Snow Day Summer Nostalgia (I wish I was swimming.)
January 25, 2026
We moved to our tiny town just outside of Boston mostly because of the community pool. We were driving around aimlessly- Katy was about six months, Colin three- killing time until we could put the kids down for a nap, or waiting for them to fall asleep in the car.
On the left, I spied a huge, bright blue, inground pool, surrounded by pine trees, down a small hill. My husband turned into the parking lot; he and I both got out of the car and looked down. The pool was about the size of a high school gym. There was a dock on one end, lap lanes at the other, and a large c shape of shallow water on the other side of what looked like the deep end.
Kids were jumping off the dock, families were sprawled on blankets and beach chairs. All around the edges, people of all ages and sizes were dangling their feet into the blue.
At the time, we were living in Dorchester, which is right on the harbor, but being so close to the city, it wasn’t really sandcastle central then, and low tide on the local spot smelled more like dead fish than suntan lotion and salt air.
It seemed like an oasis, in the middle of summer, with two sweaty small children that started crying as soon as we hopped out of the car. I sent Sheldon down to check if we needed a membership, or could just purchase a day pass.
He came back, looking sweatier for climbing the hill and knowing he was going to disappoint me- “the pool is only for Milton residents”.
And so we moved to Milton.
When Colin was four and Katy was two, we’d stuff them into their swimsuits, and bring them over to Cunningham every day, from late June until mid August, when the lifeguards went back to college, and the pool closed for the season. By mid August, in New England, night starts to fall by seven, when the pool hours end and the air feels like September, sweater weather.
Once, Colin was bit by a snake in the creek on the other side of the fence. The police officer who was summoned by a lifeguard said it looked like the snake had peed on his arm. He whispered this to me, out of Colin’s earshot.
Katy found a frog under the dock once. It took six lifeguards, with a circle of fifty wondrous children watching, to pry the shiny, green critter from under the wooden slats. I’m sure it was a very exciting day in his frog life.
My memories of Cunningham with the kids are brief; they only came along about five summers before declaring “babies pee in that pool, it’s grooosssss!”
I never stopped. For years, the first day it opens, I’m waiting at the gate for the evening swim, starts at five pm and lasts until seven. I bring a book, a water bottle, a large fluffy towel, and my favorite swim goggles.
I go to same spot, all the way down at the end, on the side with the showers, to a bench right next to a lifeguard chair. I drop my bag, peel off my dress, and put my sandals on top of my stuff. I put my goggles on, adjust the straps, and walk down to the stairs, where I step in, stair by stair, until I’m ready to dive under the ropes, and swim in the lap lane.
Sometimes it’s empty. Sometimes I have to pause for kids playing tag, or chasing a tennis ball. Some people like to walk back and forth, or use kickboards.
I like it best when I have a whole lane to myself. My favorite stroke, most nights, is backstroke, and I don’t want to hit anyone. Quite often, I get distracted, and my fingers slam into the edge of the pool. But it’s lovely to stroll in water, floating, watching the clouds, listening to kids, and parents, the slap of the edge of my hand through the water, the sound of my breath.
As I write this, there is a blizzard outside. There is an ice storm in South Carolina and an ICE storm in Minnesota that’s coming to Maine.
I wish I was at Cunningham Pool, and it was the beginning of June, and the light would stay until long after seven. I wish it was hot as hell, and I was cool inside the blue, and contented.
But I’m on the sofa, with dogs and pieces of the Sunday Globe. Our pellet stove is full, and there is an extra bag by the desk. The fridge is stocked with apples and cheese, chicken thighs and a slab of beef for the slow cooker. There is a bottle of good wine on the counter, and the corkscrew is next to it, in case we lose power, and I want to get tipsy and fall asleep right after dinner.
Cunningham and summertime will be here soon enough. Life is too short to fast forward through the chilly patches.
This is the summer I gave up on my hair.
July 18, 2023
This summer, I am done with work every at 4 pm every day for the summer, (thank you, Quincy College). It’s been hot as hell lately, most days, so most days, I am climbing down the steps into the pool by 4:45 and slipping under the rope and inside the lap lane by 4:47.
My backstroke meanders. My freestyle is fast, especially when I remember to kick my legs. I don’t practice breaststroke anymore; it feels too much like the the stroke of someone who doesn’t want to get her face wet. Last year, I practiced butterfly. Well done, it is glorious to watch, and if continued for any period of time, it left me breathless.
This year, I keep it simple. I crawl. I float. I backstroke. I dive.
When I get tired, I pull myself out and slather deep conditioner onto my hair. Then I rinse off in the outdoor shower. Sometimes, there is a tiny group of six year old girls watching me shower because a lifeguard asked them to give me a turn. The shower is very popular with first grade girls.
I have a pair of goggles that keeps all the water out, and I cherish them as much as my fancy headphones.
I only have one swimsuit; it is two pieces that do not match. But the top piece is blue, and bottoms are black, and I don’t think anyone has noticed. I do spend most of my time underwater.
There have been quite a few changes in my life these past years; I am now recognizing this trend will continue, even speed up, in the near and distant future.
I find comfort knowing this is not particular to me; it seems everyone I know is experiencing roughly the same thing, just different circumstances-different levels and combinations of grief, joy, and willingness to adapt to, for lack of a better term, the increasing speed of life
I’m not sure I could adapt to life without swimming in Cunningham Pool, most days at 445.
But, I do.
Every year, it closes mid August so the lifeguards can go back to college.
I sign up for boot-camps and glory in the fall colors while walking Bernadette and Chanel, in the woods just behind an empty Cunningham Pool.
