The sea, the sea, the chlorine

When I think about where water starts, in my memory, things get murky.

I know that when I think about water, now, it is as though the Swan River is licking over my cold, white slug-toes, toes I've bared to touch the water for some kind of a stupid dare in the middle of winter; the water's warm and not what you might expect and you could almost dive into it, if only for the sea breeze screaming up the river, announcing it was winter, in case you hadn't noticed.

Behind me I can hear the whistle in the pine trees, hear the soft, gentle, lulling wash of the Swannie lapping at the shore, over, and over. Like sitting outside and having the sun hit you nicely, genially, as though it wants to say hello but not disturb you from your reading, after it's been behind a cloud all morning. Like waking up and smelling the salt, the shitty stink of seaweed. Like home.

Eggs and water are forever entwined in my memory: sounds odd I know, but memory is a bit like that. Throws together the weird things, the things you end up telling your mate about, years later, and they laugh at you in a gentle, mates-for-twenty-years kind of a way, and you wonder what you were ever bothered about.

I grew up next to a chicken farmer nestled behind the vast, unforgiving, orange-hot dunes of the Geraldton coast. Couldn't have lived too far from the beach then, not with Grandma's place just behind the dunes. Just me, mum, my Grandma and Uncle Vic. I used to steal eggs from George's henhouse next door; in fact, it was one of the first things I learned to do once I could walk on my own. Couldn't have been more than two, maybe two-and-a-half, and I remember that thrill of finding a still-warm, egg in that dark, fusty henhouse, hearing the tides change off in the distance. Like the egg was a secret, sacred present from the hen to me. Still get a kick out of collecting eggs, not that there's much of a chance to do that these days.

Didn't learn how to swim until I was about six, I reckon. As a young child I was petrified of the water, wouldn't go near it. No problem dancing around the edges of it in the hot sun though; wouldn't wear a hat. Expecting skin cancer any day now because of it.

We moved from the coast to Australia's largest naval base when I was four. Irony: it's the country's biggest naval base and it's in the middle of the bloody desert. Canberra. Dust bowl or freezing, no in-between. But that's where I learned to swim.

The local pool: indoors, 25 metres, over-chlorinated, you could choke on the fumes and it turned your hair a different colour every lesson; my mum pacing up and down the edge with a wooden spoon. She'd threaten to smack me with it if I got out before I'd managed to float, or dive, or whatever it was we were supposed to learn that day. Backstroke was tough, I seem to recall.

Must have swallowed half the pool in fright, pissed in it more than once, watching her pacing. Would hope and dread in equal measure each time I turned my head up to catch a breath, or spit out water I'd nearly swallowed, hope she hadn't seen me try and touch the bottom of the pool with my feet to save myself from drowning because I just couldn't float, didn't understand how the water could just take me and hold me; didn't trust it to embrace me without death. Didn't trust myself. Condensation dripping off the walls. Steam.

It's all different now, of course, once you get me in the water. Can float in it for miles, for hours, if I can get away with it, even stick my ears under the water and just wave my hands a little under the surface, just enough to keep my nose in the air. Gentle kicks now and again. I'm at peace there, listening to those hollow, far-off, underwater noises. Ocean noises are best. You can hear the rumble of the waves, the spalsh of the breaker starting to swell. The cold gasp when a wave gets you unexpected, wallops the side of your head with the swell, gasp in stinging sea water. Salt. Never leaves your lips, that taste.

Funny, for a kid growing up on a series of coasts and islands I spent a lot of time in pools. Got pretty good at swimming, once I learned how to dive; didn't manage that 'til I was nearly 12. Was a strength swimmer as well, joined a club and everything. But the beach wasn't for swimming once I hit puberty.

The beach was for socialising, not that I was very good at it; too shy, far too awkward for my own good. Dressed by my mother until I was 15.