Pining for the Moon

Today I belted out Nightswimming while driving around the 'burbs of AZ. I was immediately transported back in time to being a teenage lifeguard at the D.C. Pool. As a kid I never went to summer camp. Just to the pool. Every. Single. Goddamn day of summer break. And then in my teens, I worked at that same pool. It was such an innocent and precious time. Then again I'm a bit addicted to nostalgia so I probably romanticize it a tad.

The lyric "I'm pining for the moon" caught my attention, nearly bringing tears to my eyes. If there's anything that could describe my current mood it'd be Pining for the Moon. I'm not even sure why. That's the thing about pining, it describes a thing that's just-out-of-reach. The moon has always been a bit of a mystery to me, so maybe that's why I'm pining for it. The mystery of the moon relates to this whole theory that lunar cycles and menstrual cycles are said to be synced. There's lots of lore around the moon and its cycles. Sometimes I even do moon-related rituals. I guess on some level I just do them because that's what people in my spiritual circles do. But honestly, I just don't know much about the moon. I let it be a mystery. A thing that's out of reach. Maybe on some level it represents my own femininity (which is perpetually just out of my reach). 

Nightswimming came out in 1992. I worked at the D.C. Pool from 2000 - 2003. I'd heard the song before, but there was one specific night when us lifeguards stayed after hours literally nightswimming and that song came on. It was one of the "moments" when you feel like you're in a movie and everything from the lighting to the casting to the tension are just perfectly scripted. That song, man.  

And now I'm back in nostalgia. Those memories from the D.C. Pool  are so prolific that it seems as if 1 in 10 of my stored memories happened at, or en route to, the D.C. Pool. Riding my bike to and from the pool was like a whole production of its own. 

If there was one word that could sum up that time in my life, it'd be "WALK!" specifically being screamed by a teenage lifeguard at a kid who was running full speed on wet concrete. I was both the kid and the lifeguard, depending on the era. Yelling "WALK" as a lifeguard at an outdoor pool was an act of providence because lifeguards have to deal with a lot of blood on the job and we are constantly trying to avoid seeing a kid crack their skull open. Sometimes kids would show great promise for a future in lifeguarding and start yelling "WALK" at the other kids. 

I guess all this nostalgia is about how childhood was ripped away without consent. The pool gave me such a release. It represented freedom. I cannot remember ever getting bored. Then, one day, it was...over. Childhood was over. 

But I found a workaround. I clung to the last shreds of childhood in my lifeguarding days. We still played. We still had fun. It was rarely boring. Well, maybe a little boring, especially if it'd been a while since anyone cracked their skull open on the wet concrete. 

And then there was the Nightswimming...

A life of teenage luxury, that's what I lived.

Eventually it was all gone. Like truly gone gone. The old D.C. Pool has long since been filled in with concrete and is a parking lot for the new water park that was built next door. As an adult, I was asked to volunteer on the special task force that raised funds for the new pool. I'm not sure why I said yes to that, but I guess there's never a great sendoff for a childhood playground, and that was the best I could muster.