Black Line

It’s quiet here, my own breath the only sound. I stare straight ahead, loosely tracking along the black line, mind wandering blissfully in the near-silence. My body moves rhythmically, the motion second-nature. When I reach the “T” that signals the end of the line, I flip.

Feet planted on the wall, knees bent, I push off. The glide is a fleeting pause for my arms and legs, the momentum carrying me. I savor the brief relief. I’ve been swimming fast. I only have 40 minutes today, leaving just enough time to shower off the chlorine before sitting in traffic to pick up Maverick from preschool.

It’ll be a quick turnaround. He has swim lessons at 5.

I count to 5: left arm, right arm, left, right, left. Turn over. Flip. Push. Pull down. Frog kick. Sprint.

I’m on the fifth lap of the 200 IM (Individual Medley). By the time I’ve reached this point in the race, I can’t seem to get enough air in my lungs. My arms and legs, now imitating a frog, have lost their oxygen from the effort. I’ve been begging my coach, since sophomore year, to let me swim the 50 and 100 Freestyle—I love to sprint. But I’m good at the 200 IM, he tells me, so even if I hate it, I’m stuck with the race until I graduate.

The perk of the IM—the only one—is that on this lap, the first of breaststroke, I can see my friends cheering wildly for me at the end of my lane. My smile is growing, I can feel it, the closer I get to the wall for my next turn. They smile back, giggling at me, getting louder now. When my hands touch the wall, Veronica and Joelle are leaning down toward the water, screaming at me to swim even faster.

For the past six weeks, I’ve barely been able to walk, and never without pain. It’s making me cranky. I’m sad, too. The pain is unbearable. Not being able to move my body, to release stress through exercise, is my waking nightmare.

I needed to get out of the apartment, so my husband Jake drove my son Maverick and me to Mom and Dad’s for the weekend. They have a pool in their backyard, so I ordered a swimsuit that will fit around my soft, postpartum body. Mom prepared, too: the jacuzzi is heated to a comfy 97 degrees, our favorite snacks are in the fridge, and an infant raft is floating in the water.

Today is a big day.

It will be Mav’s first time in the pool.

I lower myself, carefully, into the jacuzzi, and Jake follows me in, carrying Maverick. My six-week-old immediately relaxes, his tongue sticking out, just slightly, in contentment. We try nestling him into the blue-and-green raft, and he loves it. Unsurprising, an obsession with the water being passed down from both sides.

When it’s time to get out and shift toward a nap, I ask Jake if he can hold Maverick for a minute. I just want to try something.

The pool is chilly, but I grit my teeth and lower myself into it. I glide over to the wall, take a breath, and push off. My arms and legs know what to do. It only takes three strokes to reach the other side of the pool. When my right hand glides into the wall, I lift my head up, beaming. My mom and Jake are beaming, too.

I can swim.

Without pain.

I ask if they can hold Mav for just a couple of minutes, and then I go back and forth, back and forth, in short laps across the pool, relishing the feeling of my body in motion.

Take your mark. Fourteen years later, the announcer sounds exactly the same. The horn blasts, and the high schoolers dive off the blocks, some gracefully, some still on their way. I smirk with nostalgia. How many times was I standing on a block just like those ones, heart beating quickly at the announcer’s voice, adrenaline propelling me into the water at the sound of the horn?

But today, from my awkward place swimming laps in the shallow end of the Allied Gardens public pool, it’s the parents who catch my eye. They’ve been trickling onto the deck throughout my afternoon workout, taking seats in the bleachers, now nearly full.

I notice the moms.

Some are dressed in pantsuits, coming from an office, I presume. Others look ready for a photoshoot with their fitted floral tops, curled hair, lips puffed with filler. Some look like older versions of me, wearing yoga pants they’ve probably been in all day, baseball hats hugging messy ponytails. All these different moms, doing the thing we do better than anyone else: cheering on our kids.

This stage of motherhood—the sitting and watching your kids from a distance—feels like a foreign concept to me. There’s no sitting with a toddler, at least not with my toddler, unless I’m peeing. But even then, he follows me into the bathroom to tell me about his koala. If I try to let him enjoy some independent play so I can complete a small task, he constantly shouts: look, mom, look! Mom! Look! MOM! LOOK!

Before I know it, I’ll be the one sitting in the bleachers, watching my son dive off a block or hit a baseball or launch terrifyingly high off a bike jump. He probably won’t be shouting “look, Mom!” then, but maybe, if I’m lucky, his brown eyes will still find me in the stands to see if I’m watching.

This story was originally published on Substack. To be the first to receive Rylie’s newsletter, you can sign up here.