pools of peace

 The swimming pool has always been a safe haven for me. When my family moved to South Africa, we were fortunate enough to be able to put a swimming pool into our enclosed garden. As South Africa is in the Southern Hemisphere, Christmas time happens to be in the summer. This was a concept that was completely alien to us having moved from the United Kingdom where it was frequently cold and raining, with Christmas being a snowy time in the north of England, where I am from. With Christmas being a summertime holiday in South Africa, we would stock the house with drinks and food, and we would hide from the world outside. No bustling traffic and frantic shopping, just family and friends around the pool, hidden from the world by a few small walls forming a private space. Nothing could beat those times. There would be New Year’s Eves when we would drive around looking for ‘the best’ party only for one of my friends to eventually suggest ‘let’s just go to your house and drink at the pool.’ Those turned out to be the best New Year’s Eve nights of our lives.

Years before that, the walk home from school would be hot and stressful, there would be foot and car traffic everywhere. Then I’d arrive home, change into shorts, dive into the pool, and spend the afternoon in peaceful reverie. I practiced my football (soccer) skills by throwing a tennis ball up against a wall of the house and then leaping out of the water to volley it against a goal the consisted of the patio.

Today, in Dallas, I rent an apartment that looks onto the swimming pool and, even with the apartments that surround and look into the pool, I still feel that it is a secluded spot… a place where home is a few steps away, a safe place to read, to write, to listen to music, and to contemplate life and all of the possibilities therein.



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