It’s no revelation that someone who can’t swim & has ‘the hydrophoby’ (couldn’t resist the reference to rabies from movies like Old Yeller) might not muse rhapsodically on water. Though I don’t recall my early bath times, my family likes to tell the story of toddler-me running naked through the house yelling “Betta hide!” when my bath was drawn. Being chased down for personal hygiene was a sport in my household.

A day trip with Poppie & Grandma Ada (his visiting mother) was a less than happy time spent around water. She was not my favorite person– nor his, if he was being honest– even at around 6 yrs old I deemed her bigoted & mean. We were in some PNW riverine country, fishing for trout, I guess. All I really know from that trip was reeling in a fry, only 5 inches, & my father telling me to get it off the hook & toss it back. The gruesome damage the hook had done to this small fish made me cry. Grandma Ada said something like “You gotta toughen up! Fish don’t feel nothin’ anyhow.” I retreated to the car to sulk for the remainder of the trip. Yet another example of Grandma’s heartlessness.

Later I got hauled along on another water debacle, with my eldest sister & her Methodist minister husband, when I was 8. I was not excited to go out on Puget Sound with the intent to catch anything. I was hoping I’d be spared the activity & left to enjoy speeding over the waves in this average-sized powerboat. The minister’s sister & her husband were along as well, people I didn’t know (& didn’t want to). Though I tried to refuse the rod & reel, one was thrust into my hands because children don’t know their own minds, apparently. “It’s fun!” was the proffered reason for foisting carnage upon me. I lazily held it, hoping nothing would bite. I found it barbaric to pretend casual killing was a lovely pastime.

Before anyone got the barest nibble, my line jerked on something & started running out. I was instantly crestfallen. What’re the fucking odds? My brother-in-law rushed in to help when it was obvious I wasn’t going to reel in the fish. Both our hands on the pole, he drew the line in. Then there it was: my abject anguish that a 2 ft long Pacific octopus was tangled in my line, squirming & crimson with distress. We couldn’t free it & the adults weren’t enthused to eat it (thank Poseidon!), so he just cut the line. I watched it sink, hoping it could untangle itself. Then harbored thoughts of skewering my boatmates with hooks. My idea of fun was imagining cruel people meeting poetic justice.

Sometime after this a friend from my old neighborhood & I went to Saltwater State Park. It was her mission to teach me to swim. It was my mission to not drown. When coaxed barely past the point where my feet could still touch the sandy bottom, I inadvertently inhaled a mouthful of seawater & panicked, thrashing around. I managed to get to the cement boat ramp & tried to run beachward, subsequently tripping in the shallow water & hellaciously skinning my knee on the ramp. My knee cap was white; I could see it clearly. 

The next day my knee was swollen cantaloupe-size & there were a number of pus-filled blisters in the wound. A doctor was consulted (water-on-the-knee the diagnosis) & he offered to use a needle to drain it. I opted to stay off it, ice the swelling, & keep the wound disinfected. My way was infinitely better. I never waded in saltwater after that. Scorching land could not make me take to the sea.

Stands to reason the beach is not a desired destination for me. I loved finding tiny crabs & watching them scuttle away, but sand’s only redeeming feature is that glass is made from it. Took just one time running barefoot on a beach & climbing on rocks to find out barnacles will slice the soles of feet to shreds. Maybe there’s too much Kansas in me. I was born & lived my first few years in Wichita. I talked funny to the people of the NW, & soon trained out my Midwestern accent. Being from a landlocked state, we knew little of oceans.

I gather people like beaches for the power of the surf, the vastness, the calm & thrill of Nature’s creative & destructive forces combined, the almost-alien ecosystems beneath the surface. I’ve always been more storm-chaser, coming from tornado alley. I like the beach when it’s gloomy & wind-tossed, & no one’s in swimwear. Or even there at all.

The entire Vance clan were born & raised in the Midwest, up to when I was 3. Then my father transferred from the Wichita Boeing plant to Seattle’s. My parents had scoped out the PNW when attending the World’s Fair the year before. They loved the area so much they decided to move here. All of us eager to see the Pacific Ocean. Being just 3, I was excited along with my sisters because what did I know? Most of them could swim, not that the water on the coast is comfortably warm enough to be in, but novelty was key for these transplants from Kansas… a place where no one speaks the words ‘undertow’ or ‘riptide’.

We spilled out of the station wagon right onto the beach, a parking allowance I cringe at now. Some of us made ready with towels & picnic supplies & whatever. What did little Yellek (that backwards name is growing on me) do? I ran bat-outta-hell for the waves. In the confusion of 8 people all doing different things, & probably some sibling squabbles amongst them, I was not missed at first.

Being tiny, it didn’t take much of a wave to shove me off my feet. Next thing I knew, I was being washed out to sea, spitting out foul-tasting water & staring at the sky. This is my very first real vivid memory. I wondered if there’d be sharks in the seconds before my father scooped me up. I don’t recall being scared. Surprised, for sure. & curious. Mostly, uncomfortably wet.

I like to quip that my parents brought me to the NW to drown me, then lost their nerve. That said, I don’t think of this as a traumatic event, yet it may figure in why I’ve evaded learning how to swim. & why I dislike the feel of being submerged in water. Even seeing Psycho at the age of 5, I stick to showers.