#2 Boy Girl Water, 5min read
My favorite Berlin pool is Prinzenbad, which translates to prince’s bath named after a Prince called Moritz but don’t ask for more details because that’s pretty much all I know. Prinzenbad is an outdoor pool and it is public. It’s not expensive, it’s not exclusive, it’s not glamorous. There are seniors and students and avid early morning swimmers. There are LGBTQ cuties wearing neon and body positivity and Arab girls wearing boy shorts and acrylic nails. There are toddlers and start-up bros and big Muslim families and single mums. There are teens and lovers and posers and gangs. Sometimes there are fights. Like, actual fights that make national news. There are bouncers and there is security personnel. Big buff boys patrolling the premises past mothers rubbing sunscreen on babies.
I read an essay a few weeks ago about German public pools and how they are not usually places frequented by the privileged. The “educated elite” or whatever. These pools are spaces graciously left to the public by those that have access to more private ones. From the safe distance of their bubble, this part of society watches as a messier part of society is left to mingle amongst themselves. Fight for their space in a crowded pool, possibly not always staying in their lane. Sometimes pushing, becoming unruly. Sometimes escalating.
Removed from a society they never even considered to be(come) a part of, the privileged bubble then is quick to judge those unruly outlaws. Fingers are pointed at their lack of integration and democratic principles. Too occupied with faux concern the irony is likely lost on them.
The author, despite being part of that privileged bubble loved going to public pools. She considered them places of lived democracy. I have never thought of my love for Prinzenbad in political terms. For better or worse, I rarely think of things in political terms, but I do see her point and maybe our love is not so dissimilar. I adore public happy places for their messiness! Swimming pools, fun fairs, parades! Places where people from all walks of life and status join for a brief moment of sameness because everyone can agree on joy! Happiness will never be exclusive.
I have never been too fond of homogenous societies in general actually. Exclusive spaces are fun but only if you can enter and exit at your own leisure. Like dancing through a perpetual revolving door on light and bare feet. Extremes only exist because of the other and one end of a spectrum is only as exciting as its opposition. The other day I watched a group of Muslim girls in full-body swimsuits and headscarves do backflips into the pool. Right next to them, sitting on the edge of the pool two butch girls covered in tattoos were cuddling and kissing, being in love. They don’t make societal perfection like that at the pool of my private member’s club.
#
Okay, so that’s Prinzenbad and today I’m getting a spot on the big concrete stairs right in front of the main pool. Actually, that’s always where I get my spot. Except during pandemic primetime when that section was closed off and I had to resort to sitting on the big green much further away. Usually, I love green and grass and all things nature but at the pool my preferences change.
I like to be on display. I like people who like to be on display. I like to watch life happening right in front of me and I like to put myself in the epicenter of joy. Not eternal walks away from it, past washrooms and trees and showers and picnic blankets where only a mere ripple effect might still be felt.
I don’t want to be able to focus on whatever book I brought to not read!
I want to be distracted by real life! I want to be bothered by proximity and sounds and wet splashes and I want to be carelessly run over by testosterone-laden boys chasing each other with super-soakers! Troublemakers too caught up in the moment to consider personal space and etiquette, too greedy for fun to give a fuck. Yeah, give me that!
I like to sit on the left side because that end of the pool is where drama is permitted: big jumps and poolside acrobatics, giant splashes and water bombs, any inventive way to enter the water really and to put on a show. It’s where kids and teens gather to run up and plunge in ass first, again and again for hours on end. It’s where girls sit with other girls and watch boys, pretending not to care, like boys, ugh, whatever, but not caring about anything more.
Sometimes a boy runs up and grabs a girl, all of a sudden, but not that sudden either. The girl screams, of course she does, the kind of perfect high-pitched girl scream I never quite mastered and he keeps pulling her closer and closer to the deep end and she keeps kicking and screaming, cute screams, all damsel in distress. Maybe she even calls out to her girlfriends, like help me help me, which actually is teen girl code for don’t you dare touching me bitches I swear to god don’t even think about getting me out of this!!!
Boy has probably lifted Girl up by now and is carrying her. He just threw her over his big shoulders, because that’s how strong he is. He can carry a girl over his shoulders! Like, omg! So easy! He makes sure his mates, brothers, cousins see; his rivals too. They do.
Girl keeps kicking and screaming pretending not wanting any of this but not wanting anything more. Fighting a fight she would never want to win. Eventually, Boy succeeds and together they fall into water. Boy and Girl falling into water. Girl being fallen by Boy. Into water.
Together they sink into transparent turquoise. Quiet.
No more screaming, no more pulling. Stillness. Entire seconds of it. Muffled intimacy. Glimpses of togetherness. Hey. Hey Boy, I’m holding on to you, please don’t let go… Girl, hey Girl. Yes, keep holding on to me, I won’t let go…
And the water isn’t cold but warm and it is deep but not dark. You can keep your eyes open.
#
I can’t fathom why people would rather be removed from it all, snoozing somewhere far away, looking up at trees that have no story to tell here.