In April, I married Dave. He lives in San Francisco. We've spent at least as much time, in the ensuing weeks, hammering out logistics -- when and how and where can we live under the same roof -- as we have declaring our love in those phone calls that have surely increased SW and PacBell stock exponentially. His job is too good to leave there just yet. My roots are too deep to leave here, perhaps ever. "His place" is too small for, and prohibits kids -- of which I have one. "My place" is awfully far for him to travel for the two days a week he has off.
Thank god for old lovers. One of mine called up and offered the use of his sunny, spacious North Beach pad for a good part of the summer. North Beach: Italian food like no other. Cool people. Latte machines more frequent than Slurpee machines in Austin. An ocean breeze.
We jumped on it. "You can have it for June and July," said Jeff, as I practically suffocated him with grateful love through the wires. Eight whole weeks to sleep with my man, see my West Coast friends, drag my kid to the Exploratorium, the Aquarium, Golden Gate Park, the Cable Cars. I was ecstatic.
And then I remembered:
Little Stacy Pool.
Thanks Jeff. And sorry, really, truly I am, Dave. But Henry and I can only make it for June. 'Cause Little Stacy Pool closes way too early in August and Henry and I -- well, that pool in July just might be one of our all-time favorite activities regardless of city, season, or the $300 A/C bill we'll no doubt accumulate when we come back to the time and the place Dante would have written about, had he got out more.
This will be our third (or is it fourth?) summer now to go to Little Stacy Pool -- more of a big bathtub than a real swimming facility. When I was little, my parents took us to the Jersey Shore and the Atlantic Ocean and the Boardwalk, and the burning sun, every weekend and two weeks each August. I look back over my life, at all the places I've lived and things I've done, and summer in the ocean is the best memory of all.
I can't give Henry that. I suppose we could go to Galveston. Or Corpus. Or -- yes, this year -- even the Pacific. But we have carved our own ocean from a blue-bottomed cement hole, our beach from a sandless, paved, and prickly-grassed strip of land that borders what has become our ocean here in Travis Heights.
Most other days, during those other seasons, I pick him up from his Montessori school and tote him home. Sometimes we drift apart: he to Nintendo, me to e-mail. Or we go for a Happy Meal. Or we rent a movie. Nine months of the year, there is no plan. But summer, every summer...
I love to show up at his school at 3pm and watch his face light up as he runs to me, "Are we going swimming, mom?" He knows we are. I am in my uniform -- push-up bra bikini-top, practically illegal Daisy Duke cut-off Levis -- the other Montessori moms in their flowing skirts and business suits shooting me looks that range from wistful to, "I'm going to call the cops on my cell-phone and have you taken in for indecent exposure."
We chug in the old truck the few blocks, park in the useless patch of shade, and dash down the hill to Little Stacy. I bring snacks -- big bags of chips and jars of Kool-aid, remembering, when I can, to bring enough for all the kids. I trip over myself, the towels, the floats, the faux scuba equipment, The New York Times threatening to fly from my hands in the rare breezes that stir only when I am clearly too bogged down to chase after "Arts and Leisure."
If Dave were here, he might wonder how this could possibly top steamed mussels and marinara-sauced linguini, tacquerias in the Mission, pastries in Noe Valley on a Sunday afternoon. I can't tell him. Not exactly. But I can try.
Each summer, we gather -- it's like college. Some of us have graduated to bigger pools, our children's limbs grown so long over the spring that the little pool (three feet at its deepest) bores them. But there is always an overlap -- the new moms, the seasoned vets like me, the second-year members. And some dads, too. We can relax at this pool. Even if we never officially introduce ourselves, we watch each others' kids, swap stories, know this is a safe place where the lifeguard could splash from one end to the other in two seconds if a kid did manage to slip.
Last summer, I met Elena there. Every day. On the odd days one of us did not show -- me with the Hankster and her with Curtis -- we'd call later and check to make sure the next day would find us together again. That friendship has lasted longer than the summer sun. As I write this, our kids are together, playing downstairs.
This spring, the parents got together, chipped in time and money, and paved over the rough spots around the pool. It was a labor of love, and a labor of lobby -- someone convinced the powers-that-be to let concerned citizens take over where the city could not provide the needed resources. Kids and parents alike towed bricks and tools and sweated and toiled, because they know what I know. It's not a secret; Little Stacy, it's a pretty gem, free and public, more precious when we tell others to join us.
This will be our last summer at Little Stacy Pool. And we will, I know, sometimes hop over to Barton Springs, or Deep Eddy, or the Kiddie Pool at Shipe up in Hyde Park, or even over to Big Stacy -- open all year, but too deep to afford the relaxation that the safety of Little Stacy brings. Mostly though, we'll stick to our own turf.
Next year, my son, already just off by a hair, will conquer and surpass the four-foot mark that means he's not a kiddie anymore. And I will miss that pool, the lifeguards (Kenneth two years ago, and Lily last summer) who patiently taught Henry how to swim and feel both confident and cautious around the water -- things I never learned as I splashed ("Don't go in past your knees!") in the very big pool of my own youth.
I cannot wait to go to San Francisco -- to see that city and doze to the crashing roar of my husband's snore and to smell the salt in the air. And I cannot wait to come back, to have this summer ritual one last year, to revel in the shouts and splashes of happy children, and to smell the chlorine of my Little Stacy. n Spike Gillespie really did get married on April 1. Subscribe to her online column at: SpikeG@prodigy.com