Webbed Feet Fantasies

Minnie decided to bestow the glorious name Ducky on me a couple of years back because of my deep affection for water and because of its unconditional acceptance of me. I love to be in the water, under the water, on the water, around the water. Clean water is nice, but not required. Deeper water is preferred, but even a puddle or a little drizzle will do in a crunch. Ocean, lake, stream, pool, bathtub, it does not matter so long as it is wet. There is nothing that tastes better than a cold glass of water when I am thirsty. There are few things that sound as pleasant as water bubbling from a spring, or as exhilarating as water rushing down a creek or over a fall. Water refreshes me, it nourishes my body and my soul, it soothes me when I am stressed and it provides the opportunity for excitement when I feel adventurous. There are simply not enough good things to say about water.

I do not remember a time when I could not swim. I must have learned at a young age, though I have no memory of actually being taught. Given the rugged and spirited nature of my ancestry it is quite possible that I was simply thrown into a body of water and told to make do, a possibility that could explain why I have no memory of the occasion. What I do know for certain is that I was a fairly proficient swimmer by the time I was five or six years old. I know this to be true because that was the age at which my loving grandfather attempted to drown me, my first conscious face to face encounter with death.

My grandparents had taken a number of us grandchildren to Lake Meredith in the Texas Panhandle to camp and fish for a week or so. It had become a sort of family tradition for my grandfather to tie four or five intertubes together in a long train behind his fishing boat, then drag us screaming and sunburned grandchildren around the lake at incredible speeds until we begged him to stop. At some point during one of my grandfather's wild rides I became stuck underneath my intertube. Every time that I was able to pop above the water I screamed at my grandfather to "SLOOWWW DOOWWWN," to which he sped up, seemingly out of some sadistic grandfatherly pleasure, though more likely in order to force me to release the death grip that I had on the intertube. Needless to say I did not find his behavior amusing, though his wild driving did eventually cause me to release the intertube. Though I did almost drown, I have to say that nothing about this experience dampened my deep desire to be in the water. In fact, I believe that it strengthened both my love for it and my resolve to find some way to grow webbing around my feet and hands so that I could become a real-life Aquaman.

To this day I find few things more relaxing than being under the water. One of my favorite swimming holes in Austin is Barton Springs Pool, a three acre spring-fed reinforced pond that stays at about sixty-eight degrees year round. I read somewhere that Robert Redford learned to swim in this pool when he was five years old while visiting relatives in Austin, though I was not there so I can not actually confirm this. This little tidbit of trivia does nothing but encourage my fondness for the place. Those who know me are well aware of my rock solid belief that, "If it is good enough for Redford, then it is good enough for me."

Anyway, I love to dive to the bottom of Barton Springs Pool to explore while others splash around on the noisy surface or laze (I mean flirt with coeds) in the hot afternoon sun. The sense of weightlessness and the strange semi-silence at the bottom of the pond always fill me with wonder and joy. It is a truly magical place for me (though I can say the same for each of the underwater worlds that I have visited). Sometimes I swim after turtles that live in the springs, sometimes I float above small mother fish guarding the spot in the sand where their eggs are maturing. Other times I just pick at smooth rocks or mine the fine sand for treasures, or simply swim through the flowing weeds that grow from the bed of this watery paradise. I have found no better way to forget my few troubles or to reconnect with that sense of carefree wonderment that I believe I must have experienced as a child.

I have yet to grow the sort of webbing and gill structure that would allow me to live permanently in water, and I am not sure how Minnie would feel about such a thing (though I fantasize that she might want to join me as some sort of scientifically modified human/mermaid). Until that time I think that I will have to be satisfied with learning how to SCUBA dive, something that I have always wanted to do, though have never made the time for. Perhaps the time is now.