackie’s mean to everyone. Someone ought to talk to her. She’s driving away the Y’s customers.”

    Jackie might have driven away the bikini swimmer away too.

    She hasn’t returned―yet.

YMCA Responsibility Sign