33 Meters…What I Learned From a London Pool

Natalie Schumann is an Indiana student who is spending the semester studying abroad in London.

I walked up the stairs from the locker rooms, nervous but pulled by the comforting smell of chlorine and the constant echo of moving water that I had subconsciously been missing so much. The pool wasn’t pretty or glamorous, perhaps the polar opposite of the bright, glittering Counsilman-Billingsley Aquatic Center at Indiana University. But somehow, the four-lane, 33-meter body of water was perfect.

It had been one month since I had last snapped on my cap and goggles, four whole weeks since I had last been subordinate to a pace clock. I missed the steady red and black hands, powerless pieces of plastic to an outsider but so influential to those who understand their authority. Their spinning somehow makes time pass more slowly for me, forcing a full appreciation of each second, every black tick mark and red triangle. London, my current temporary home, has the opposite effect: it compels me to fly through my days with a determination and speed that makes time pass entirely too fast. It’s simultaneously exhilarating and exhausting, something I truly love and truly despise about this city.

At that moment, staring at that basement pool in the University of London Union, all thoughts of the sirens, street chaos and the rush of the Underground system were gloriously inaccessible. I forgot everything except my love for and addiction to swimming. The team captain announced a 400 warm-up, and I was greeted by the feeling of invincibility that teases a swimmer during the first few laps after a hiatus: the fleeting beliefs that maybe I wasn’t so out of shape after all and my muscle memory had not faded one bit. This feeling quickly vanished after about 75 meters, leaving me frustrated, breathless, and all the more determined to return to my former condition.

I was so ecstatic to be back in the water that I found it impossible to dwell on my frustration. I didn’t notice how my shoulders rebelled against the movements that were so easy only four weeks earlier. I was too intoxicated by the chlorine, too enveloped in the calming sound of the water moving around me, somehow clearing my mind while completely filling it with such familiar noise.

As practice began, I realized something amazing. Somehow, in a pool thousands of miles from home and surrounded by strangers, I was not overwhelmed. Amidst the countless changes I had tackled since arriving in London, swimming remained constant. I was surrounded not really by strangers but by people who shared a common love for a sport I consider so essential to my life, a sport I was quickly beginning to consider truly universal.

I think in that moment I felt more pride in swimming than ever before. High school district meets, state championships, college club swimming nationals… those were all moments in which I was incredibly proud to be a swimmer. This was different—this was a new level. I realized that I am truly part of something so much bigger than myself, bigger than a pool (regulation length or not), bigger than best times or award podiums.

Swimming crosses borders, it exists regardless of whether the practice totals 2000 meters or 6000 yards, long course or short course and everything in between. It immediately creates connections between people around the world, whether they’re wearing a cap that says University of London or the name of a local club. We didn’t know each other’s names, but we all could list countless freestyle drills in a heartbeat.

I would like to think they feel a pride in swimming similar to mine, and that some of them also sat glued to their televisions in August 2008, mesmerized by the history unfolding before their eyes as swimming exploded into the world’s spotlight. Without talking to anyone, I knew we all could share one race we wish we could take back and re-swim, and we all could reminisce forever on the one race we wouldn’t trade for anything.

I didn’t realize how much I needed swimming in order to feel at home, but that day made me more comfortable in London than any orientation session or cultural education ever could. Somehow, these small similarities became big enough to reveal something so valuable and to teach me a lesson I never would have learned without jumping into that 33-meter pool… and I know I won’t be climbing out anytime soon.