I was anxious and fearful about swimming my 100th mile, the final 64 laps that would earn me a 100-mile Swim Club T-shirt. It would be my 5th consecutive day of mile-swimming, and my shoulders were sore. Mile number 99 the day before had been followed by indigestion and light headedness. Maybe I had become dehydrated from drinking iced coffee instead of water and queasy from eating pistachios instead of the recommended post-workout banana? It had taken me more than a year to make it this far, as the pool had closed for three months to replace its heater. Also, I needed more than six months just to build up enough stamina to swim a mile on consecutive days without pain. I made sure to give myself enough time between breakfast and swimming to avoid a stomach cramp.

I fretted about other possible obstacles to reaching my literal milestone. Did I get the pool schedule wrong? Was the afternoon I planned to complete mile number 100 an Open Swim with kids on spring break splashing around and playing water basketball? No, the Rec Center receptionist assured me; it was Lap Swim. What else could get in my way? Maybe the pool was crowded, and I wouldn’t get a lane. As it turned out though, a lane was available, my favorite, lane 5, close to the lifeguard in case I fainted, but with no protruding ladder I could accidently backstroke into.

In lane 1 was a teenager on a spectrum, buoyed by a lime green swimming noodle, accompanied by his caretaker who was water walking. He came to swim almost every day either with her or with his mom. He didn’t seem to have speech, but he would sometimes hum or moan loudly, the sound reverberating off the aquatic center walls. A married middle-aged couple, also frequent pool patrons, occupied lanes 2 and 3, water walking and aerobicizing, their legs churning in cycling motions in the water.

Next to me in lane 6 was a swimmer covered in long swimming shorts, a long-sleeved swimming shirt, a bathing cap, and goggles. Possibly they are sensitive to cold water, I thought. They were swimming fast, much faster than I, and pausing a few minutes at each side of the pool—the kind of interval training I promise myself I will do some day. I swim so slowly that I never need to pause for air; I just turn around and keep on going. In the kiddie pool were an Asian man and his school-age son, about 9-years old, enjoying the kid’s first day of spring break.

I was at lap 24, when a group of six black adults well-dressed in formal street clothes, including a woman with a baby stroller covered in a pink blanket, descended the long ramp from the Rec Center onto the pool deck. Three men and three women stood together chatting, bright white towels draped on their arms, looking out at us swimmers. My first thought was that together they were going to introduce the baby in the stroller to swimming. Or maybe they all wanted to swim and were waiting for more lanes to open. Two of the women wore long, bright white cotton dresses; another, a long dark skirt.

No one wore a traditional bathing suit. Maybe they are Muslims, I thought, and these are their modest swimming outfits. I noticed that our lifeguard was ignoring the group, as were the other swimmers, so I proceeded with my laps. After all, my university cross-cultural sensitivity training discourages staring at groups of people who look and dress differently than I. I should mention that I live in a mostly white town in a very white (actually red vs. blue) state, in which less than 4 percent of the population is black.

For laps 20 to 32, my routine is to walk sideways halfway to the other side of the pool, freestyle-crawl the rest of the way up in the deeper water, and crawl back to the front of the pool. When I reached lap 32, the half-way mark, and was ready to swim on my back, I noticed that two other adults on the pool deck had changed also into bright white garments, a man in pants and a shirt, and a woman matching her two female companions in a long bright white dress.

Ah, maybe the white is ritual church clothing! They want to baptize the baby in the pool, and we were all to be witnesses! How wonderful, an immersion baptism like John the Baptist, the early Christian church, and black churches in the American South although I guessed from their language and accents that they were international, from Africa, maybe Congo? I was used to the Lutheran glass bowl baptismal font; but I was no stranger to more diverse practices and in fact, had had my infant twins baptized by my home pastor in my mom’s fruit bowl.

The man in white was standing by my lane looking intently at me at the other end of the pool, trying to attract my attention. Oh, no, did he want my lane? Would it be the holy sacrament of baptism that would stand in the way of my 100th mile? Was this a test of my commitment not only to Christianity, but to diversity and inclusion? How willing was I to postpone my silly milestone? The man gestured to me to approach. I swam back to him, and he bent down to speak to me. “I am a pastor,” he said, “and I want to do a baptism, but where?” he gestured all around the pool. I saw that now all six lanes were now occupied, but the Asian man and his son still had the kiddie pool to themselves. I asked him if the shallower kiddie section would be acceptable. He said, “Yes, but they are there,” pointing to the man and his son.

“Let me talk to them about sharing the space,” I said, wanting to help. Fortunately, the dad agreed to take the far side of the pool. I signaled an OK sign to the pastor, the circle with the thumb and index fingers, with the three remaining fingers raised, and instantly regretted it. What if that gesture means something obscene or insulting in their culture? When I swam by the lifeguard’s stanchion, I told the female college student on duty that the group was going to take the front end of the kiddie area to perform a baptism, feeling guilty about usurping her pool manager role. She nodded her approval, as if immersion baptisms and senior swimmers taking charge of the aquatic center were routine occurrences.

