Commentary: Getting in the swim of things, in the cold, at the Greater Morristown Y

EVERYONE IN THE POOL! The pool at the Greater Morristown YMCA.
EVERYONE IN THE POOL! The pool at the Greater Morristown YMCA.
0

Editor’s note: The opinions below are the author’s, and do not necessarily reflect those of this publication.

By Alisha Davlin

I dragged myself from the bed, pressed the contacts into my eyes, ate a stale cinnamon roll, and ventured into the dark morning.

I really could have used a few more hours of sleep after my daughter woke from a nightmare then decided to play with her Critter House at 3 am.

As I turned into the Greater Morristown YMCA parking lot, I realized I’d left my phone. At least I had my computer and could do some work in the lobby, gym or wherever they put us to line up during the renovations.

Alisha Davlin
Alisha Davlin

I had never been through the infamous swim lesson lottery sign up; for our current session, we registered late in the fall and for a beginner class that was not full—but I had seen the exhausted souls sitting at tables and slumped on the floor last year in the lobby.

I walked in and inquired about the swim lesson sign up.

“Line is outside,” answered Salty Dog at the makeshift-under-construction entrance.

“Outside?” I replied. “It’s 28 degrees out there…you kidding?”

Shrug. “Welcome to the Y.”

It was now pushing 8 am. My daughter’s swim instructor had suggested getting there by 7:45 but surely 15 minutes wouldn’t make a huge difference. I turned the corner and found a line of about 50 people. How had I not noticed them when I pulled in?

Freezing and huffing and puffing, I decided something must be wrong; I needed to talk to someone in charge.

“Hold my place?” I asked the nice guy with the southern accent behind me who was chatting on the phone and comparing the line to securing a 4 am spot before the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade.

The line consisted of people bundled in football fleece blankets, mittened hands wrapped around steaming cups of coffee, and a long row of tailgate chairs.

“Is someone here in charge?”

“Nope. Lottery starts at 8:30.”

“We are supposed to stand out here in the freezing cold? There must be somewhere else we can do this.”

They smiled at the newbie. “Welcome to the next five years of your life.” Knowing laughter accompanied my exit.

I can’t remember the last time I waited in a line without my phone. Back in line, people around me texted and checked theirs.  I’m the person who has to call someone and make “chittle chattles” if I’m in the car for 10 minutes.

I bother my husband at work, my best friend who’s two hours behind in Colorado (so mornings are out), my mom, or as a last resort, turn on NPR’s Leonard Lopate—who is no longer there for me—and talk at the radio as if he could hear me.

So I started chatting with the woman in front of me. Marie, is a Morris Township resident who is too scared to give her first name, lest she be punished in the future by not getting her coveted time slot. The Morristown Y is a powerful place!

Marie agreed to use her middle name. “I at least thought they’d have us wait inside,” she said. “I didn’t even bring gloves.” So texting was out for her. “I can’t feel my feet,” she added.

The Southerner behind me joined in: “I thought they’d have us inside too.”

I contemplate abandoning this whole mission, but then I spot a pregnant woman. If she can take it, so can I. And Kevin behind me doesn’t even have a coat on because he never expected to be outside.

Beside me in a running car sleeps a child in his car seat with the car turned on and a sign explaining that the car is on and locked and running. I get it. What if you don’t have a significant other or childcare? Should you hold your baby in 28-degree temperatures?

“My neighbor said get here at 6 am,” states the guy in front of me, Geoff. Marie scoffs, saying she has a 10-month-old who doesn’t sleep. “Not worth that.”

Kevin turns out to be an accountant who moved from Arkansas. We chat about moving here from the south. He says, “They could use the pool more efficiently to allow more classes to minimize the scheduling conflicts. Obviously there’s demand judging by all the people showing up at 6 am.”

Behind me a woman carries a child. I walked up to chat with her. I ask her about her son. “He is 4. It’s winter. You can’t make people stand in the snow. It’s crazy.”

Eventually, we enter the empty gym and grumble about why couldn’t we have waited here instead? A man hands us each a paper with a different number on it. Number 53.

We take turns checking the chalkboard, holding our breath as the swim instructor stamps: “Closed” on the sought-after Saturday classes first.

I wonder why my daughter who refuses to put her head under water, barely makes any moves that resemble swimming, and screams her head off for most of the session, has moved up to the next level anyway.

If she hadn’t, I’d be home sipping my coffee in bed. On her “report card” is “needs work going underwater.” How can she progress if she barely even gets her hair wet? Maybe you don’t need to go underwater in order to graduate from Pike to Eels. Eels swim underwater. But what do I know?

“You should see it in the fall,” sighs Marie. “Way more people.” And apparently they have been claiming to put this all on line for quite some time.

I look down. “Good news, online registration coming in 2018!” reads my form. Harumph.

So what have we learned? All in all, I really hope they go online, but then I wouldn’t have gotten to witness Geoff reading his wife’s text.

 “Oh no,” he laughed. Left alone with three children while he waited in line, his wife had gone upstairs to put their baby down for a nap while the 2-year-old and 5-year-old watched a cartoon on the DVR.

The cartoon ended and the regular programming resumed. Regular programming being, The Walking Dead.

Geoff read his wife’s text: “They just watched a zombie eat someone’s face off.”

He laugh-grimaced.  “’…And now they’re completely traumatized.’”

He went on to explain that like my daughter, his 2-year-old is terrified of movies and earmuffs his ears if anything scary comes on. He can watch Sing but that’s about it.

Kevin laughed.

“It’ll be some time before she finds this funny,” said Geoff. Another casualty of the Y swim signup. Geoff would now has to deal with zombie nightmares for months.

And yet, had I registered while sitting on my couch, or had I brought my phone and zoned out, I wouldn’t have had this pleasant pre-Smartphone interaction with strangers thrown together.

I wouldn’t know that Kevin moved from Arkansas, that he just went to the Army/ Navy game, that he marvels at how there’s even a signup on Sundays here when everything back home would have been closed for worship on this Sabbath day.

He wouldn’t have found out that I’m from the south too, that I went to a Catholic all-girls school even though I’m Jewish, that I moved to NYC five days before 9/11 and yes, I still say “y’all.”

I wouldn’t have found out how he loves how diverse the Cedar Knolls public school is, and how he and his wife marvel at their sons running around the house singing the Dreidel Song (or that spellcheck doesn’t recognize “dreidel”) after moving from a Catholic school where they studied with kids who all looked just like them.

I wouldn’t have found out that he and his family have hit 28 states with the goal of “doing something fun” in all 50 by the time his boys graduate high school.

I wouldn’t have known that Marie teaches freshman English like I used to and that she loves the freshmen too, or that Geoff’s 5-year-old shares my daughter’s litany of demands before going to sleep: “I need water” or “I had a nightmare,” before even closing their eyes.

Or that when one of Kevin’s boys has a nightmare, he says “Well,” with a shrug, “good that it’s over,” or his response for the ole “I can’t sleep, Daddy” is, “And what can I do about that?”

Maybe in this holiday season, we can all put down our smartphones.

If I’d had it with me—I would have been incessantly checking my email, sending some inane texts to the usual suspects or following my brain chatter down the Google rabbit hole.

Instead, I spent 1.5 hours chatting and shivering with some really nice people. And for that I guess I begrudgingly tip my hat to the paper-juggling, chalkboard-marking administrators at the Greater Morristown YMCA.

Alisha Davlin is the founder of Davlin Consulting of Morris Plains.

LEAVE A REPLY