Leading into Memorial Day weekend, I wanted to take the kids on a trip and New Orleans was calling me. The instinct to visit New Orleans was strong, and I thought it was because there would be something about the city that each of the kids would like. And they did (ish ….it was a very crowded weekend to go!). With an extra handful of hours on our last day, we visited Baton Rouge and LSU. As we drove through the green lined freeway of Louisiana, I wondered if I would even recognize the campus when we arrived. I had been there twice before, nearly thirty years ago, for big swim meets with my club team.  In 1992, I swam the fastest 400 IM I would ever swim in the LSU pool (just slightly faster than I did in that same pool in 1991). I can almost remember my times down to the tenths of a second, though the time itself doesn’t sound as fast thirty years later as it felt at the time. 

We exited the freeway, grabbed a small bite to eat in a little “downtown” area right near the front gate of the campus, then drove in.  As soon as the rented Tesla crossed the campus line, I cried, overcome with emotion I couldn’t explain to the kids. With the feeling behind the tears gliding through every cell of my body, weaving around my heart, I tried to name it: nostalgia, longing, friendship; the fleeting nature of time; the loss of youth; a sense of opportunity; the beauty of naivity; pride.  Certainly, these feelings could would all be reasonable, but none quite aligned with what my heart felt and what populated my tears.    

As we drove through the beautiful campus, stopping to see the football field and nadatorium, my deep breaths and quiet, flowing tears led me to a sense of peace, inclusion and sensuality.  Sometimes there is no word better able to disrupt our deepest instincts than “why?”, but I couldn’t help but ask why those feelings and why did they feel so familiar on this land that I’d only ever stepped foot on for a limited number of days, thirty years ago?   

My son and I entered the bookstore to buy a LSU momento for him and for my husband.  And as we sorted through t-shirt options, I remembered doing an exercise a few years ago wherein I reflected on the feelings that I want every day – the feelings that lead me to do what I do each day in big and small moments in order to generate the emotions that are most important to me.  Of these “core desired feelings” that drive my decisions (albeit, until the exercise done during my early 40s, unconsciously),  peace, inclusion, and sensuality were three, along with a sense of adventure, honesty, and recognition/being understood. A while after I had identified that I strive for these feelings every day, I had reflected on whether my relationships (romantice, familial, professional, with myself) fostered them, and a bittersweet realization hit me: 

Swimming had provided me these feelings for 16 years. Whether through my coaches, my teammates, my own efforts and dedication or, to be honest and more accurate, through the water itself, those feelings were generated every day.  But, like with many blessings, I couldn’t name what swimming was giving me.  I didn’t know how critical the feelings were or what it would feel like not to have them.  It was a beautiful relationship, but whose lessons were hidden within the strength of its devotion. 

It’s likely true of every teenager, but it is certainly true for that girl who swam her fastest at LSU in 1991 and 1992: I didn’t know what my needs were, I just knew to dive in the water every day.    

And there, I found peace.  There was no fighting, no screaming, no loud noise.  Everything was drowned out, to the beat of my hands entering the water in front of me, the depth of my own breath, cheers of support but from an other-worldly distance.   

And inclusion.  The water folds around you, pulling you in, a constant embrace. It welcomes you (even when you resist) and everyone who dives in with you, binding you all together.

And sensuality.  It was my skin against the water, the use of my hips, the smooth motions my body would create, the rhythmic back and forths, the strength of the pull followed by the grace of the glide, the beautiful exhaustion.

And adventure, in every tenth of every second, in thousands of pools, across the country and across the world. In going stroke for stroke with strangers, striving to create something new by eliminating time.

And honesty. There was no hiding my physical needs, my emotional state, from the water, even when I could hide it from myself.

And recognition. External recognition, on the blocks, on the podiums, on the pool deck.  Internally, feeling my pace in every cell of my body, intimately knowing what my muscles were capable of, how to use them, how to incentivize them, how to connect them together. 

I’ve never taken for granted the external opportunity that the sport provided me.  But I never realized the relationship I had with sport, the emotional scaffold it provided me.  For close to 20 years, if not longer, swimming was the vehicle through which I found peace, inclusion, sensuality, adventure, honesty and felt understood and known. At LSU, the place that embodied the height of this relationship, I felt the pangs of deep fondness, realizing now how much the water had given me. I felt a sense of regret, realizing how long it took me to learn how important these underlying feelings were for me and how to nurture them elsewhere.  I felt deep completeness, recognizing the energy of having all my emotional needs met: a sense of alignment, satisfaction, pride.  The energy of Love. 

Maybe it wasn’t the city itself, but this energy, that drew me to take the kids to New Orleans and Baton Rouge.