SWIMMING LESSONS, NOT OPTIONAL

I think I recently mentioned a certain smelly, stuffy indoor pool that is part of my regular routine here in Solothurn. The boys at their weekly swimming lessons have made slow but steady progress through the seven badges on offer through the Swiss swimming league. Different brightly colored aquatic animals spanning from crawfish to polar bear stand for advancing levels of mastery, and the badges are awarded, or not, at the end of each 12-week interval. Lessons last about 45 minutes, and while the children splash around in the freezing water and make a deafening noise, a listless group of parents sits and sweats in stoic Swiss fashion on the sidelines. For some of these sessions, I have been fortunate to know a mother or two and could pass the time agreeably chatting. At other lessons, I have surprised myself with an aptitude for nodding off while sitting cross legged on a wet, concrete floor.

But despite the fact that they are unpleasant for frozen child and melted parent alike, swimming lessons here in Switzerland are, for my children at least, not optional. Unlike the public pools back home, Swiss pools have no cadre of perky, ponytailed lifeguards who swing whistles on ropes and listen to pop music from their privileged perch. No, here the lifeguards are not even called lifeguards. Rather, they are Bademeister, "bath masters" who oversee all the general workings of the pool. As far as I can tell, their duties include some janitorial work, a bit of blasé reprimanding, and quite a lot of lounging around looking generally athletic. I am certain they are all qualified to save lives should one of them happen to notice a life indeed in need of saving. But I, for one, am not taking my eyes off of my child for one second.

Which is difficult because unlike at the indoor pool, there are so many distractions at the local outdoor pool that it is nearly impossible to keep one's eyes in any one place for long.  Not just a place to cool off during the hot months, the  Badi, to which it is affectionately referred, is a complex which includes three humongous pools, a water slide, a playground, life-sized chess boards, ping pong tables, grassy meadows strewn with picnicking families and a cafe which sells the most expensive French fries I have ever ordered. At the Badi on a fine summer day, we encounter literally all of Solothurn, and instead of relaxing into a summer stupor of sunscreen-scented fiction, I while away our hours there wracking my brains for how I know this person or that.  The lady with the long black hair and the tattoos I think I recognize from the post office. She sits on a lounge chair near the baby pool reading a paperback, while another familiar face -- this time it is the checkout lady from the grocery store -- emerges from the locker rooms, gym bag slung nonchalantly over one tanned shoulder. In line at the cafe to buy ice cream, my boys encounter their school friends. Choir friends appear out of nowhere on the picnic meadow. And humming away against the background of squeals and splashes is the sound of parents from all the various immigrant communities in town. "No running!" they yell to their youth in the language of their distant homelands, be it in Albanian, Macedonian, Serbian, Portuguese, Tamil, or some wild mix.

Slightly removed from the happy bustle of the pools but still fundamental to the Badi experience is the river Aare which flows gently along the south side of the pool grounds. Those willing to brave the cold water can wade into the river directly from the picnicking meadow and swim a few strokes with the current downstream. The Aare, like so many of Switzerland's lakes and rivers, is clean, and the athletic Swiss, when not wearing their hiking boots or attached to their bicycles, are also avid swimmers. Strolling through town on a hot summer's day, the boys and I almost always spot various figures gliding down the river. Some determined souls dive off the bridges and swim the breast stroke as part of their summer exercise regimen, while others prefer to cruise downstream on huge, brightly colored floats. One afternoon, I observed a young couple on a kind of inflatable sofa. He was drinking a beer, and she was smoking a cigarette as they drifted down the river on their own little pleasure island.

With the boys still young and not yet accomplished swimmers, my own enjoyment of the Aare has been more of a vicarious nature. One summer I did manage to slip in and swim a few strokes. The coldness of the water and the strength of the current were humbling.  Yes, the boys definitely need to continue their swim lessons.

And so it is that I have been braving the athlete's-foot-infested waters of the local indoor pool for some three years now. With time, the boys and I have adjusted (somewhat) to the nudity in the changing rooms and to the singularly un-American sight of little boys and girls showering together while their mothers, standing by and clasping pastel soap bottles to their breasts, shout instructions at them over the din of the running water. I am proud to report that this summer, Wolfi finished up his sequence of Swiss swimming badges. He now holds an identification card which allows him, in theory at least, to go to the Badi all by himself. Leo, however, somewhere in the deep waters between penguin and octopus, still has a ways to go. As he practices his backstroke and dives through hoops on Thursday afternoons, I sit on the wet, concrete risers with the other mothers and drift in and out of reverie. Eyes closed, legs crossed, I dream of the day when I too might float dreamily down the Aare -- on an inflatable couch.