How I learned to swim

• In April, the writer Aaricka Washington set a goal that she would learn to swim before her 30th birthday.
• Inspired by Black women trailblazers such as Olympic gold medalist Simone Manuel, she took a leap of faith.

The moment I vowed to learn how to swim came in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.

It was 2019. I was with a group of friends for a destination wedding in Mexico and we were on a little boat excursion having the time of our lives, drinking, eating, and taking pictures. The boat's captains stopped for a chance for us to swim.

Most of the wedding party seemed unafraid to jump in the water, so they put their life jackets on and jumped in.

Even though I had no idea how to swim, not even in the shallow end of a public pool, and had always had a visceral fear of being surrounded by water, the daredevil in me won out. I fastened my life jacket and decided that I would be courageous.

But as soon as my whole body met the ocean, I panicked. I'm by nature a control freak, and I had totally lost control. I didn't know what to do.

I wailed to my friends for help. Two of them, one on each side, helped guide me safely to shore, which looked like it was thousands of miles away. After what felt like hours, I fell to the ground, praising God's sand and land that welcomed me.

But what inspired me, two years later, to actually walk into my local Y and sign up for swimming classes? It could have been the adventurous friend I was trying to impress, who was shocked to learn I didn't know how to swim. It could have been that I was inspired to see Simone Manuel become the first African American woman to win an individual Olympic gold medal in swimming at the 2016 Rio Olympics. Or maybe it was the burst of determination I felt after reading Jazmine Hughes' personal essay in The New York Times about mastering swimming at the age of 28.

I know now that deciding to learn to swim was fueled by something more personal. I wanted to be able to sink my whole body in the water, and still feel in control.

Swimming is a life skill that everyone should know. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, nearly 4,000 people die from drowning every year. When it comes to Black kids from 5-19 years old, the rates for drowning are 5.5 times higher than white kids in the same age group. A whopping 64% of African American children do not know how to swim, compared to 40% of white children.

Also, swimming always seemed like a luxurious way to relax. Not knowing how to be at total peace in water was something particularly frustrating to someone like me, who loves to accomplish challenging tasks. There was this freedom I was missing out on.

There's also a long, tragic history of institutionalized and structural racism in this country, where Black people were seen as dirty, ridden with communicable diseases and sexually threatening to white swimmers. Segregation, violence, and lack of funding and upkeep of public pools after integration kept Black people from enjoying the same privileges that white people experienced.

Racist pool operators were sometimes known to "suddenly declare some nebulous malfunction," as Snopes put it, or even drain the pools, rather than allow Black swimmers to take a dip (that kind of behavior was memorialized by actress Halle Berry in the 1999 movie Introducing Dorothy Dandridge). There's a historic picture of James Brock, a Florida motel owner, pouring muriatic acid on a group of Black and white protesters who were staging a "swim-in" to integrate the pool.

There are issues we face even now, like the ban on Soul Cap, a brand of swim caps that are designed to fit natural Black hair in all it's different forms, at the Tokyo Olympics. All because, according to the International Swimming Federation, the caps do not fit "the natural form of the head." The line, as The Washington Post columnist Karen Attiah noted, sounded like something from an "1890s phrenology manual."

I know I'm not the only Black woman who grew up not liking the idea of getting my hair wet, especially with chlorine. My thick, tightly coiled hair takes time and money to maintain, wash, condition and style, and chlorine can be extremely damaging to our hair if we don't style and condition it before plunging our head into the water. But, I didn't want my hair to stop me.

The Soul Cap, which I bought before the controversy, is the best cap for the long box braids or crochet hairstyles that I like to wear. Before Black-owned swim cap brands like Soul Cap and Lock Journey, swim caps designed without naturally thick, afro-textured hair in mind were keeping Black women out of swimming pools, Marissa Evans explained in her 2018 article in The Atlantic.

I think about all of the stereotypes: Black people don't want to swim. Black people can't float.

But, we've been defying that ever since Black American swimmers like Cullen Jones, Maritza Mclendon, Lia Neal, and Simone Manuel came on the scene winning Olympic medals. We are beating the odds that have been set against us.

And so, back in April, I decided I would learn how to swim before I turn 30 in December.

I signed up to take eight 30-minute lessons at my local YMCA. These would be private lessons, to minimize the COVID-19 risk for me and the instructor. On the first day, I met my teacher, Christy Durbin.

Durbin, who at 48, has a background in nursing and has been teaching at the Y on and off since 2007. She's an inspiration all by herself. Swimming has helped her manage rheumatoid arthritis, lupus, and tarsal tunnel syndrome. She has regained motor control, strength, and it's been physically and mentally good for her. "It is a good environment to heal in," she told me.

Coaching beginner swimmers, especially adults, is her passion.

Durbin was firm, but motherly. When she asked me how comfortable I was in the water, I told her I was scared, even though I had once jumped into the Pacific Ocean. Every single lesson felt like I was conquering an unknown fear.

The very first day, we did head bobs, which Durbin said teaches you to keep the water out of your nose.

You hold your breath, dunk your head in the water, and then blow out through your nose so bubbles rise to the surface. Only then do you bring your head up for air. That came easy to me.

"For someone who is afraid of water, you did swimmingly," Durbin told me.

Kicking took me a few lessons to get the hang of. After taking a water aerobics class, I was able to kick halfway down the pool with very little resistance. I felt powerful. I felt in control. There is simply no greater feeling than learning how to do something you previously didn't have any idea how to do.

After that, the lessons grew more challenging. I panicked at the loss of control when my instructor tried to get me to float on my back, or remember to breathe while moving my arms and legs in a crawl stroke.

It was hard to know where the stress from losing control in the water ended, and where the stress from the grief I felt from losing control in my personal life began. This seemingly never-ending coronavirus pandemic, experiences with racism and misogynoir, loneliness, stress, and the loss of loved ones who died tragically - all of it was weighing on me during the time I was learning to swim.

Learning these new reflexes that often come naturally for children, but not for adults who've had decades to learn fear, was life-changing for me. Durbin always ends our lessons with something that I mastered, which lights up the dopamine part of my brain that had been inactive for so long. It was the therapy I never knew I needed.

It's August now, and I'm so surprised at my progress.

I can float on my back and face-up, kick my way halfway down the pool, and swim the backstroke. Durbin sends me videos of swimmers doing the freestyle and backstroke. She tells me that it's all about repetition and visualization.

Durbin has gotten to know me a little and she has this saying, "progress not perfection." I've started saying that in my daily life.

According to my coach, I still have a lot of learning to do. She still wants me to better manage my muscles so that I can relax what I'm not using. Windmilling through the freestyle has also got to end.

My personal goal is to swim 100 yards without stopping - front or back - and to tread water for one minute. I want to be able to dive off boards and compete in triathlons.

I want to feel in control while doing anything I please in the water - not only for me, but for every Black person who wants to feel accomplished doing things that were previously forbidden. In order to do that, I've learned I have to be okay with losing a bit of that control, too.