Shapton - Swimming Studies

A LSO BY L EANNE S HAPTON

The Native Trees of Canada

Important Artifacts and Personal Property from the Collection of Lenore Doolan and Harold Morris, Including Books, Street Fashion, and Jewelry

Was She Pretty?

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Published by the Penguin Group

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Copyright 2012 by Leanne Shapton

Photographs in Size copyright 2012 by Michael Schmelling

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the authors rights. Purchase only authorized editions. Published simultaneously in Canada

Swimming Studies originally appeared on nytimes.com, as did portions of Derek and Night Kitchen, the latter two in pieces originally titled In the Night Kitchen and Raiders of the Night Kitchen.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Shapton, Leanne.

Swimming studies / Leanne Shapton.

p. cm.

ISBN 978-0-399-15817-9

1. Shapton, Leanne. 2. Women swimmersCanadaBiography. I. Title.

GV838.S47A3 2012 2012011506

797.21092dc23

[B]

Some personal names and identifying details have been changed.

Penguin is committed to publishing works of quality and integrity.

In that spirit, we are proud to offer this book to our readers; however, the story, the experiences, and the words are the authors alone.

To Mom, Dad, and Derek

CONTENTS

WATER

Water is elemental, its what were made of, what we cant live within or without. Trying to define what swimming means to me is like looking at a shell sitting in a few feet of clear, still water. There it is, in sharp focus, but once I reach for it, breaking the surface, the ripples refract the shell. It becomes five shells, twenty-five shells, some smaller, some larger, and I blindly feel for what I saw perfectly before trying to grasp it.

QUITTING

Say Im swimming with people, in the ocean, a pool, or a lake, and one of them knows about my history as a swimmer, and remarks to the others, Leannes an Olympic swimmer. Ill protest: No, no, I only went as far as the Olympic trialsI didnt go to the Olympics. But the boast bobs up like a balloon, bright and curious to some, wistful and exposed to me.

When pressed, it is usually enough to say I went to the 1988 and 1992 Canadian Olympic trials. That nationally, I was ranked eighth once, briefly. I explain that to go to the Olympics you have to finish first or second at the trials. This is where the conversations end. After paddling around we wade into the shallows or hoist ourselves up onto the boat or the dock, and the conversation turns toward food, or gossip.

I dont have vivid memories of the Olympic trials, or of winning medals; I barely remember quitting the first time, in 1989, or how I told Mitch, my coach. It would have probably been at an evening practice. On the deck, after, when the other swimmers had gone to change. I would have been standing there in my suit with my duffel bag and towel. He would have said something like Whats up? And then I would have said it. Said my family was moving to the countryside, said I did not want to live with another family in order to trainso, I said, I had decided to quit.

I might have done it while icing my knees. Freestylers, backstrokers, and butterflyers usually have shoulder problems, but most breaststrokers have knee problems, advised to ice regularly and take eight aspirin a day. After workouts and races, I would sit in the bleachers with a styrofoam cup of frozen water, rolling the flat ice against the insides of my knees until they turned bright pink and lost all feeling. Id peel the cup back from the edges so it wouldnt squeak against the numb skin. The ice would become slick, contouring as it melted.

But I dont remember talking to him. I do remember talking to Dawn, the assistant coach, the next morning. Mitch wasnt on deck. We sat in two plastic folding chairs by the side of the pool, watching the team practice. Dawn told me Mitch was angry. She asked me what I was going to do. I think I said take up piano and study art, knowing she wouldnt get it. Knowing maybe even I didnt get it. I remember looking out at the swimmers in the lanes, heading into the hard main set, and thinking: Ive crossed the line. I dont have to do that anymore. I remember sitting there and feeling relieved.

Mitch once told me: Youre going to be great. Then Dawn told me: Mitch doesnt want to talk to you.

When youre a swimmer, coaches stand above you, over you. You look up to them, are vulnerable, naked and wet in front of them. Coaches see you weak, they weaken you, they have your trust, you do what they say. The relationship is guardian, father, mother, boss, mentor, jailer, doctor, shrink, and teacher. My heart broke.

My grandfather was a bomber pilot in the Second World War. Though he lived into his late eighties, hes frozen in my mind as the young man in a photo, wearing a flight suit and goggles, grinning next to a B-25 Mitchell. The image that comes to mind when I think of my mother is a snapshot of her, taken around 1983, sitting on her bed dressed in work clothes: silk shirt, trousers, long necklace, smiling. If I think of my dad, hes in our dining room, clapping and singing along to The Gambler by Kenny Rogers. The default image I have of myself is a photo: me, ten, standing next to the ladder at Cawthra Park pool in a blue bathing suit, knees clenched, trying to catch my breath.

Ive defined myself, privately and abstractly, by my brief, intense years as an athlete, a swimmer. I practiced five or six hours a day, six days a week, eating and sleeping as much as possible in between. Weekends were spent either training or competing. I wasnt the best; I was relatively fast. I trained, ate, traveled, and showered with the best in the country, but wasnt the best; I was pretty good.

I liked how hard swimming at that level wasthat I could do something difficult and unusual. Liked knowing my discipline would be recognized, respected, that I might not be able to say the right things or fit in, but I could do something well. I wanted to believe that I was talented; being fast was proof. Though I loved racing, the idea of fastest, of number one, of the Olympics, didnt motivate me.