works by w.pham

works by william pham, 2005-present

Regarding the Lack of Malevolence in a Swimming Pool

I do not know how to swim, but not for complete lack of trying.

Throughout my childhood, I took lessons at a local sports club several times. I faked my way through the vast majority of it, though I did learn how to float on my back properly. But when it came time to swim laps in a proper swimming lane, in a proper swimming pool, I floundered. I sank, I flailed, I gasped for air and walked on the bottom of the pool to the closest ladder to pull myself out. They allowed me to "pass" the lessons anyway.

I often dream that I can swim. I dream of heated swimming pools, parties with friends whose faces blur together as if I am constantly taking photographs of them, without flash, with an unsteady hand. I dream of plunging into the ocean and swimming forever into the horizon. The waves hold me like a blanket. My sheets are blue, and my comforter is blue, so this all makes sense when I wake up in a cold sweat.

I wake up in a cold sweat because when I was young, after at least two separate rounds of swimming lessons a few years apart, I almost drowned in the swimming pool at my parents' home in Northern California. The swimming pool itself was of impressive construction. Long and rectangular, there was something compelling about its simple form. There was no ladder, or elaborate designs, or shapes. The swimming pool was simply a rectangle cut into the ground and filled with water. On one side of the pool, at the beginning of the deep end, there was a ledge that one could use to pull oneself up and out of the pool. There was also a similar ledge in the corner of the deep end.

Up until that day, I had always played in the shallow end. I floated on my back, or attempted to swim back and forth unsuccessfully. There was always the security of being able to stand upright and catch my breath if I floundered, if I made a mistake, if I began to sink into the water. I relied very often on this security, but it shamed me, even at that age. On the day that I almost drowned, I was seven years old.

It was a warm day. I don't think it was very hot, but my sister wanted to swim, so I went out to the pool with her. She was an excellent swimmer, a natural-born talent. I was jealous of the repetitive lines she drew in the water as she did laps back and forth across the length of the pool. I played a game in the shallow end, seeing how long I could hold my breath before my lungs could no longer bear it. I played this game for an hour, and then my sister told me she was going inside. I told her I would stay in the pool for a while; it was a warm day, after all, and I wasn't tired of my game yet.

Once she was gone, I started trying to swim again. There were no witnesses to my shame. I swam two feet, sank; my mouth filled with water, I dragged myself out of the pool and spit the water out, then tried to swim again. I swam two feet, and sank, and closed my eyes and mouth and stood up and felt the sun on my forehead. I walked through the water to the ledge at the middle of the pool, just on the precipice of where the bottom of the pool dropped into the deep end. I held onto the ledge and wrapped myself in a child's shame like armor, and then I tried to swim in the deep end.

I do not now mistake what motivated me for bravery, but I think that I felt brave. And then I felt water rushing into my mouth as I sank deeper than I had ever been before, and more afraid than I had ever been before. I panicked; I flailed. I closed my eyes and listened to the drone of the water in my ears. And then I opened my eyes and I was lying on my back, on the grass, coughing water. Between the two conscious moments, I had stood on the bottom of the pool and walked from the deep end to the shallow end and pulled myself out of the water. I coughed up more water. My sister came out to check on me, and to bring me a towel. I didn't tell her what happened. I wrapped myself in a child's shame like armor; I wrapped myself in the towel and sat on the diving board in the sun. She went back inside the house.

I looked into the swimming pool, into the deep end, into the waters that had almost killed me, the waters where I had almost killed myself. In the overwhelming blue I saw a ghost. It did not speak to me. It did not apologize, nor did I expect it to apologize. I was young, but I was not spiteful; not yet, at least. I bore no malice toward this swimming pool. It had not pulled me in; it had not seduced me. I went willingly into its depths. I was still ashamed, and so I didn't say anything to the ghost's vague forms dancing in the water under the sunlight. When I think about it now, the gentle shapes in the water are not so far removed in my memory from that of the ghost of my grandmother.

I don't think the swimming pool's ghost showed itself to me for any reason other than to say, "Hello, I am here." And, in a way, I was proving my existence as well. Not to the ghost, but to myself: here I am, drowning or almost drowning, but now I am alive and I still do not know how to swim.

I remain wrapped in a child's shame, like armor. It feels like a wet towel.