People | Performers

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