Speedos, Slow To Get On

In August 2010 I took swimming lessons, mostly to avoid Kapotasana in Ashtanga's Second Series (if you know, you know), and wrote a piece about it for a previous blog. With warm weather and summer around the corner it seemed like a good time to revisit, rework, and re-post.

Speedos, Slow To Get On

September, 2010

Sometimes I forget to take the stickers off fruits and vegetables before washing them. The little oblong tags with stock-identifying numbers. Four digits for pesticide seasoning, five for organic. Once those stickers are wet, what could have been a two-second removal and rinse, becomes a much longer event. My fingernail nubs pick at the edges, trying to get them to curl away and peel off, but only end up tearing off teeny tiny sticker pieces that want to stay on my fingertips like newborn marsupials eager to find their suckling mama. I use the lip of the kitchen sink as a gentle hand-off, pretending the joeys are sleeping nuggets I don't want to wake, abandoning them on the edge in a small growing litter. A pile that begins to look much larger than the original sticker. Is this because I'm coming off with the pieces too, microscopic sticky balls and my scales, rolled together. A mini-exfoliation. I understand the glue needs to be strong enough so that unscrupulous buyers don't switch around labels to pay lower produce prices, but it seems like they use the same strength glue that surgeons apply around the edges of an open wound after an operation, when wanting to seal up the flesh of a human body like closing a clutch. The stuff is quite strong. Occasionally, if I'm really hungry, I give up on a complete removal of sticky residue and ingest the area with the remnants of adhesive, leaving it up to my stomach acids to finish the task. All in all, a wet label on produce takes up more time, water, and patience than I've allotted for the task. Eating produce can have a secret time-kill in cleaning, the task before the task, the ether where my free time goes unaccounted.

Variations of these accidental time thieves make up an unwilling portion of my day. What I think will be a quick something can take enough time for me to space out and think about how long it’s taking me. Am I still washing this pear? By gosh I am still washing this pear. I throw the soiled dish cloth that dried the pear onto the laundry pile, disrupting the free time of a house centipede hiding in the folds of dirty laundry. Suddenly I'm moving furniture around, hunting the leggy intruder with a vacuum, trying to find where it went. Those centipedes, with their near million limbs all moving in blurry coordination, are fast. You can see them on one end of your apartment and a moment later they're on the other end, or worse, you've lost track of its whereabouts. In all fairness, I too would run as fast I could away from a squealing woman who's weaponized a cleaning machine. After the bugs have been chaperoned into the afterlife, the apartment is a hot mess of displaced furniture and dust bunnies, and it's now obvious I need to vacuum for real. And after that task, the vacuum container is filled and needs to be emptied out. Well then, might as well walk the dog and double up responsibilities. By the time I've returned home it's been a couple of hours since I washed the pear. I'd forgotten to eat it. It's presence on the kitchen counter a reminder of the innocent moment once upon a time ago when I first thought, "Oh, there's a ripe pear in the kitchen and I'm hungry." Do I need to wash it again?

I started swimming lessons at the local 'Y'. The first step in learning how to swim was making peace with using a bathing suit indoors. My body has a Pavlovian reaction to wearing a bathing suit with an expectation of being warm, as historically I'm outdoors, in the heat of summer, where the suit is an appropriate costume for cooling off in the water. Locker rooms, pool areas, and that wet and dark area from the locker room to the pool area that is somehow always creepily void of people when I'm passing through, are all frigid and sunless.

Warmth exists in gyms in the form of post-exercise bodies, a group interrogation of overhead lighting, and hopefully heated pool water. But the cold metal lockers, equally cold tile floors, puddles from humans, puddles from someone squeezing out their suits, puddles from spongy flip-flops self-rinsing with every step, and the constant opening of doors to foot traffic, give locker rooms more the feel of a hazing than a resort. At the gym, in a bathing suit, my body is confused: "Aren't we supposed to be really hot in this thing and then seek water to cool off, but now we're really cold and seeking hopefully warm water?" Decorum-wise, swimwear is nearly identical in coverage to underwear, but underwear is frowned upon in public spaces. The distinction, or rule, is if the fabric can wick away moisture, you can wear it as the top clothing, instead of the thing that goes under the top clothing. You can be nearly naked in public in swimwear, it's okay. Being a mostly hairless species is complicated. When my dog watches me getting ready to go for a walk outside with the jacket, the socks and the shoes, and the hat and the whatnot, he yawns with impatience.

Assessing the decision to dress skimpily while around other people may include: activity-exertion, excessive warmth, or perhaps the combination of both in some context of intimacy. For swimming at the gym I chose a one-piece bathing suit by Speedo because I run chilly, want the full coverage, and because that's what professional swimmers in my youth wore. I like clothing on. I like layers. I like visual boundaries. I prefer old broken-in, soft-as-a-marshmallow cotton draped over my body like protecting furniture in a second home after the season is over. In the same way we want Superman to save us in his official form-fitting blue and red skin-suit, rather than a "I was chilling at home watching the game in sweatpants and an old yellowed undershirt before you fell off the balcony trying to take a selfie" look, even though he can fly in any outfit and the cape just seems like more ironing, a Speedo meant I was a real swimmer. It's official attire.

