Swimming to Joy; or: How the Water Saved Me
On inherited traumas and joys in an immigrant family, and swimming as an antidote to despair.
La Bâtard
How did it leave? One day I put my head in the water, bracing myself against the fear, and it wasn’t there. I was still a child, but older; then, suddenly, I wasn’t a child anymore. I swam into a tougher, older body that wasn’t afraid, and I lost something else with my fear, though I couldn’t say quite what I lost.
keep your head flat! Flat head, flat head!How do you not get water in your ear?
You do. It just comes out again.
not that bad.
we can fly
I don’t get itWhat don’t you get?
is
Shruti Swamy is the author of the story collection A House Is a Body, and the forthcoming novel The Archer.
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