How to enjoy a swimming pool - by Andrew Wu

In middle school, during mandatory sports periods, we cycled through different sports every few weeks—soccer, football, wrestling, and my nemesis, swimming. I couldn’t stand being barefoot. I didn’t trust the locker room floor, or the shower floor, or the poolside floor. The tiles bore dark spots, spots I was sure would cling to me and spread and smudge all over my feet. The malignant little puddles everywhere, to be tracked and avoided; the locker room odor, amplified by the humidity, chlorine intermingled with the bodily fluids of packed-in teenagers; their eyes, roaming and judging (or so I believed) my body for weakness; the tone of their voices, casual, joking, at odds with my internal distress, so totalizing it was all I could perceive—I hated everything about swimming but the exercise itself, which I deemed acceptable. A bit of water feels dirty; being covered in water washes it all away. And in the pool, there was no more talking, and all we could see, beyond swim trunks, was f

In middle school, during mandatory sports periods, we cycled through different sports every few weeks—soccer, football, wrestling, and my nemesis, swimming. I couldn’t stand being barefoot. I didn’t trust the locker room floor, or the shower floor, or the poolside floor. The tiles bore dark spots, spots I was sure would cling to me and spread and smudge all over my feet. The malignant little puddles everywhere, to be tracked and avoided; the locker room odor, amplified by the humidity, chlorine intermingled with the bodily fluids of packed-in teenagers; their eyes, roaming and judging (or so I