by Carol Blatter

I’ve never been a real swimmer. Not even an imitator. But I’m not a total non-swimmer, either. I admire those who swim laps across the pool with ease and grace. My contact with water is usually reserved for the shower. No, no baths, only showers. It’s hard to get clean in a bathtub, although it is more fun splashing around; it’s not possible in the shower.

*

It was the summer of 1951. I was nine, and it was my first year at sleep-away camp. I had to swim here. All campers had to participate. I recall a swim counselor teaching me to float on my back; I succeeded at that. I remember something called “dead man’s float.” I doubt I did it because it meant keeping my face in the water. Something I was fearful of. Then there was the crawl stroke. I never succeeded with the breathing, so after a few primitive strokes I was breathless.

In camp, we had to jump off the diving board into deep water and swim to the side of the pool to earn a beginner’s Red Cross card. No way would I jump off the board. I refused. I was scared. I saw the others taking their turns, diving off the board, splashing as they hit the water, coming up, then swimming to the side of the pool. They collected their cards. They were brave. I wasn’t. I was never a risk-taker in anything physical. Timidity best described me.

Then something unexpected happened. A surprise. Maybe a minor miracle. During another summer at camp, I was given a beginner’s Red Cross card. How did this happen? I never knew. Perhaps it was an error, but I was so proud, even if it was undeserved. After being a camper for several seasons, maybe the swim counselors thought I needed encouragement and bent the rules.

*

Just thinking about putting on a bathing suit on my eighty-three old body with all its wrinkles, sagging breasts, and crinkling, crepey skin, and showing my oversized protruding thighs and chunky calves makes me want to hide. But I wonder, who will see me anyway? Most of my neighbors are like me, women in our older years. Many of us have adult children, and many are grandmothers. Their bodies probably look like mine. Except for my height. I’ve lost inches due to fractured spinal vertebrae. Sadly, some self-consciousness has revisited me at my advanced age. I’m very short. And with a slight spinal curvature, it’s painful to stand up straight.

Luckily, I’m not that Jr HS teen they made fun of who called me “fat legs.” Shameful and humiliating memories are hard to let go of. I’m not a young single woman eager for dates and a mate, and many years have passed since I experienced obsessive worry about my attractiveness. But— I still want to look my best. Even at age eighty-three, personal attractiveness still has a place in my life. And why not?

*

Maybe the last time I was in the pool was twenty-six years ago, when we moved from Indianapolis to Tucson, in the Sonoran Desert. I was a young fifty-eight then, and we, my husband and I, tried out our subdivision’s pool, sending several splashes as we started to swim. Well, he was a seriously skilled swimmer, not me; effortlessly, he swam laps. I just floated on my back. That’s when I saw the bluest sky, felt the sunniest sun’s rays that I can ever remember from other places where we had lived, mainly on the northeast coast and in the Midwest, and was amazed at the sight of the spectacular Catalina Mountains in the background. Nature overtook me. I never improved my swimming, but I was hooked on all the beauty here in the Sonoran Desert. Cacti of every variety. Especially the tall, stately, and erect Saguaro cactus with numerous arms greeting observers. Trees, like the state tree, the Palo Verde with its green trunk, and the Mesquite tree. Orange Mexican poppy flowers. And birds, road runners, doves, and quails, as well as rabbits, coyotes, and bobcats, abound. The memories linger. I still remember floating on my back and seeing all the beauty we are gifted with here in this unique place.

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Walking through the Sonoran Desert is my exercise of choice. Swimming is not. I won’t make a splash! Not even a ripple!

© 2026 Carol J. Wechsler Blatter

Carol J. Wechsler Blatter has contributed writings to The Gift of Long Life Personal Stories on the Aging Experience 2024 Birren Center Collection, Chaleur Press, Story Circle Network Journal, Story Circle Network Anthologies, Writing it Real anthologies, Jewish Literary Journal, Jewish Writing Project, New Millennium Writings, 101words.org, and poems to Story Circle Network’s Real Women Write and Covenant of the Generations by Women of Reform Judaism. She is a wife, mother, and a very proud grandmother, and a recently retired psychotherapist in private practice.