Whereas Speedos for men are challenging for having too little fabric, Speedos for women are challenging for having too much fabric. My bathing suit had two layers of material covering the front, with a very high neckline to my collar bone, and very low single layer backside that showed a lot of back. I assumed this allowed for freedom of back muscles and a prevention of water getting in the front. It felt very prudish in the coming, and slutty in the leaving. That whole division of business norm. The suit's leg holes were a generous oval shape that cut high all the way up to my ribcage because I'm all leg and the suit announces this without my saying anything, it also fosters one hell of a wedgie war. I assumed the ample leg holes were for freedom of movement, if there were a style of swimming that had one’s legs rotate in forward circles, like the spinning limbs of a lawn ornament, except legs don't do that. There is a lot of leg movement with the Butterfly stroke - totally outta my league - but that would cause my bathing suit’s constant desire to bifurcate my ass into a full-blown fabric enema. My Speedo's design brought the function and I was responsible for the form. This burden lay u(pun) me, especially if I'd consumed any food or drink prior to wearing.

Clothing that is designed to continuously cover both the upper and lower parts of a body are rarely as emotionally supportive as they are physically. Even superheroes wear a belt, and that's a low BMI demographic if there ever was one. Along with the feeling that I looked like one of those sports bags stuffed with various athletic equipment who's protruding shapes don't make sense, swimsuits reveal one’s adherence, or lack thereof, to a consistent shaving maintenance routine. Tufts of hair, if not tucked in or culled down to prevent over-population, float off flesh in the water like the long seaweed barnacles attached to sunken ships. It is for this reason that from puberty to a meaningful relationship with an aesthetician in my late twenties, I did not wear a bathing suit. Except that one time in the Hamptons where I became sick of the people I was in company with and decided to be super casual about a very healthy lady bush by wearing a high-cut swimsuit. If you remember seeing me, or are still haunted by this, I do apologize. Other than superheros, there are few groups who carry off a onesie well, those who somehow never have to deal with peeing or are nonplussed by camel toe, babies’ and dancers. There you have it, four groups I am not a member of.

The third step in learning how to swim was getting into my Speedo. I neither feel like a superhero in my suit nor does it appear on my body by spinning in a circle or via jump-cut editing. In real life I can't go from entering the locker room in my street clothes to entering the pool area in my bathing suit with the same flash-forward magic. To get my suit on I'll need to surrender to the ritual of changing amongst strangers that is socially accepted and strange. Its pragmatism has never personally risen above "maybe a bathroom stall is free" for me. I do not care for getting dressed or undressed around people. It's counterintuitive to the whole purpose of being dressed in the first place, societal norms and avoiding intrusive questions about tattoos. Being physically revealing doesn't feel powerful or sexy, that's a scam the patriarchy sells women so they think objectification is their idea. I've used nudity as a tool for artwork, selective enticement, or to make sure there isn't a health issue. It's powerful to choose your moments.

Wearing a one-piece bathing suit is great for swimming, but I feel like the person the superhero needs to rescue, either from a fashion faux pas, awkwardness (which is my superpower), or the reality of being human; there is a breath of variance in how we are all shaped. Naked bodies in large well-lit spaces are interesting in a life drawing class, for shock value in murder mystery shows, and a rather compelling prognostic in a locker room. Thinning hair, errant hairs, lumps, lumps with errant hairs, colorful veins, raised veins, raised and colorful veins, hanging collops, black nails, missing nails, bunions the size of macaroons, missing parts, all versions of neck wrongness, see-through skin, dark patches, protruding vertebrae, poorly healed injuries, scars, rounded backs, and all a manner of sagging breasts: the space becomes a live-action diorama of atrophy.

The locker room is a prescient ghost of our physical futures with equal parts inspiration and cautious tales. It is where your activity goals for which you are dressing are met with the reality of accumulated life choices, restrictions, and indulgences. Where that lady in her nineties still has the body of her twenties and can get in and out of her bathing suit like dipping a fry in ketchup. At the 'Y' I take it all in, the sisterhood of flesh, parsed out around oddly numbered lockers and bolted down well-worn benches. My head tilts to the right side when I'm thinking too much, as though my left brain gets heavier with the effort and causes a lean-over. It is with this ship-rolling gaze that I resolve to just tuck my tits into the waste of my pants if they eventually give up like flags on a windless afternoon and drape down my torso, no longer interested in claiming their territory, and to never stop practicing yoga.

Aspiring to be that ninety-year old lady, one day, there is still the reality of my now: in order to get going on the physical activity maintaining my goals, I'll need to change outfits and my one-piece bathing suit is difficult to get into. If I give myself an hour to swim, most of that time is dedicated to putting the suit on. It’s like washing fruit with the sticker. Every. Single. Time. In the beginning of our relationship, I courted my Speedo with a shy, demure, and amicable approach. I would take off my bottom clothing first and then try to put the suit on halfway. But like in life, you can't go halfway to achieve success or a healthy relationship. The remaining top clothing always got jealous and thwarted things by either getting entangled with the suit pretty hot, heavy, and fast as if they'd been interested first, or by flopping around in my face when I leaned forward with smacks and taunts. It's disheartening to be flogged by your own clothing.

