It’s a hot summer in Ohio. Last week, the Cincinnati-Dayton metro area saw temperatures break 100 degrees three days in a row. The radio and the electronic signs on I-75 warned drivers to combine trips to reduce smog. Tickets for the popular annual Dayton air show that included access to an air-conditioned “chalet” sold out, but that didn’t prevent a forty percent decline in overall visitors, which is being attributed to the heat. In Centerville and the nearby subdivisions of Springboro, the grass is mostly charred, and sprinklers are running non-stop.

With such heat, I thought it was fortunate that I recently moved into an apartment complex (yes, one named by a generic string of nouns meant to invoke nature: Oak Creek Falls, Terrace Point Ridge) in Springboro, Ohio that houses its own private pool. The pool is nice: big, well maintained, surrounded by rows of comfortable reclining chairs. There are large, round tables, with umbrellas for shade where people can sit and chat. There are clean bathrooms, and even a large grill.

I thought going to the pool might be more than a way to have a lazy afternoon and find relief from the heat. I imagined it would be a gathering place where people socialized, shared stories, talked about their jobs, movies they’d seen, or about life in the complex. I thought that all those people in a common place for a common purpose would be sure to find things to say to one another.

But it wasn’t that way. Most people were there alone, relaxing in chairs with their earbuds snugly in place and immersed in their smartphones. They were unapproachable and seemingly uninterested in talking. I’ve never seen anyone use the grill. And it’s hard to make eye contact with someone who’s wearing sunglasses.

The only interaction I’ve managed to have came after I’d given up on trying to talk to people and was reading a book: a drunken man on his way to throw a bunch of empties in the trash walked past, noticed I was reading, and in a mocking tone asked, “Got yourself a good one?” The possibility of a good book, like the possibility of forming friendships at the pool, was a joke.

People aren’t talking at the pool. But, more interestingly, they’re also not swimming. Going to the pool to actually swim — at least at my complex’s pool — is out of style. People lay in the sun, they listened to music, they drank canned beer, spread sunscreen across their bodies and had conversations on their phones, but they weren’t in the water much. A few people who did venture into the pool stayed for thirty seconds or less before returning to their chairs in the sun.

I’ve seen this brief, solo dip, in-and-out of the pool, too many times to continue mistaking the pool for a social place or a place where people go to swim. And if it’s not a social place, then it’s easy to think of the pool as a place for self-comfort and indulgence, meditation and relaxation — at least the property manager seems to think so. She sent out a mass email reminding everyone not to be too loud, not to play music or do anything else that might infringe on someone else’s ability to enjoy the pool (apparently, someone had complained). After all, she wrote, “Some people prefer to simply listen to the quiet sounds of the pool.”

On walks through the flat cul-de-sacs that compose the nearby subdivisions, I’ve seen other pools. Some are smaller, some larger, some have their own clubhouses, others have a simple parking lot and a thin gate. Even on the most beautiful days, some of them are empty. Others are populated, but there’s always a subdued, languorous hum. There’s something secret about them, tucked back inside the endless looping streets filled with vinyl-sided homes, newly planted trees and signs that say “Residents Only.” Part of me has come to enjoy the solitude of the pool. It’s easy to get lost in the air and sun. People don’t say much, but there is some sense of a shared experience, and there’s an almost spiritual observance of silence and personal space.

In such a heavily manufactured, segregated, and indistinguishable suburban landscape (there is no shortage of fake ponds and elaborately landscaped entrances into subdivision after subdivision), perhaps people are more drawn to the simple, natural pleasures of the sun than to the chlorinated pool water.

But it’s also possible that people might be sensing that something is a bit off. They can see that in the Miami Valley area, where Springboro is located, the smog is thicker than usual. They may remember how many tornados there were in Ohio in 2011 (it was 39). They might have seen the Colorado wildfires raging on their flat-screens or watched other news stories about increasingly frequent instances of so-called extreme weather events. Possibly, they know that they won’t be able to enjoy this kind of comfort forever. But at a private swimming pool in Springboro, Ohio, there are no real problems.

Baking alive, being exposed to just how unforgiving the sun can be (imagine if it were a desert, if there were no pool, no amenities nearby, no surveillance cameras), turns into a small exercise in endurance, an almost unconscious way of reminding ourselves that no matter how hard things are for others, no matter how precariously balanced our comfort might be, for now we are in control. The pool is only a few steps away.

Recently, I was surprised to find a new sign had been affixed to the gate at the entrance of my complex’s pool: “Enter to the left, broken glass.” There had been high winds the previous night, and one of the glass tables with an umbrella in its center had been taken up in the winds, tipped over, and shattered. People used chairs to form a barricade around the area where the busted table and umbrella lay on their side and where the broken glass had yet to be removed. The next day, the area had been cleared and reorganized. A new row of individual chairs has replaced the table and its umbrella. Nobody will miss them.


 
 
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