You Can Swim?

It was the summer after my sophomore year of college. I was at the Whitewater Center in Charlotte with my best friend at the time. I had started being more “outdoorsy”. To me, that meant hiking, wearing North Face, and being in the water as much as possible. When you are 20 years old, you are willing to try a lot more things with little thought of how you will physically recover from it. It was more important to look cute while doing it.

So here I was, at the popular adventure park on a hot, humid day, wanting to share a new activity with my friend. I remember a corporation had rented out most of the park for a development day and my friend and I were a few of the youngest people there. Our raft had four older, white men, who did not help paddle at all. Yes, I’m still a little salty about this. Our guide directed us over one of the class III rapids and I fell out. I popped up and swam hard for the side of the man-made river where someone helped me out. As I was getting out of the water, an older Black man on the side stared at me and asked “you can swim?”. To me, this was an extremely dumb question. I had obviously just swam so I wouldn’t drown in the water. Judging by his expression, it looked like I was the first Black person he had ever seen swim. I politely answered his question and went to find my raft and my friend.

Later, I told the story to my parents and they laughed. I was confused. Why is this funny? I still had no idea why seeing me swim was so shocking to the man. My dad explained that “Black people don’t swim.” Still very confused, I asked for more context. What did he mean that Black people don’t swim? I had swam with Black kids at parties. Outside of pool parties, I hadn’t really seen a lot of people of color in the water. It also wasn’t the first question I asked someone. It took some time before I realized what made my ability so special to him.

Until the age of 10, my family was one of the only Black families in our upstate New York town. We weren’t upper class, but I had picked up on the ways my parents spent their money on my sister and me. This was the late 1900s, but raising a family was still expensive. My sister had been to Europe twice. I went to Australia. We went to summer camps. We always had new clothes every school year. I never had to worry about if there would be food on the table. If one of us wasn’t doing well in school, my parents paid for tutoring. We went on several family vacations. I played several sports and always had new or gently used equipment. At one point, I was on a travel softball team and my parents drove me an hour to practices once or twice a week. Once we moved to Charlotte, I was around more Black children and families. But the areas of the city we lived in were for middle to upper-middle class. I still generally saw Black children participating in the same activities I did. Not nearly as many as white children, but they were there.

That experience at the Whitewater Center was one of the first times I realized that the activities I engaged in weren’t the status quo for people that looked like me. It still didn’t dawn on me until years later that there was a huge barrier to outdoor activities. The biggest ones being transportation, cost, and lack of resources to gain the knowledge to participate. The parts of my childhood that I took for granted was access to a safe park behind my house. Swim lessons from an early age and access to a pool at my house. Living in an era before cellphones and biking all day with my friends. Having access to snowy mountains 30 mins from our town. My parents understood that skiing was a popular sport in northern states, which was very different from their lifestyle growing up in Louisiana. They didn’t want me to feel left out and paid the astronomical fees so I could ski with my friends. My family didn’t go camping or on hikes, but I feel like those micro-doses of adventure helped prepare me for bigger ones later.

Over the years, I’ve met plenty of Black people who were impressed by how much time I spent outdoors and being active, but also incredibly contemptuous. “Couldn’t be me.” Phrases I would hear after telling someone how I rock climbed or finished my first half marathon. For the longest time, I was embarrassed to share my hobbies if someone asked. I didn’t feel like defending why it was more important to me to run 8 miles than to worry about my hair (although, I’ve since learned that you can do both).

Since that day, I’ve climbed and skied down the most heavenly mountains, ran hundreds of miles, camped a handful of times, fell out of more rafts than I can count, learned to kayak and paddle board, and am now training to summit Mt. Kilimanjaro in February. I’ve met many other Black people, online and offline, who celebrate their life of movement and simply being outside. The freedom, fun, and playfulness. The community.

I hope the gentleman from that day has learned something new for himself. I hope he took the time to challenge his own perspective. That age, size, race, gender, and your background shouldn’t stop you from anything. I’m hopeful that I can meet even more people of color who continue to challenge the narrative. For now, I’m allowing myself to take up space outside and learning new hobbies that may or may not last. Most importantly, I’m building a longer table to share a meal with all the friends and found family I make along the way.