Instead of proceeding with the baptism though, the six adults with the baby stroller formed a circle on the deck in front of a bank of lockers where we swimmers hang our towels and pool bags and place our shoes. The group was almost but not quite blocking both the lockers and the path to the ladies’ locker room. They suddenly broke into song, harmonizing beautifully on many multi-versed hymns in a language I didn’t recognize. The autistic boy in lane 1 moaned along with them; and in between hymns, the pastor recited long prayers.

Swimmers who needed to pick up their towels, shoes, and bags, tiptoed past the choir and gingerly retrieved them. I was shocked that one pool patron decided to use the bathing suit water extractor whose motor makes a rude grinding noise. I would have more respectfully wrung my suit out in the locker room sink. Meanwhile, more moms, dads, and kids had entered the aquatic center, and the kiddie pool filled with children. When they finally stopped singing, the pastor again beckoned to me, gesturing with his arms about where he should now perform the baptism, as alas, there was no longer room in the kiddie pool.

Why me? I wondered. Did he somehow know that I am an enthusiastic praise band drummer for my Lutheran church just down the road? Or was it simply because I was the oldest person in the center? I noticed that lane 6 had become available (the interval trainer prone to chills was done with their workout), so I pointed over to it right next to me and he agreed to take it. As I swam by the lifeguard, I informed her they would be taking lane 6 instead of part of the kiddie pool. She nodded again, for some reason still accepting my authority.

When I was doing the backstroke from lap 40 to 50, the pastor and his baptizee, a grown man in street clothes, descended the ladders into the pool. It was then I realized they were going to baptize a grown up, not the baby. The pastor recited a liturgy and submerged him while the choir sang, the music slowly intensifying, until one choir member started clapping as the pastor and the baptized climbed the ladder.

That was precisely the signal that we swimmers, clueless about the protocol in this unusual cross-cultural situation but eager to do the right thing, must have been waiting for. Swimmers in all five lanes, including the middle-aged couple, the caretaker for the autistic boy, plus arriving and departing swimmers on the deck, simultaneously broke out into a stirring round of applause. After all, my congregation down the road applauds when a baptism is over, the baby (or grown up) becomes an official member of the church, and the baby’s parents and godparents have vowed to raise and educate the child as a Christian. But was the choir member clapping for the baptized man, or was he simply moved by the moment, just clapping to the music?

I was surprised that there was a second person to be baptized, one of the women in a long bright white dress. The pastor went through the same praying and dunking routine while the others sang, the already baptized man’s lower half wrapped in a white towel that was already soaked through. This time though as the two emerged from the pool, no one in the choir clapped, so we swimmers didn’t either. That probably meant that the choir member had just been clapping to the song, and that this church group did, indeed, not observe the post-baptism applause tradition—a cross-cultural learning experience for us?

When I finished my 64th and final lap, I didn’t climb up the ladder in front of the pool as I usually do to retrieve my towel, drape myself, and walk to the 100 Mile Club chart on the side wall because I would have interfered with the choir, the three wet members having since changed into dry clothes. Instead, I used the side ladder by the chart and ceremoniously marked an X under the number 100, the very last box, into which I also fit in a tiny “Yay!” thus applauding myself even though I was only joining a 100-Mile Swim Club, not a congregation. I walked around the pool to where the male lifeguard was now on the stanchion. I told him I had just completed my 100th mile and asked if I could get my T-shirt. He said to knock on the door of the pool office and ask the female lifeguard to take his place so he could retrieve one for me from upstairs in the Rec Center.

I could see through the window that she was maybe asleep, resting her head on her cell phone, but I knocked anyway. She answered the door right away; I explained the situation, and she removed her sweats and assumed her position on the stanchion. The male lifeguard explained that it would take a while to get the T shirt, so I had time to get dressed. Without interfering with the still-singing choir, I retrieved my towel and pool bag and headed into the locker room to shower and dress. I could hear the church group singing, a song I recognized this time, a religious version of “Glory, Glory, Hallelujah,” the old Civil War hymn, Battle Hymn of the Republic.

By the time I finished dressing and left the locker room, they had stopped singing and had left the Aquatic Center. I regretted not having the chance to say goodbye to them and find out what church they were from. The male lifeguard presented me with my T-shirt with the initials of the aquatic center on the front and “100 Mile Swim Club” on the back. He also gave me a card entitling me to $10 off on my next pool membership fee. For this next year we must swim 113 miles, the distance from my town to the state capital city. I was equally proud of both achievements—swimming 100 miles and facilitating a baptism. My 100th mile had been indeed blessed. I felt not only rewarded but cleansed and renewed, ready for another marathon pool challenge.

 

Carol Severino, Director of University of Iowa’s Writing Center, enjoys writing about travel and language learning, sport, and family. She has been published in Best Travel Essays 2012 (Travelers Tales); The RavensPerch, VIA: Voices in Italian Americana, Hinchas de Poesia, Aji, Away, Ragazine, and Writing on the Edge.