Kids at a pool: it's the epitome of fantastic wretchedness.
They swim and dunk and dive and flop unattended and fully entertained and working up to an excellent exhaustion. The sunscreen melts off the minute it's applied, but their bodies are submerged, so: only shoulders get burnt, maybe noses. They paddle and flop and hunt quarters at depths taller than they are. They coordinate games named "Baby Dolphins." They get drenched and pickled and giddy all at once.
But the goggles are too tight or too loose or worse than her brother's. The towel is too soggy but worthy of a battle, a whippingatyou, smackingatyou battle. The sister's belly flop is half-assed and "mine will be better and hurt more than hers" and WATCH ME WATCH ME WATCH ME will echo across the chlorine, over the deck chairs, past my magazine, and straight into my face. Straight into my face over and over and over: WATCH MEEEEEEE!
I explain that I have but two eyes and even if one goes one way and the other another, I still cannot see Three Short Drunk People do Amazing Short Drunk People Tricks in the pool. So I say -- "you first" and "your turn now" and "hold on! hold up! do it again: I am watching."
Watching what? Nothing really. A kid holding her breath for as long as little lungs can, a wobbly hand-stand where points are counted for pointed toes, a boy and his butt-crack attempting a cannon ball. Watch me! they shout.
What they mean to say is: See me! SEE. ME.
I struggle to get through a page of the New York Post, which is pathetically impossible. I am commanded to WATCH ME every four to seven seconds but I realize something as I do as told, as I bear witness to nothing and everything: little changes with age. That impulse to be seen? It clings to the body like salt water or chemicals. It holds on past childhood.
New jeans, fresh paint, shiny car, a sleek tattoo: we dive in, we jack-knife, we swim the fastest, we make waves, we sink to the bottom, we do a dead mans float, we make up games and break the rules, we hunt for money at some depth deeper than we should, we float and drift to the stairs.
See Me! we say. We say it sometimes without speaking. We say it to people we love and to strangers and to passers-by. We are all sometimes just kids at a pool, fantastically wretched and soaked and half-naked.
Watch me.
20commentsBrilliant Person Wrote...
Wow...this post made me tear up a bit. Those kids of ours do just want us to SEE them. And your post reminded me that I need to soak up every moment and really SEE them-time moves so fast!
I loved this.
Yes, it's true. We go on and on just trying to be seen.
"We say it sometimes without speaking. We say it to people we love and to strangers and to passers-by. We are all sometimes just kids at a pool, fantastically wretched and soaked and half-naked.
Watch me."
Your writing is GOOD. Maybe blogging is a way for our gifts to be seen. And I think that's good. You have a gift.
I see you. And I heart you. And your writing. '
Brilliant.
Oh, I just love this post. It is the perfect splash of water to convince me to wade in further.
Good for you and good for them. Thank you for sharing with all of us.
This post is brilliant. I very much quite think you are, too.
What I like about this post - or maybe what scares me a bit, too - is that I took it inward and thought about how often in life I've done all that I could to ensure people didn't really see me even though I was right there, out in the open.
But I get it. I see it in my kids, too. There's a pang in my gut wondering when or why some of us give up that feeling or desire to be watched, because I watch these young ones of mine and, really, it looks blissful.
And what is a blog but an adult version of "WATCH ME!"
Man Ms. P you can write. That was lovely.
Yesssss. That was great stuff. Thanks for that.
Yes, very lovely. Got me thinking how being newly single I'm kind of in that "Watch Me" mode again.
Hey, great to party with you at Blogher. Let's do NYC.
You've been seen. And heard. Bravo.
Aw, Picket. You go straight for the heart. Brilliant post.
Damn, I can't even get mine to get his hair wet.
Very true. Leave it to you to get a deeper meaning from an afternoon at the pool!
I love you for that incredible post. I hate you for the guilt you made me feel for reading and drinking at the pool while ignoring my kids.
I am waking up my children Right Now and squeezing them tight. I hope you are happy.
This made me think of how a room full of preschoolers will announce that they CAN sing and CAN run and CAN count and CAN read. By the time of what? Second grade there are not so many announcements of what we CAN do because all of that competetive crap has come into play.
One thing I like about myself? I'm 43 and CAN sing and CAN run and CAN count and CAN read. Am I the best at any of it? No. But can I do it and am I proud of it? Absolutely.
Yep, you can write. Great post.
This post is beyond my vocabulary to describe, since the words I do have have already been used. Brilliant. Amazing. Touching. Lovely. Great. I'm cut and pasting it and putting it with in my favorite blog post file, of which there's at least one more of yours already there. Thank you for writing. (And I can't wait to get yours and Carolyn's book!)
Well said, Ms. Picket, well said. My 20's weren't that much different than childhood, really. It was all about being seen. These days, not so much, but now and again.
wow. just...wow. This is why I read blogs.
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