It’s 91 degrees in Brooklyn today; August is strutting its stuff.  I haven’t been swimming yet this season.  But the heat has me thinking about a summer several years ago. My photographer husband lucked into a great gig teaching a class in Lucca, Italy, a gorgeous, sun-drenched city smack-dab in the middle of Tuscany.   Because he was given an apartment—gratis—in which to live, my children and I got to tag along on this grand adventure, and tag we did.  Once there, I quickly discovered that a 35 minute bus ride landed us in Via Reggio, a coastal town right on the Ligurian sea.  Since public beaches are virtually non-existent in Italy, we found a moderately priced bagno (private beach club) and prepared for a glorious day under the Tuscan sun.

But when we actually got settled at the pool, I realized that I was—excuse the pun—a fish out of water. All the Italian women wore skimpy bikinis or almost as skimpy strapless suits in brilliant, Technicolor hues—think, cerise, cerulean, magenta—topped by sexy, fringed sarongs. Their sandals were high heeled and/or jewel-encrusted; their make up more suited to the red carpet than the poolside.  Clearly they had never heard of melanoma, because they were uniformly slathered in oil and burnished to varying shades of rich, nut-like brown.  And there I was, in my sensible black maillot from Land’s End (note to reader: Tuscan women do not repeat DO NOT, wear black; black is strictly for Sicilian widows or the austerely chic Milanese) sunscreen-coated face and flip-flops.  Fashion gaffe of the first order.  The next day, I did what any self-respecting fashion conscious woman would do: I shopped. I tried on suit after suit (OK, not bikinis, but cleavage-enhancing tanks in day-glow shades) hobbled around on high-heeled mules, dabbled with on copper-flecked bronzers like my life depended on it.  I bought a dark pink suit and vividly patterned sarong, though I didn’t think, even in that moment, that I could handle the mules. I packed all my loot in my beach bag, and once again, we set off. 
Arriving at the pool was a replay of the day before. There were the oiled, bronzed beauties, reclining on their respective chaises, there were their perfectly lacquered nails slathering on yet another coat of oil. Then I noticed something else. Not one of the adults present was in the water.  Although several children—some presumably belonging to some of these women—splashed and played, the women themselves, coiffed and recumbent, seemingly impervious to the delights of the beckoning blue. My own children cared not one jot about the non-bathing beauties in our midst.  My son, eager to get wet, rushed headlong into that blue by leaping off the side of the pool.  And my daughter, not to be outdone, clambered up a slide at the shallow end, and zipped down its curved path to join her brother.  And all at once I realized that I wanted to play too. I left the sarong and the pink suit with its complicated arrangement of
straps—fortunately, the tags were intact—in my bag, and went to changing room where I quickly put on the trusty maillot, which was still stuffed in the bottom of my bag.  My hair was bundled into the requisite—and hugely unflattering—bathing cap.  Then I hurried out again, eager to immerse myself, fully and without impediment, in the waters of life.