Survival Skills
The friend I’m in the most constant communication with lives more than 2,000 miles away from me. Anna is on the coast of California and I haven’t seen her in a year and a half, but whether it’s just the mesh of our personalities or that we both have part-time work schedules and do a fair amount of solo parenting due to our husbands’ jobs, we text daily, sometimes keeping up a fairly steady stream of conversation for the better part of our waking hours. From “did you read?” commentary on the day’s news to suggestions for Netflix watches or commiseration over making dinner on a Thursday, her presence—digital rather than physical notwithstanding—has buoyed me through multiple stints of my husband’s work travel.
A couple of weeks ago, the day’s text exchange started with climate change data. Anna sent me a projection by an environmental research group that said parts of California would be underwater by 2040 due to rising ocean levels.
“Aside from never buying property on the ocean side of the 101, it looks like the kids’ swimming lessons might be the best investment I can make,” she joked.
***
My daughter passed the swimming test at the Y this summer. The full length of the pool—50 meters; her arms coming up out of the water in, if not a graceful arc, at least a passable one.
Ellie has been in swimming lessons since she could walk. She’s never been afraid of the water—or anything, really—and after she jumped in the pool twice at 12 months old when I wasn’t looking, I decided my only option was to make sure her abilities matched her bravery. Now that she’s five, she swims reasonably well, especially for her age. Her brother was seven when he passed the same test.
It wasn’t busy at the pool that day, and it seemed like everyone was cheering for Ellie as she approached the end. As soon as her hand touched the side, I bent down and scooped her up in a hug, chanting “you did it!” The teenage lifeguard cleared his throat.
“Uh, ma’am, I have to see her climb out on her own for her to pass.”
I dropped Ellie back in the water and watched her push her torso onto the sun-warmed concrete and bring first one knee and then the other out of the pool. The lifeguard smiled, conditions satisfied.
But as Ellie ran off with her new green wristband to go down the slides with her big cousins, I never took my eyes off her. I knew she could swim. I’d paid hundreds of dollars to ensure that she could, in fact, and she’d just passed a test confirming it.
But what if the water became choppy from too much splashing, and she couldn’t get her head up high enough? Or some bigger kid might push her under; she was by far the smallest independent swimmer in the deep end. I hadn’t told her what to do if that happened. I’d been so busy making sure she learned how to swim that I didn’t think to warn her about what to do if someone else interfered. There was so much I had forgotten to say. With a mouthful of cautions and worst-case scenarios floating in my mind, my eyes never left her as she moved through the water.
***
I can’t remember if it was the same day as the climate change conversation or a different one—the days blur together sometimes—but Anna and I were texting about another #MeToo story that hit the news cycle.
“Did I ever tell you about the guy who fondled me in a Minneapolis crosswalk in broad daylight?” Anna asked. She was crossing the street with her family, her three-year-old daughter on her back, when a man reached out and grabbed her breast as he passed in the opposite direction.
“I was 22 in a bar at closing time when it happened to me,” I responded. We’d taken a friend’s keys so he wouldn’t drive home. I’d stashed them in my back pocket, but he drunkenly plunged a hand down the front of my shirt looking for them. I wasn’t wearing a bra that night.
“The infuriating thing is, every woman I know has a story like ours,” Anna said.
“Right? And the devastating part is, so will our daughters.”
Our stories made us angry, but it wasn’t the kind of anger that dissipates because it’s shared. It was more like the sea waters churned up by a distant storm. We felt strengthened and destructive because of it. We wanted to rise up and lash something with our fury; our collective strength should be able to change the landscape.
Except our tidal wave of fury meets solid rock, and it is unmoved.
And then I asked a question neither of us could answer.
“How do we tell them?”
***
As I walk through the parking lot of my suburban grocery store, I am fully aware of my surroundings. I scan for suspicious behavior, my keys gripped in my hand. Even at 2 p.m. on a Tuesday, in broad daylight, my safety is never not a conscious thought. Every woman knows how to walk to the car this way.
When will I teach my daughter that this is how you walk to your car alone? And also, try not to walk to your car alone.
I am solo-parenting this week. My husband is out of town for work again; the 12th time in 14 weeks. Before he left, I had a small scare—nothing serious, a doorknob that rattled at 11 p.m., but it wasn’t Jon coming home from a friend’s like I thought. No one tried to come in and the police found nothing suspicious when they responded to my call two minutes later and searched the area, but the whole experience left me, well, rattled.
Jon ordered and installed an alarm system within days. Meanwhile, I Googled what to do in a home invasion when you have two kids, because this is my worry. There is one of me and two of them; how do I save them both? I settle on getting Nathan first, and hustling him into Ellie’s room where we can shove her dresser in front of the bedroom door and climb out her window.
Tonight, the alarm has been set since 8:30 p.m., and I double-check the locks before I go to bed. I consider putting the fob with the panic button next to my bed.
It’s a funny name, isn’t it? Panic seems like it should come with something more like a hammer.
***
I’d like to think my children will inherit a vastly different world than I live in. One that is safer and more just, because that’s what they deserve.
But how do I go about changing the world? And, should I fail, how do I explain to them that this is the world we’re handing them?
Welcome to our humble abode. Apologies for the mess.
***
On the way home from the Y after Ellie passed the swimming test, my children’s wet bodies swathed in towels as they munched handfuls of Goldfish, we drove past the building where they take swimming lessons.
“Hey Els, I’m going to sign you up for swimming lessons again this winter,” I said, casting a glance out my window.
“But why, Mom? I passed the test today.”
“I know babe, but I’d feel better if you had another round of lessons,” I answered. “I want to make sure you’re strong enough for anything that might happen.”
“Moooooooooom. What’s going to happen?” she asked.
I didn’t answer, because I didn’t know. The possibilities were endless and nameless, and again I thought how ill-equipped I am to keep her safe. I felt a wave of anger rise up in me once more.
When you watch an unsettled ocean pound mercilessly against the shoreline, it looks like nothing changes. The water froths and crashes, but the rocks seem unscathed.
Given enough time though, the ocean’s surge will reshape the rocks.
Given enough time, the water always wins.
In the meantime, I remembered Anna’s words.
It looks like the kids’ swimming lessons might be the best investment I can make.
I gripped the wheel tighter in response to the fear I couldn’t name, and lightly touched the accelerator as we moved toward home.
Photo by Lottie Caiella