A Virginia Weekend

So I just returned from a trip to Virginia yesterday.  It was a 6 hour ride down, 5 hour ride back.  It was one of the best mini vacations of my life.  I was sent right back to my childhood when I basically spent maybe ten to twelve straight summers of my life at my Uncle Tom’s pool.

We stayed with my cousin, who is Uncle Tom and Aunt Grace’s daughter.  They were huge figures in my early childhood.  They lived only 15 minutes from us and were at all of our birthday parties and holiday celebrations.  My uncle passed away several years ago, and since then my aunt and cousin her family have all moved to Virginia.  We miss them a lot and it is always good to have visits. 

The pool I swam in was an 8 foot inground pool with a diving board.  It had no liner; the bottom was made out of concrete.  A single line of blue square tiles extended around the entire edge.  It was glorious!

It’s funny how you can be away from things for so long and then suddenly when you are thrown into the middle of it everything just comes back to you.  I haven’t SWAM swam in a pool in the longest time.  I’ve lately been in rivers and such, not even THAT much, but haven’t been in the chlorine for awhile.  I grew up there!  My mother, while taking us to the Black Moshannon State Forest’s “beach” along the creek all the summers of our lives, also took us before that so much more to her brother and sister-in-law’s pool.  This is where I learned to swim.  This pool was 10 feet at the deep end, I believe.  It had a sliding board that was at the 5 feet mark, if I remember correctly.  It was the best place on Earth for a kid.  Me and my cousins celebrated the simplistic joys of life in both ends of that glorious pool!  The family all hung out pool side as we swam.  We had these colored rings that you sunk to the bottom and dove to find.  We would launch each other across the water.  We would practice “The Lift” from Dirty Dancing!!  We were even known to play a spirited game of Marco Polo at times.  We would dive and play and splash until our eyes were fogged over with a white haze from opening them in the chlorine!  It.was.awesome!!

We were probably down in Virginia for a total of 48 hours and I probably spent about 30 of them in the pool!  My face shows it.  I didn’t get burnt, but I look spanked and hopefully it will turn to a light tan and nothing else.  I have such a fair complexion that it’s almost impossible to have fun outside without getting some part of my head burnt, it seems.  They need SPF conditioner for your scalp!
 

My uncle’s pool and cousin’s pool were opposite each other in perspective to the house.  I mean, that the shallow end and deep end were at opposite sides compared to how the pool faced the house and were people sat and hung out.  I found myself getting confused by this at times. I would be in the deep end and I would go to put my feet down.  It was much fun.  I lapsed into childhood myself spending some incredibly joyful moments with my daughter in the pool!  She has proven to be a water lover just like her mother; she didn’t want to get out every time she was in there!

We had some really good food and enjoyed some drinks with the family!  People hung out in the hot tub.  My cousin and her family’s hospitality is astounding and their home is like a resort.  My mother and aunt’s got drunk in the hot tub thanks to some potent vodka drinks fixed by my cousin (whose birthday we were there to celebrate!).  I was about in stitches laughing that night and was up until 3 am helping my drunken mother.  She did apologize for leaving me by the side of the road that night when I was a kid, though.  It was a night to remember.  I thought that it couldn’t be topped until the following night when I went skinny dipping with her at 2am!  I think that the fact that I was not the one naked warrants a mention. :/  I did get some good diving practice in off the board while my mother coached and judged skyclad.  These are things you only tell your therapist, right??  If you don’t have one, I reckon you just blog about it! 

All in all, it was a meeting of the famn damily like any other and unlike any other!  It was epic.  It felt very good to get away.  It was great seeing the family.  It was great having some drinks and unwinding with them, getting to know them again and more, and enjoying a beautiful atmosphere together.  I swam my ass off through time this weekend!  “Good times!” as I taught Celie to say in the pool.  “Sfimmin’ fun!” she says!  I had almost forgotten how much I love sfimmin’ myself!  Floating in the pool water was like a joyful drift through a foreign world of weightlessness, suspended in memory.  

Me To You,
Missie Sue