One essay from Nina Mingya Powles' new book Small Bodies of Water tells of her memories of swimming pools around the world. Photo / Getty Images
One essay from Nina Mingya Powles' new book Small Bodies of Water tells of her memories of swimming pools around the world. Photo / Getty Images
Expat Kiwi writer Nina Mingya Powles' new memoir Small Bodies of Water takes readers from London to New Zealand, Shanghai to Malaysia. In this abridged extract, she writes of the swimming pools she has visited while growing up around the world.
5, Niagara Falls, Ontario
The orca glides from one end of the deep pool to the other. Upbeat music plays on the loudspeakers. A pony-tailed woman wearing a full-body wetsuit stands on a platform, a white bucket placed by her feet. The music swells; the crowd leans forward on their seats. I imagine what it would be like to be in that pool, too, swimming swiftly alongside the whales under the stadium lights, perfectly at home in the aquamarine water. My mother raises her camera.
6, New York City
Half dream, half memory. The bottom and all four sides of the small pool are covered in silvery-white tiles. Standing in the shallow end I can feel their ridged edges with my feet. I have my purple plastic goggles with iridescent gold lenses – when I put them on everything is like an underwater sunset. Outside the wide window, a city skyline glistens with heat. After swimming, I eat dinosaur-shaped chicken nuggets and French fries served on a blue picnic plate.
After our swim, we dry off in the shade next to the pool with our ice creams. Our favourite is the Häagen-Dazs one with chocolate icecream coated in a milk chocolate shell. Wasps flit around my hair, attracted by the sugar, and Dad swats them away. From up here, we can see dark clouds passing swiftly from above the rainforest towards the town, and I can feel the afternoon heat becoming thicker, sweeter. Mum motions for me to move closer to her under the pool umbrella, getting ready for the downpour.
8, Thorndon, Wellington
Pink nylon, ice-white tiles. An unheated school pool is a lesson in how to breathe. Oak leaves and cracked acorns swirl on the surface of the water as we grope frantically for each other. Chipped fingernails, scraped knees. One, two! Breathe, kick! Mrs Ongley's fists are in the air. Anna's nosebleed brings the swimming lesson to a sudden end. Girls gasp and sneer at the little trail of blood droplets on the concrete.
A hazy memory: an indoor swimming pool with high ceilings and a pink water slide spiralling down into the deep end. Every half hour, mechanised waves gently roll the water from one end to another, making our hips sway.
14, Xuhui District, Shanghai
My first two-piece, at fourteen: a black halter top tied behind the neck, with white, blue and pink polka dots, the Roxy logo embroidered on the matching briefs. I take my iPod, a bottle of water, a towel and a pack of Oreos down to the pool next to the car park. All summer, the cool, chlorinated water is a blessing. I float on my back under the corrugated plastic roof, which collapsed last winter under the weight of sudden snow. The lifeguard plays games on his phone while I do my slow strokes, alone. The heat can't touch me: a girl swimming is a body of water.
16, Jinqiao, Shanghai
It's too hot to be outside without some part of your body touching the water. The pool at the compound where my friend Jessie lives is in the shape of a heart, with dark blue tiles on the bottom and creamy white edges. We sit on the side of the pool, our toes dangling in the water, eating mini burritos wrapped in foil that Jessie's mom made for us even though we said we weren't hungry. I chew on the straw of a juice box. The white sun is behind the clouds but still the plastic lounge chairs feel hot to the touch. When boys from the year above us show up on the far side of the pool, we quickly rewrap our burritos and lower our bodies back into the deep end, gliding away.
Expat Kiwi author Nina Mingya Powles whose new book Small Bodies of Water is out now. Photo / Sophie Davidson
25, Peak District, Derbyshire
A forest pool surrounded by soft ferns and foxgloves bent over by the wind. A blue reservoir glistens through the pine trees on either side of the little pool. The water is cool, soft, the colour of jasmine tea, submerging my skin in flickering red and orange light. This magic place is called Slippery Stones, and it's true, the rocks are slick with dark moss. My boyfriend and I are some of the oldest people here – groups of teenagers smoke and listen to Frank Ocean in the grassy meadow, wearily watching all newcomers who lay their towels down, like languid guardians of the pool. I wince as the teenagers cannon- ball one by one into the dark water, aiming for the middle of the pool, the deepest part where you can't touch the bottom. None of them miss. This place feels both wild and safely enclosed, with slow waterfalls at opposite sides of the pool where the amber-coloured water flows out to a steady stream, which in turn becomes the River Derwent.
26, Lucca, Italy
There are wasps in the grass around the path leading up to the pool. A garden pond is covered with netting to stop small children falling in. Pond lilies are beginning to bloom on the surface, blush pink against so much green. I've got my yellow bikini on under my cotton dress, a gingham pattern on seersucker fabric. There are two ripe peaches in my tote bag. I had one for breakfast, too, along with a boiled egg and toast. In August the peaches here are the sweetest, with marigold flesh, tinged red at the core of the fruit. The juice drips down as I eat one after my swim, drying sticky on my thigh.
