Nightswimming or “So tell me what you want, what you really, really want”

I live in a pool house that looks like a cabin on a farm property.  The pool for which my house is named, is kind of a community place.  My landlords’ friends come by, and though there are suggested hours, one of the decided rules is, “Old people swim at any time they want to.” 

One night not too long ago, I was cleaning my one-room house and watching Designing Women when I stepped out onto my back porch to sort the recycling.  I saw a figure looming in the darkness by the deep end.  “OH LORT,” I thought, “Here’s that country ghost I’ve been waiting for.” “HELLO?,” I was able to squeak out.

Now, the figure did it’s looming in my direction and I heard a woman’s voice, talking very fast, come out of the darkness.  “I’m Michelle.  Didn’t I meet you with Annie?  My house burned down around the same time as your (landlords’ names).  I used to be a lifeguard for twenty years.  I love the water.”  

I soaked what I could see of her outfit as she talked: full t-shirt, long cargo shorts, bright blue swim cap, goggles, water shoes.  

“HI.  WOW. Do you want the porch light on?,” was what I came up with. 

“No, I can swim by the light of the fireflies,” she said.  

“I have string lights.  Would you like them on?” I spoke into the dark void beyond the porch.   I mean, it was DARK out there.  There are no lights in or around the pool.  It was just a slightly shimmering mass of black liquid by this time.

“Well, you can turn the porch light on if you want,” said Michelle.  

If I want? IF I want?  If I want?  This spectre had thrown me a brain teaser.  Did SHE want the light on?  Was she not wanting to put me out?  Was this a test of my ability to overstep what I thought was polite to take a person at her word and believe that what she was saying was true—that she preferred the firefly light but would sacrifice and suffer through the porch light for my sake?”  

Then, there we were, kids, in the WTF SPRIAL ZONE.  My brain loves to operate in this zone so much that I’ve started taking increasingly long bursts of as-cold-as-I-can-take-it water at the end of my showers.  This, the experts say, will give my brain a break from the constant weight of decision-making.  The cold water will improve my resiliency.  If I can learn to slow my breathing and accept the cold, it’s supposed to shrink the frequency of the chutes and ladders possibilities minefield that pop up in my mind as soon as an unclear social situation presents itself (so basically, all day every day).

You can turn the porch light on if you WANT.  

So I went back inside back to the cleaning and The Sugarbakers, but I couldn’t stop wondering how old this person was. How good was her sight?  “What if she is VERY old?  What if she’s someone’s great grandmother and she is out in the pitch black darkness and she is swimming laps and she won’t be able to see to walk around the edge of the pool which is littered with an unfurled garden hose, beach chairs at different heights, and the infernal detritus of children’s toys as they decentigrate in the summer sun after 3 months of being thrown around willy-nilly and then she breaks her hip and, well folks, that’s the beginning of the end—a slow decent into eternity?”  

I made it like 15 minutes and snuck outside to plug in the lights.  I could see her figure walking slowly away from me towards the black hole of the deep end under the moonlight.   It was not NOT eerie.  The second I plugged in the lights my relief was interrupted by a “GAHHH,” from the inky waters.  

“Sorry,” I said, “It’s just so dark.  I was worried.”  

“I can see by the fireflies.  You can turn on the porch light if you want,” she said, AGAIN.  

This time, I accepted it.  I went back inside, and turned on the less bright porch lights and had a good long (deliberate) think about what had just happened.  I thought about all the levels of politeness there are out there.  In my family, if something costs someone something (in this case effort for turning on lights), a person might decline on first ask, “OH, don’t fool with it if it’s any trouble,” she might say.  And then my go is, “Oh, really, shoot, I’d love to,” and then the 2nd person does the thing, and the first person feels valued and cared for.  This negotiation has the effect of muddying the meaning of someone’s words, though.  

So, when I encounter real-life, grown-ups outside my family, I am also tempted to play this game.  

Example 1:

Them: “Do you want a seltzer? There’s one more?”

Me: “Oh no, save it for your lunch tomorrow.” 

Them: “Are you sure?  I’m going to the grocery store in the morning?”

Me:  “No, no, it’s okay.  I have the smallest sip of fizzy water here that is now, in-fact, above room temperature and would not taste good to someone lost in the desert.  I’m fine.”  

Example 2:

Them: “Do you want a Fudgesicle? We have plenty out in the garage.”

Me:  “Oh no, don’t worry about it.”  (wants Fudgesicle)  

So basically, because I’m not truthful with my responses (out of a cultural? familial? a personal definition of politeness), I don’t trust other people to be truthful, too.  

But in this case, YES, Michelle made her big entrance in a blaze of mystery and said a lot of words really quickly shrouded in the cloak of night, but also, giving people the gift of my honesty gives them the opportunity to really know me and what I like. 

So, anyway, I left the lights on for 10 minutes and then I turned them off which is really, I think, what Michelle was asking for in the first place.  OR WAS SHE?! LOL