Just Stand Up!!
My arms were frantically flapping in the air and slapping down the water, my head bobbing up and down, cries for help gurgling out from my throat in all directions toward the people standing about on sunny concrete. Through the cacophony of cannonball plunges and children’s squeals, I found the voice shouting at me to
JUST! STAND! UP!
My whirling frantic stopped when I jutted my legs toward the pool floor and bolted up from the water, laughing at the blonde in the red swimsuit with her hands shaping a megaphone around her mouth, bent forward over the edge of the pool, yelling at me to just fucking stand up.
This is how we lifeguards entertained ourselves during my city pool days. Underneath the mirrored shades of a lifeguard perched high on a stand lies the dread of a “White Cap” drill where at any public swim moment, a red swim-suited colleague will slyly slip into the pool, snap on a white swim cap, and simulate drowning to incite a rescue drill.
If a lifeguard doesn’t have to unnecessarily exhaust themself by jumping in to risk being drowned by terror, they’re not going to. It’s far more valuable to teach a person how to save their own damn self. When proximity allows, a pole will be extended if you can get the drown-ee to grab on, a rescue ring tossed out - come on - make an effort! But swimming out into the deep to wrestle with someone who is climbing you to use your head for footing, puts both your lives in peril. So we thought we were being funny by yelling to the person to just stand up, inspired by some film, TV show, or real-life incidents where people panicked in water when they could have saved themselves by standing up. Fun fact: a majority of beach rescues are done in waist-deep water for people who freak out in waves and can’t manage to stand up.
It’s an interesting intersection between real and perceived circumstances.
To further illustrate my point, I recently binge-watched the Netflix miniseries Unorthodox. The show is based on Deborah Feldman’s memoir Unorthodox: The Scandalous Rejection of My Hasidic Roots. It’s about Esty, a 19-year-old woman who grew up in a Hasidic Jewish community. She takes flight from her ultra-orthodox community in modern-day Brooklyn NY and finds herself in the completely unknown secular world. While watching this show, two precise moments connected with my religious experience and made me go
Yep!
Moment number one: Esty’s piano teacher, who assisted her escape, tried to help Esty understand that she lived in America where she was free and that the rules of her community were imaginary.
Moment number two: Esty unknowingly ate a sandwich with pork in it and when she realized it she ran outside expecting to be sick but was surprised to find that she did not react. The rules of her community taught her that pork is unclean and would make her sick if she ever ate it.
It is shocking to realize the extent to which people live under archaic, oppressive, and sometimes dangerous rules in modern free western societies. It’s a major reason I maintain this blog. My experience and Esty’s are not only historical but are happening right now in countries where it is legal for women to drive cars, have their own bank accounts, marry the same sex if they want, get an education, not be forced into arranged marriages, not obligated to procreate or have men direct their lives.
My church didn’t arrange marriages, but their rules did tell us that we had to enter into leader-approved courtships because we weren’t allowed to date or have sex before marriage. I had friends who were told by leadership that if they behaved in certain ways, they would be prohibited from marrying the person they were in love with. Not obeying these rules meant being shunned from the community and only support system you knew.
I went to France, fell in love with a Frenchman, and brought him home. It scandalized my parents and they asked me to leave their house. When I asked my then pastor if he would officiate my wedding, the pastor refused because I was not in covenant. I don’t know what he meant by that because he didn’t care to explain it, but I can only guess that he did not approve of me marrying someone outside the church, and perhaps he inferred I was living in sin by having sex before marriage. As soon as I broke my community’s made-up rules, I was rejected. But I also learned that I could set up a new life for myself with the person I chose to marry and we could build our own happiness. I didn’t need the rules to stay safe. I needed to break them in order to live.
If the rules of religion are imaginary, they are still very real to the people who believe they are real. Living in America I was free to marry who I wanted. I finally found someone willing to officiate my wedding because that person didn’t impose imaginary rules on me. The rules only carry authority if a person allows it.
Esty had to make the choice to save herself. Her piano teacher extended the rescue pole, but Esty had to reach out and grab on and then figure out for herself what was real and what wasn’t. Her community told her she would never survive in the world and that pork would kill her. She had to realize that she possessed two legs to stand on and she was capable of living a life on her own terms. She didn’t need the men sent after her to come save her.
I know I’m mixing metaphors here, but the point is, if you think you have to live by your religious community’s rules, you don’t. If you think you’ll drown out there in the real world, stop the panic and fear. You’re not going to drown.
Hey you! I’m calling out at you in my red swimsuit from the edge of the pool -
Stand up and save yourself! You can do it!
I know. I’ve done it, and so have countless others who wanted more than the shallow end of their restricted life.
