It’s Friday night. Friday nights have a different rhythm, a different atmosphere, depending on the time of year. This is summer, so Friday night means pasta dinner at the pool pavilion, followed by pool set-up for tomorrow’s meet, followed by TV time on the couch with the kids. An early bedtime tonight for an early warm-up tomorrow morning; a pool filled with sleepy swimmers at 7:30 AM.
It’s very green here now. We had six months of winter, a few weeks of chilly spring, barely warmed by thin pale yellow sunlight, and now lush overripe warmth—things growing on almost every surface, black mottling on the pavement that might be dirt or might be mold. Nothing in the swampy close-in suburbs of Washington D.C. will be really dry again until October.
Our neighborhood is filled with monster trees, 50 or more years old, 30 or more feet tall. A sheltering, cooling canopy that could end up crushing your house--thunderstorms here are Old Testament. We belong to one of the mid-20th century swim and tennis clubs that are hidden in neighborhoods throughout D.C., Maryland, and Virginia. I picture myself sometimes, old and alone, clinging to dim memories of a distant and happy oasis: smiling neighbors, striped deck chairs, blue water sparkling with sunlight, ceiling fans spinning lazily in the redwood pavilion. When I’m tired of my slightly down-at-the heels Levitt neighborhood, it’s the pool that keeps me away from the real-estate listings.
Summer just started, really, and I’m already worried about losing it. Fleeting isn’t the word. A blink and it’s over. How not to waste it, how not to lose it, how not to worry about the regret I’ll feel at the end of August, barely two months from now. We should have eaten more popsicles, should have gone to the Air and Space museum, should have chased fireflies.
I live in the moment. It's just the wrong moment.
The lane ropes are in place and the backstroke flags are strung across the pool, where we hope they’ll stay (a thunderstorm threatens, as usual.) The sun will be in my eyes tomorrow as I try to look serious in my blue and white stroke-and-turn judge uniform. The meet will be over, a blink, and I’ll know that there are only a few left, even though the season is just starting. I miss it already.
