July 21st, 2014 - Dana Delibovi
It was hot. Every July day in Missouri is hot. So hot, I wanted to stay home, with a book, the air-conditioning, the ceiling fan, and my ice-packed metal cup. I wouldn’t get my wish. My 10-year-old twin sons had a swim meet at 4:30 that afternoon. Their team, the Sea Lions, had a meet every summer Monday. This Monday, and through all the summer Mondays for five years before and eight years after, I never missed a single one. But not once did I like it, or what it brought out in me.
I began preparing in the morning. I could start early, because I was lucky enough to be a primitive experiment in remote, at-home work. Before the house awoke, when only a few streaks of apricot light made their way across the floor, I made sure the big, turquoise beach towels were clean. I checked the kids’ backpacks in case a team swimsuit from the last meet hadn’t been rinsed and dried. In the dim kitchen, I put a note on the fridge. It said, “Remember the Sharpie.” I needed one so the kids could write their race numbers on their arms.
I moved from laundry room to living room to hall closet like a sleepwalker. Slow and automatic. Deliberate, as a way to quell the anxiety already rising in me. I heard my kids waking up and moving in their room, playing Pangea games on my late ‘90s clamshell iBook. Why did my husband and I put them on swim team? How could we volunteer for this? We would spend seven hours in the sauna of a Missouri summer night, from 4:30 to 11:30 PM, to watch our children swim a total of 11 minutes each.
I heard my sons laugh and bicker.
“No way, Joe.”
“Dead Nanosaur. My turn.”
“Get the egg, get the egg.”
“Level up.”
“Dang!”
Children say only what is needed and no more. They speak in the moment, because they live in the moment. I didn’t realize it at the time, but I know now: my kids didn’t care at all about the swim meet. They were glad just to go to the club, drink a Dr. Pepper, and hang out on the grass muddied from swimmers’ feet, as a horn of moon rose over the pool and the little lake behind it. To them it was just a summer night of childhood. To me, it was the trauma of achievement, stressful as any SAT I ever took.
My kids’ team, the Sea Lions, had won every meet in the county swim league for 20 years straight. Every single meet. Because team victory was a forgone conclusion, team competition meant nothing. All that was left were two choices: just have fun and not care, as my kids did, or obsess about individual accomplishment, as I did. I picked the side I had been raised to pick by my parents. My mother and father harbored lofty ambitions for me, even though they had few ambitions for themselves. They preferred sitting on the patio drinking beer.
I worked at my job until early afternoon, all the while feeling fidgety about the night. Around 2:30, I closed up my documents. Then I loaded my extra-large, flower-printed tote with sandwiches, sunscreen, clean towels, sweatshirts, and books for me to read. I also put my laptop in there, so I could calm myself, writing poetry in its glow once the sun went down. I packed some ice and drinks in a little cooler. I stowed folding chairs and blankets in the car. My husband would meet us there, after he left work. I was responsible to drive the kids to the meet and set up our camp by the loud hum of the swim club’s cooling system.
We arrived on time—we always did. The late-day sun beat on the parking lot and glinted off car windows and chrome. The kids got their meet cards, listing their events. I handed them the Sharpie, and they tattooed themselves with race numbers. Warm-ups began at 5:00, and so did my efforts at control. I reminded my sons to try to beat their last times on races—“guys, we’re competing against ourselves!” When one of their races came up, I made sure they were ready, then went to the side of the pool to cheer.
Ice blue water splashed in the waning daylight, the froth tipped golden from the sunset. I could have loved the painted sky. I could have loved my family and my good and easy life. But from the starting buzzer to the final touch, I drove my kids with the lash of my mind. Rarely did they win. Always did I feel the most destructive emotion a parent can have: disappointment in a child’s performance. I knew the pain of this, because my parents felt that emotion about me. I hadn’t broken the pattern at all.
The meet finally ended. I was sweaty and exhausted. I’d spent an entire day and night fearful that my kids wouldn’t win or place, even though I knew it wasn’t important, even to them. Anxiety had curdled my face into motherhood’s grimace. Love is repetition. It’s the sandwiches we pack and the mistakes we make, over and over again. My husband and the kids left in his car, goofing around and giggling. Not giving a damn about any of it. I got in my own car, sad that once again, I had sent the message that love is contingent on achievement. That message broke my heart when I was a child. I did not want to pass it on, but I did. I drove home alone in the stale and humid night.
Dana Delibovi is a poet, essayist, and translator. Her forthcoming book of translations and essays—Sweet Hunter: The Complete Poems of St. Teresa of Ávila—is the first translation of Teresa’s poetry by a woman. Delibovi’s essays have appeared in After the Art, The Confluence, Riverside Quarterly, and other journals. She is a Best American Essays 2020 notable essayist and a consulting poetry editor at Cable Street e-zine.