Collection of Thoughts – Am I Good or Bad? (neither) # 5

 September 22, 2020

October 1, 2020



              I’ve coveted. 

            You have to cut me some slack. I grew up in Rio where I had easy access to the beach, but about 30 years ago I moved to the US and landed in New Orleans. I love New Orleans, but it is hot as an oven and the air is thick and wet. Not that I wish to live in cold towns. I lived in New York once and I am done. Besides, it is very hot there in the summer as well, minus the New Orleans laid back lifestyle that matches Rio’s so well. So what have I’ve coveted? Oddly enough, for a city surrounded by water, I’ve coveted water! 

Walking through some neighborhoods in New Orleans during summers was tricky. I would be hot, clothes-clinging-to-the-skin soaking wet and borderline dehydrated when I would spot that oasis type mirage on the corner of my eye: a swimming pool in someone’s backyard. That blue vision of paradise was usually surrounded by carefully planted trees and foliage, lounge chairs, patio umbrellas,…and no one???? How could it be? That was a total disrespect to sweaty walkers like me. I would stare at it for few seconds and secretly hate them (whoever they were) for taking such a paradise for granted. I would be envious and angry all at once.

Eventually I would take my frustrations and transform them into work. I took it out on my students, I confess. When I was teaching middle school math, one of my big end-of-the-year projects was to combine geometrical concepts of area, perimeter, and volume into a swimming pool design and model. Sometimes I would joke with the students by saying they were designing my future dream pool. We would begin by scrolling  images of swimming pools as references. I would display photos cut  from magazines that I had collected...before iPads in the classroom. 

About 5 years ago, the dream became reality. We made financial decisions that made it possible to happen and now I have my paradise in my backyard. It stays far back enough from the sidewalk so it does not become an attractive nuisance, as it had been for me, and we have been very grateful for it from day 1. We have also made it available to friends and family often. Something this good needs to be shared. We have to counteract the awful feeling that lingers when someone covets another’s swimming pool!

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