We all begin in water, don’t we? Floating inside the womb. I don’t have a specific first water memory, but if I did it might relate to this photo. Here I am in 1981, at age 3, preparing the paddling pool for an open water experience:
I learned to swim (or at least, stay afloat) in an indoor pool and was taught by my parents, and figured some of it out for myself too. I don’t remember formal swim lessons existing, except at school with the teacher barking orders. We had a ‘solar heated’ outdoor pool at primary school. Each year in the summer we were forced into the waist-deep, concrete rectangle that smelled vaguely of chlorine and urine. We would hop around, our arms wrapped tightly around ourselves in a futile attempt to retain body heat, exclaiming ‘It’s warm! It’s warm!’ as if positive affirmations could do the trick.
School swimming was about racing, and I was neither fast nor coordinated so shrugged off swimming as not my thing. However, being in water isn’t just about swimming, is it? It’s also about cooling off, being in new places, spending time with loved ones, holidays.
When I lived in Berlin in my early 20s, the place to go for swimming was Krumme Lanke, a lake about 20 minutes south-west by train from the city centre (in what used to be West Berlin). The water was dark and very deep; there were rumours an old German Luftwaffe plane was resting in peace at the bottom. Formerly the site of wartime SS headquarters, parts of the lakeside were crowded with German naturists enjoying the European summer. After swimming, we bought hot Pommes mit Mayo (chips with mayonnaise) from a nearby kiosk, and then caught the S-Bahn train home, damp and happy.
Krumme Lanke (photo: Umweltkalender Berlin)
The most picturesque swim of my life (so far) was probably in Lake Bled, Slovenia in 2004. Northern hemisphere summer, clear water. Slovenia, formerly part of Yugoslavia, had only just joined the EU and so there were not many tourists. A hill with an old castle overlooked the lake in the little town of Bled, and in the middle of the water was a tiny islet containing only a church with a bell (I rang the bell later in the day after we rowed across the lake, tugging on the heavy rope to sound the chimes ringing over the water). I still have a small painting of the lake and chapel in my bedroom as a souvenir from that holiday.
The chapel at Lake Bled.
In 2007 I visited Laos, a small, landlocked and peaceful country of mountains and forests. One day we travelled by boat up the Nam Khan river to the Sat Tae waterfalls just outside of Luang Prabang. My few photos from that time show a hazy landscape and look a bit surreal. After visiting sweltering Cambodia and the horror of the Killing Fields in Phnom Penh, Laos felt like another world: heavy monsoons, delicious larb, chanting Buddhist monks.
Laos, 2007.
These days I can watch my kids enjoying the water, although I can’t say they’ve caught the cold-swimming bug! Still, I was 43 when that happened, so there’s no rush.
What are some of your favourite swimming memories?