This was the first summer, I didn’t bother to blow dry my hair after dinner, even on weeknights.
I decided summer evenings could be better spent walking the dogs after sunset, going out for ice cream with Katy, heading to bed early, with a book, or to the sofa, to watch Ted Lasso, for the second time, with my husband, (it’s his first, and I think I’m hoping some of Ted’s optimism will rub off).
It’s hasn’t, yet anyway. But it’s only July 17th, and there’s time for us all.
I Miss Smoking Sometimes
July 19, 2013
In the course of my life, I’ve made some really bad choices. As a matter of fact, one of my chosen topics-to-ponder of late is just how many of these bad choices, and in how much detail, do I share with my kids. Should I be a walking, talking, cautionary tale, or should I tell stories about a dear friend of mine from high school. That died a horrible, painful death.
I’m still working that out, and I will let you know what I decide. That is, unless they peel themselves away from IFunny and Instagram and read my blog. In which case, it’s a mute point.
I don’t miss standing in line for the bathroom, or checking my nose in the mirror before heading out. I don’t miss long, intense conversations about bad things that happened in high school, endless Scrabble games, or racing to the liquor store at 10:45, (I’ve spent a good part of my life in Massachusetts, liquor stores close at 11.)
I’ve never been able to figure out why I clung to those things for so long. For a little while, it was fun. We felt like we were all part of an inside joke, had stumbled on a way to feel perpetually like a member of the cool crowd. We thought our conversations were unique, our observations hysterical, our taste in clothes and restaurants and drinks and clubs and friends were impeccable.
Looking back, I suppose clothes looked good because all I’d have for dinner was three bites before I got distracted by another trip to the ladies room. Restaurants were amazing because I was only nibbling on food until I could get up and use the ladies room again. Drinks were amazing because they got me drunk, or took the edge off, depending on where I was in the evening. And friends were anyone and everyone that were doing the same stupid things that I was.
So, it’s established, I don’t miss those days. But sometimes, I miss the cigarettes. The standing outside with a stranger. The first puff, the curl of smoke and the smell of sulphur. The way that first drag established the end of a meal. The end of a day. The end of really good sex. Regret, joy, exhaustion… all of these seemed to be well celebrated with a lit Marlboro, a few minutes, and a deep couple of drags.
Now at the end of a day, or at the end of a meal, I go to the pool. We live in a small town, right outside of Boston. There is a huge outdoor pool about a mile away from our home.At 6:30 most nights, I head over. Some nights I bring my daughter. Tonight, I went by myself.
I am probably the only adult in my age group that visits Cunningham Pool without trailing behind a few kids. I know the man at the gate that checks the tags. He hasn’t asked for mine in about five years. Which is good, because I put them away as souvenirs the first day I pick them up.
I smile, make brief conversation about how hot, cold, humid or rainy it’s been. He agrees. We decide that tomorrow it will be more of the same.
Then I step inside. I peel off my clothes, I always wear my swim suit underneath. I drop them on top of my cell phone, on top of my gym bag, on top of my purse. I creep into the water, down the kiddie stairs in the shallow end. I ignore the cute babies. Most of the time, I love cute babies, but at the pool, it’s best not to think about them.
Then I swim. I slip down the length of the pool to the lap lane. First lap, I dolphin dive. I follow the floor of the pool, parallel to the bottom. I look at the pine needles and elastics. I wiggle my stomach and flop my legs like a novice mermaid. I come up, I gulp air, I dive down again. Next lap is free style. I sprint. I stretch my arms long, out of their sockets, I reach far like my coach taught me thirty some years ago. I take few breaths, I slid thru the water like a blade, or a shark, or a competitor. Next lap is back stroke. I leave my goggles on, they are cloudy, but I can make out the sun falling down, and the pine branches above. I pull hard.
I rotate the strokes. I go fast, mostly, except when I’m playing little mermaid under the water. I swim for about an hour, straight thru the adult swim, until about fifteen minutes before the pool closes. Then, I make my way thru the shallow part of the pool, to the stairs. I step out of the water I peel my goggles of my face. I pull the bottoms of my swim suit back to where they belong. I smile at the cute babies. I say hello to the moms I know, and nod at the moms I don’t . I look at the pregnant women with a mixture of awe, recognition and on really hot days, an expression that probably says “thank god I’m done with that.”
I don’t know how I can swim so long, and so fast when I consider all of the horrible things I’ve done to my body over the years. Especially the smoking. I don’t know how I can swim the length of the pool without taking a breath when I consider that for a lifetime my favorite thing to do was to fill my lungs with smoke, hold it like a gift, and then blow it away.
But I do know when I look back on these days, it will be with the knowledge that these days, and these choices are not mistakes.
I can tell my children that truth, and maybe that will hold them for a while.
Pledge, Though I Can’t Promise the Weather will Cooperate
August 28, 2012
Tomorrow, I’m taking the gang to the beach. We are going to pack a cooler with fried chicken from Shaws and a big thermos of lemonade. We are going to remember the frisbee and the football and the boogie boards. On the way I am going to sing along to hip hop and 80’s music until the kids cry for mercy, and/or promise to clear the table for the rest of the time they live at home.
When we get there we will find parking. The tide won’t be too high or too low. The water temperature will be cool enough to refresh, but not cold enough to hurt my toes. Tomorrow, I am going to make a day feel like a week, but it will end when I blink my eyes. I will take plenty of pictures. I will remember every single second forever.
And I promise I won’t hide under the beach umbrella posting whatever cute thing someone said on Facebook. I wo’t need to. I will remember every single second forever.
julierichmond 