Lessons from the pool

I remember taking swimming lessons when I was still a little boy in primary school. Those were the days when mum and us would take a 15 minute ride on bus 98 (this excludes waiting time for the bus) which would take us through one of the oldest housing estates in the area. I know, because the 1-room flat where we used to live in was in the estate. Now the area only spots modern high-rise housing blocks with clinically well-planned neighbourhood parks and standard HDB amenities - nothing like the days of yore where shanty-looking flats were the norm.

Two weeks ago, I managed to catch a break and found time to swim again. I used to do that on a more regular basis when I was working in Toa Payoh and the swimming pool was just a street across the office. But the last time I swam was more than a year ago when I could still afford the time during lunch hour or after work. I enjoy swimming because it's is an easy sport which cost little; the water has a calming effect which never fails to relax me while I'm at it. Swimming in the pool, I often thought this is how a fish lives its life: slicing through water, under the surface, gliding calmly across the water body. Like any other sport, once you find your rhythm and pace, swimming becomes second nature and you start to enjoy the steady motion of moving in the water body. The water glides across your body as much as you cut through it.

Walking to the train station the other day, the image of the old swimming pool, now already gone, came to my mind. Almost intuitively, I could mentally reconstruct the physical setting of the swimming complex: the big spacious toilets with open cubicles and old pipes; the spectator gallery at where our belongings are dumped before we hit the pool; the small opening from the restaurant where hot drinks were bought; and the deep 12 ft pool and musky interior of the entire complex. All these details came to mind easily. But above all, it was the rather mundane journey of travelling weekly to the swimming complex that made the memory warm. This is just amongst a handful of memories from the yesteryears which come to the fore every now and then when one is hit by a bolt of nostalgia. Like all nostalgic memories, it harks back to a simpler life - that of an easily contented child who has yet to deal with the sobrieties of life.