The State Swim Meet

This weekend N and I are going to Austin to meet some of our great friends, Hope and Chris, and Hope and I will attend the UIL State Swimming and Diving Championships. I am looking forward to going because Kingwood High School, my alma mater, always does well, and I love to watch competitive swimming. Anyway, the last time I went to the State Championships was two years ago, and I was deep in the midst of writing my dissertation. I thought you might like to read a little bit of it about that experience. I know this time it will probably be different and yet much the same. I'm glad Hope will be there to share it with me.

The State Meet

My husband Nathan and I went to the UIL 5A State Swim meet in Austin, Texas, during a weekend in February, a couple of months after the miscarriage, to get away from our sadness. I wanted to see if I could connect with that part of my life, if I could feel the same excitement of my youth, cheering for someone racing fast into the wall. On the way to the swim meet, my husband asked me how long I wanted to stay (he was looking forward to going to the UT basketball game against Kansas that night). I said a couple of hours, and that I was sure I would be ready to leave. I was excited about seeing the Kingwood team and knew that there was a good chance that my old coaches would be there. I wanted to find the rest of the parents and supporters in navy and white, our school colors. However, most of the seats at the Jamail Natatorium were filled long before the doors opened, and there were no open seats in the Kingwood section. Nathan thought it would be important to see the end of each race (the fingers actually hitting the touch pad at the end of the lane), so we sat at the top of the middle section next to some rival Houston Cy-Fair fans, whom I immediately disliked. I felt a surge of protectiveness towards the Kingwood swimmers and their families, as if I still belonged in their clique, and cheered quietly, although inside I was ecstatic whenever a Kingwood swimmer took a medal. The chlorine stank and the air was warm and muggy. It felt like home.
Popular rap music played loudly as we found our seats, and the lanes were full in all three pools (the 50-meter pool was divided into three 25-yard pools). The competitors swam in concentric circles, one almost on top of the other, and looking down on it from such a great height made me a little dizzy. I immediately felt a tightening in my chest, a pull towards the water as if a rope connected me down there. I felt nostalgia but also a very present sense of excitement, as if I were one of them and would be swimming a race in a couple of hours.

After we squashed ourselves into our white plastic chairs, I looked through the program to see where Kingwood’s swimmers were seeded. How they had swam in the semifinals would automatically place them in their lanes for the final race – in descending order – lane 4 being the fastest, followed by 5, 3, 6, 2, 7, 1, and 8 being the slowest-seeded time). For each race there was a consolation heat and a final heat. I went through my program in excitement, checking all of the names and looking for pool records set by the Kingwood team in the past. At the top of the page, where the records were listed, I saw many names I recognized – Olympic gold medalist Natalie Coughlin from California, Dana Vollmer from Granbury, Texas, and even a Janet Evans record from the 1980s still stood in the 500 and 1500 free. I also found that the 200 free in the Boys section was still unbroken from 1993, during my years at Kingwood. I remembered those boys, their bodies lean and tan and smooth. One of them committed suicide a couple of years ago. With that recollection, I suddenly felt like an impostor. I had never made it. I was never good enough to swim with the elite. I had gone to the State Meet in 1994, and it was the last thing I ever did in my swimming career, but the fact remained that I hadn’t qualified. I just rode the bus with the team. My 200 free time was close but not good enough. I swam the best 200 free of my career at the Regional meet at Humble High School, a 2:12. These swimmers were all qualifying in under two minutes. Not much had changed.

I looked down and saw my old coach, Lanny Landtroop, in the stands. I wanted to go talk to him, but I felt fat and insecure. What would I say to him? Would he remember me? I didn’t want to go. I didn’t want him to recognize me. He looked older; instead of a flat top of white blond hair, he was bald. His hands looked exactly the same, though – thick and white, with deep creases in the knuckles. I remembered his hands. I could imagine his feet, the light hairs crowning his toes. I felt nauseous. I had to get out of there.

On my way to the bathroom, I saw a girl I recognized from high school who swam on the Kingwood team with me. I remembered her name immediately -- Tanya. She was standing with a bunch of high school swimmers under the stairs. Maybe she was a coach. She looked exactly the same, too: permed hair, glasses, even the shape of her thighs – like Vienna sausages. I wondered if I looked very much the same, too. I felt a lot older. I wanted to be. Since we used to get ready for school in the locker room, I remembered that we used to make fun of her. I felt like I was back in high school again. I was old and then young, aging again and again. I remembered posing for our Varsity team picture my junior year. We wore men’s dress shirts and ties over our Speedos, creating three rows of magician’s assistants, smiling strangely and cut in half.
As I reminisced, I watched the bodies on deck as much as the swimming. I yearned to feel in shape again, to take the strength of my body for granted. These are the images that stay with me: a girl whipping her arms back and forth, shoulder blades swinging like a seesaw. A boy in a Speedo and white cap hunched over an I-Pod. Four girls with wet hair on a podium, smiling into the flash of light.