Community: The Pool
Community: To come together with other people.
One of my favorite things is watching my daughters meet new friends. They can be at a park, a pool, on vacation, at a wedding, or in a new location and by the time we are leaving they somehow have new friends. I never know how it all starts and I wonder who initiates the conversation or is there some kind of “Kid Code” that we seem to have forgotten about as adults.
This summer we decided to take A.R.C. on the road to a brand-new location. My parents generously gave us a week in a timeshare of our choice, we chose Vail, Colorado. We got to hike, eat, hike some more, eat some more, and play. Just about every day we went to the pool at the resort. Our first day there the girls immediately made new friends. We never planned it, but we seemed to always go to the pool at the same time. We went night swimming one day and guess who was there, the same families. We all got in the same day and left the same day. The girls played mermaid school, which is my favorite, they would swim up to me and ask me to test their mermaid skills. So they swam with their feet together, swam with only their arms, practiced holding their breath, worked on jumping up and spinning, they swam laps, and swam backwards. They also had handstand competitions, which were not competitive but instead informative of how to do a handstand and how to hold it. Each day could have seemed repetitive to us adults, but each day contained new adventures and an opportunity to include new people. The kids just needed to look-up for a moment and ask the new kids to join in.
How do we, as adults, miss these moments? How do we ignore these moments? To our daughters the pool at our little resort was so big that all people could be part of the fun. To our daughters that mountain vista pool was neutral territory; skin color, shape, the haves or have nots, the day’s experiences did not matter to them… they simply invited other’s in so that they could all play together.
I do not know about you, but things seem different as adults. The things that did not matter to my daughters seem to matter to adults (I AM NOT SAYING THEY SHOULD). I get nervous to invite someone into a conversation. I get selfish and do not want to engage an invitation. Sometimes all I think about are the differences instead of thinking about the similarities. I forget the fact that we are human, we all have needs and wants and longings and losses. Sometimes life experiences teach us to not be real or honest about the REAL experiences of life.
I long to be more like my daughters at the pool. I long to see people as people not as someone to compete or compare myself to, not as someone who needs my help, not as someone who can help me. I want to jump into the pool of life and encourage others to jump in with me. I want myself and others to make the biggest splashes ever and cheer for each person as they make a unique splash. I want us to take risks (safe ones of course😉) and begin to do things we thought we could never do because we know if one of us does it then the rest of us can too. I want to be in the water and experience the excitement, the joy, the bliss of knowing I DID IT, I AM SEEN, I AM ACCEPTED and look around and believe I AM EXACTLY WHERE I AM SUPPOSED TO BE.
The pool, the table, the sidewalk, the porch, the deck, the conversation, the home… One ask allows us to go from apart to a part of. May we be a people that learn the power of the invitation and be a people that quickly to accepts when an invitation is given.