After that didn't work I tried a different approach, putting down my bag, taking out the suit, laying it on the bench, and then removing every single article of clothing, spending a careful amount of time lovingly hanging these items in a locker, in an attempt at teasing the Speedo. Then I'd stand before my bathing suit, hands on my hips, preparing to tussle, naked. Suddenly, I'd grab the suit by its straps and hold it in the air, flapping it a couple of times, ordering it to fall in line, creating an unnecessary power struggle. After a couple of whips and snaps, I'd let it settle down, holding it up in front of me like two opponents meeting in the ring, waiting for the ding of a bell. Mentally, I planned on suddenly jumping the suit as if it were a baby deer casually grazing by its lonesome, and I was being relied upon by my village, through perhaps a misfortunate game of "short stick", to provide food for the night. To do this I hoped to hop into the leg holes as quickly as possible. But first I'd need to check my surroundings because this action required bending over and that could be an interesting moment for anyone behind my behind. I tried once to bend over with my ass to the lockers and that's when I really found out how cold they are, and bumped myself headfirst towards the bench, nearly concussing myself. A diplomatic blend of courtesy and safety was required for this maneuver.

With the all-clear behind, I step into each leg hole, aiming my bare feet onto the tops of my shoes because the tile floor is about negative-seven degrees. Legs in I try to pull the suit up, except the dry suit and my skin are not getting along and the holes won't stretch by themselves, the whole thing does a hard stop around my thighs. Continuing to pull up is dumb, a tug-of-war I know I can't win. I gently let go, this isn't my first rodeo with activewear; I don't want any unpleasant snapping back to form. Stopping at mid-leg is the bathing suit’s first counterattack. I need to find a way to keep going because I can't get into the pool naked with the suit lassoed around my thighs, though technically I am wearing the suit. I take turns at each leg, pulling the material up on the right, up on the left, right, left, right, a barrage of pummels. I finally make it over crotch-land and with that territorial win take a little break. I'm more winded than I'd like to admit. Looking around the locker-room it feels like I'm seeing the same people who left for a swim before I started getting my suit on, now returning back from their swim, wet, and with the pleasant vibe water-exertion brings. This is dissimilar to the apoplectic-exhaustion-time-waste feeling fighting with my suit is bringing me.

From afar the perhaps odd contortions and defeated grunts I'm making might appear as though I'm nursing heel spurs, feeling some internal beat, or trying to get it to rain in the women's locker room. If I bedazzled my movements with restless finger cymbals and ankle bells, I'm sure I could grant wishes to the other ladies. Once above my hips, the next tourney up is getting the two front layers of fabric, sewn only at the seams to help promote bunching, into lying in flat compliance with one another. I do appreciate the two layers of fabric once in the pool, but the two layers have a kind of good angel/bad angel approach to my body. The top layer is eager to please, while the under-layer nearest to my skin, the underbelly, follows a tired course of consistent skullduggery. In a textile game of "The Tortoise and the Hare," the top is willing to reach its destination via paced patience, while the underlayer is willing to cheat by pulling the top layer down with its mediocre gains up. Worse, the underlayer will look for a shortcut by attempting to burrow up. At times my swimsuit digitally violates me, when we initially started off the afternoon all flirty no goals.

I get the suit easily over my chest, because it's more like conquering a pair of knolls than mountains. Next I dig out and unspool the arm loops that have rolled themselves into rebar. Once the straps are over my shoulders I focus on getting the front and back coverage just right. This requires shoving an arm down inside the suit and pushing the conscientious-objector fabric away from my vulva. Just. No. Then with teeny tiny pinches I reallocate fabric, moving the bathing suit material up or down, navigating around my ass like sailing the Cape Horn. It feels like I'm petting myself because I am. The goal is not to have a strange ripple of fabric under the suit like I'm keeping a tissue handy or forgot a tissue or there's an issue with my tissue. By the time I'm finished the tips of my fingers are raw. But I've made it. I'm in my suit. I'm ready to swim. Tired, but eager to prevent drowning as a form of exercise.

What I want is to save time, not by being in an outfit that is aerodynamically designed for speed, but by having a suit that is easy to get into. And what would be ideal is a suit that is somewhere between a sandwich bag and a food storage container. I want to get into swimwear like an adult diaper. I want to lay down and pull the fabric around me, seal, and then burp out any extraneous air between myself and the material. I want the locking noise too, the kind of singular sound that precipitates action, inspires action, or feels like you're ready for action. I want to grab fruit and eat it. I want to live and spend my life in the moments of activity, not in the time preparing for activity. Chafing, whether by endlessly rubbing the sticker off a pear or noodling a bathing suit onto my body, doesn't do it for me.