T-shirt design by Bonnie Gurney and Lyn Fiscus.

Six Saturdays each summer for the past 3.5 summers, I have sat poolside for 5 hours in some of the most humid Virginia weather to cheer on my daughter and her teammates. Or at least, I watch and cheer when I remember that I’m at a swim meet.

Swim meets involve approximately 200 swimmers ages 6-18 competing in four different strokes plus a couple of team relay races. Add to that a parent or two per swimmer, plus a sibling here and there who comes to raid the concession stand. That’s a minimum of 300 people at one public pool when heat indexes occasionally reach 100 degrees Fahrenheit.

Soccer and baseball moms don’t understand. “It’s so long, and she swims for what, four minutes total?” True.

Aside: Maybe it’s the literary snob in me, but I prefer to compare my daughter’s individual sport to reading a character-driven book. You’re not in it for the non-stop action; you’re getting a snippet of action here interspersed with some quiet moments.

There has to be a selfish angle to enduring this kind of activity because I am one of the laziest moms I know. Maybe I’m trying to live vicariously through my daughter; I did envy that friend in grade school who swam for a team at the country club.

Aside: Let me clarify that our swim organization is as far from a country club as one can get. I once overheard moms in a neighboring suburb scoff at our rinky-dink outdoor pools. My neighborhood pool reminds me of watching The Brady Bunch and Gilligan’s Island on a huge television that was really a piece of furniture with rabbit-ear antenna and a V-hold knob. I love it.

More likely, I’m committed to this experience because I’ve made some wonderful women friends in suburbia, a place that can be treacherous in its competitive parenting. Believe me when I say that I tried NOT to make friends at the pool. I went in all “I’m not from here”; “I don’t do the PTA thing”; and “this is totally a cult.” Snarky is a label often leveled against me.

Aside: This strategy is not working so well in the search for a literary agent and publisher for my memoir. Apparently, an author is supposed to brand herself without using “anti” as a prefix.

The cynic in me ascribes my circle of swim team friends to our family’s purchase of a canopy tent, which we haul to meets, set up and take down. It sounds like a credit card commercial, but the $99 price tag cannot compete with the camaraderie it has fostered. Among 300 people, we stake a claim to a small patch of cement pool deck and create our own family room.

Aside: In The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald’s character Jordan Baker observes: “And I like large parties. They’re so intimate.” Indeed. I’ve been knocked up twice (in the literary sense) under that canopy: first when a fellow mom encouraged me to share my growing-up in Utah stories; second, when I reflected on how my poolside friendships could shape the story line for a present-day thread.

While I’m spouting aphorisms regarding the communal nature of swim meets, I might as well use another that pertains to swim meets: “It takes a village.”

Aside: My loyal readers will note that this is the second reference to Hillary Rodham Clinton in my blog posts. No, she hasn’t phoned me to ask for my support in 2016. But she will….

Fellow moms pack food for my son who is too young to join the team, but eats his weight in snacks at each meet. Dads armed with Sharpies write heat and lane numbers on kids’ arms. A fine mist of sunscreen coats everyone within a 10 ft. radius.

Aside: One of my favorite David Sedaris essays recounts his experience on swim team as a kid. I’m not going to link to it here because it’s so good that you’ll read it and stop reading mine.

So far, my daughter is still into this whole experience. She eschews summer camps in favor of attending daily morning practices. She collects ribbons for the scrapbook that we’ve never gotten around to starting. She shivers in a towel after warms up, waiting for her first event to start. One day, she may figure out that this isn’t so fun. My contingency plan involves private swim lessons for my son in hopes that I can guarantee myself at least four more summers under our canopy.