I just saw an hour-long documentary about contemporary synchronized swimming. Wow. Who knew. I thought synchronized swimming was something that women in flower-petaled bathing caps did on TV in the 1950s. But apparently it's a big sport nowadays--the U.S. even has an Olympic team. The documentary follows two clubs to the U.S. Open. It looks like a ton of work; the swimmers are very athletic. But it turns out that one of my stereotypes was right on: they wear very glitzy costumes, with all kinds of make-up and sequins and glitter. Who came up with this sport?
Reminds me a little bit of playing field hockey in high school. I was on the team all four years, and even co-captained for the last two. We never won a game. We were a really small team, and very laidback. Even our coaches didn't take it too seriously. One said he figured he could coach because "it's basically just soccer with sticks". But field hockey is a little more complicated than that; there are all of these weird rules that seem to serve no purpose but to confuse. For instance, you can only hit the ball with one side of the stick. If you want to hit it from the other direction, you have to turn the stick around and use it backward. Also, the stick is too short to reach the ground unless you're hunched over, so you can't really run standing up. It's considered dangerous enough that mouthguards are required to protect players' teeth, yet the kilted uniforms are feminized and almost dainty.
I wasn't perfectly suited to field hockey, but I was definitely better at that than at swimming. I think swimming is the most exhausting thing. One lap can tire me out. In college, we had to pass a swim test in order to graduate, and I put it off and put it off until my senior year. (When I finally did it, everything was fine, but I wouldn't say it was fun.) I like going to the beach or splashing around in the pool on a hot day as much as the next person, but after a little while, I want to get out and go have an ice cream.
Plus, I'm a little creeped out by swimming in lakes or the ocean or anywhere that I can't see the bottom. Who knows what lurks in the seaweed? Once, when I was a kid, I was swimming with my siblings at the beach and I kept stepping on something sharp. I reached down to see what it was and pulled a spiky fish out of the water. A dead spiky fish. I don't know if that's where my fear originated, but it may as well have been, right?
