Diving Lessons

Alexandra Midler '22

THE SPARROW'S CRY OF FREEDOM, GRACE SUN '23

Diving Lessons

Alexandra Midler '22

My great grandmother curled her toes over the edge, ten meters up, and prepared to jump. The wind howled. She held her hands together as if praying, then launched into the diving pool at the 1920 Olympics, winning gold.

Stefanie started diving as a little girl to escape her father, craving the sensation of leaping into the air—for a moment it felt like she could fly away from his suffocating rules at home. He insisted she speak only when addressed and obey all commands. As she grew older, so did his contempt for her diving. He felt she was wasting her time rather than finding a husband and made her work late in his umbrella ship until there were only a few hours of daylight left to practice.

In the aftermath of WWI, there was speculation over whether the Olympics would take place. Stefanie got confirmation only seven months prior, in the middle of winter. She was almost 20, and knew her father was maneuvering to arrange her marriage. This was her only chance to escape. So every day after he released her from work, she bicycled to Helgoland Beach, and walking out onto the ice, used a hammer to crack a hole to the arctic water below. Then my great grandmother dived until her lips and fingers were bruised-blue, tucking her chin and pointing her numbing toes.

She was the best prepared for the Olympic trials and traveled to Antwerp in August. Watching the other competitors, she noticed they all approached the dive in the same way—spreading their arms out like poles and leaning forward to fall into the water. When it was her turn, she curled her toes around the rim and blocked everything out: the crowd, her father’s disapproval, her fear. She rolled her shoulders back and looked up into the sky. Then she launched off the diving board, and flew.

~

My mother first told me Stefanie’s story on my eleventh birthday, and has repeated it

countless times over the past five years, making sure I will never forget. Why? Certainly family pride is one component. When visiting relatives in Denmark last June, my aunt Nina brought out the gold medal for us to gawk at. But there is a greater reason than to treasure the past. My family passes on the story because we know it can impact the present. After telling me Stefanie’s victory, my mother shared the story of the story: how each successive generation heard the tale, and its profound impact on them.

She taught me that storytelling and writing are like cooking. A writer must assemble facts like ingredients; then stir in commas and metaphors, roast with tension, and sprinkle imagery to create a satisfying story. The distinct flavor of a meal is dependent on the process as well as the raw ingredients. Similarly, the way a writer goes about telling a story is critical to its meaning. Who is the intended audience? What emotions do they hope to evoke? These variables tell the writer when to add a dash more of irony or cut down on figurative language. How and why a writer tells a story creates their recipe. Over the past century, my family has made many meals from Stefanie’s story. Although the recipes differed, each provided essential nourishment.

~

My mother told me that her mother, Mette, heard the story in 1940, lying in her basement while German Junker 88s dropped bombs on Copenhagen. She had dragged blankets down from her bedroom, but it was still freezing on the concrete floor. Mette tried to slow her chattering teeth by wrapping her arms around Stefanie. It was charcoal black. She felt her mother’s breath on her forehead, but couldn’t make out any of her features. It was at this moment that Stefanie chose to tell her eleven year old daughter how she won an Olympic medal. She had a clear ‘why’: to inspire courage, and only one ‘how’ available in the darkness: her voice. These shaped her recipe. Stefanie focused on the hardships she had faced: the water’s mind numbing cold which lingered long after she was dry, the loneliness of diving hour after hour without any encouragement, her father’s scorn. She had needed to be strong, to believe in herself, to have faith. Stefanie emphasized that Mette had these traits in her as well. Finally, she described the moment before her winning dive: the roar of the crowd, her fear, and the uncertainty of what lay ahead. But nevertheless she launched herself into the sky, arms open, trusting the fates.

I marvel at how my great grandmother expertly combined ingredients to feed Mette hope and bravery, using only her voice. Rhythm and tone, crescendos and silence—these were the only tools she had. I find it challenging enough to tell a story on the page, when I can revise and delete, slowing down time to consider, then reconsider. Stefanie had one opportunity, and her execution was spotless.

~

The next chapter in the story of the story is my mother’s. The setting: Stefanie’s apartment in Copenhagen. The time: Christmas Eve, 1977. She sat at Stefanie’s feet with the other grandchildren, soaking up the warmth of a fire crackling in the grate. Outside, the streets were deserted, and snow coated the windowsills like powdered sugar. Rivers of wrinkles meandered across Stefanie’s forehead, pooling together under her eyes. But in the firelight, her blue irises twinkled. When the room quieted, Stefanie began to speak. My mother grew up in England and did not know much Danish when she was eleven, but she told me how she followed the story in the inflection of her grandmother’s voice, making out each exclamation point and ellipse, the bold and underlined; in Stefanie’s posture and arm gestures; and the faces of her Danish cousins—their rapt attention, gaping mouths, and reflexive shivers. She watched as her great grandmother stood with the grace of Queen Elizabeth dismissing tea, rolled her shoulders back, and stepped out of her shoes to parade before the fire. Then Stefanie stopped. She tilted her chin and looked into the distance, seemingly oblivious to her captivated audience, curled her stockinged toes, pressed her pale palms together, swung her arms back, bent her knees, and launched, shouting “Så flyver jeg op til himlen.” My mother made out two words - I fly . Everyone began to cheer and clap, regardless of whether they spoke Danish. Stefanie had adapted the recipe again. Her ‘why’ was now to unite the family across languages and nations. Her ‘how’ was through expression, tone, and enactment.

~

Some authors believe storytelling is a form of telepathy. I write about a white rabbit in a cage, munching on a carrot top, and Abra Kadabra! you conjure the same image. The magic comes from the ability to transmit a thought clearly, with minimal interference. But Stefanie’s story goes beyond this. In its telling and retelling, across decades and generations, the story adapted. From the same ingredients, different recipes formed to bring courage to a scared child in the midst of war, spark the imagination of another, and connect my family across nations and languages. The story is more remarkable for its ever growing impact than its concrete facts; the versatility of the message, rather than the consistency.

~

My mother passed this family history on to me in the hope that I would make my own recipes from Stefanie’s story. I am in awe of her bravery and self-confidence, but struggle to relate her life to mine and reach across the 100 year gap. She seems like a storybook hero, rather than a relative, especially as I struggle to define myself.

My family says I am an empath. I absorb the headache beneath the brittle waver in my mother’s voice as we drive to school, and opening my locker I massage my right temple. When my bubbling brother overflows into my room, I forget my toe-clenching worries over cumulative exams and imbibe his joy. My stomach leaps and pirouettes as I watched from the balcony as my best friend debuts in the ballet Don Quixote. In contrast to Stefanie, who defied her father’s efforts to shape her character, I slip unconsciously from my skin into others, taking their personalities as my own. I feel an imposter to my great grandmother’s memory, failing to emulate her strength.

When I confess this doubt to my mother, she tells me the family history again and gives me a scrapbook of photos and newspaper clippings. There is a school photo of Stefanie in a white frock buttoned up to her chin, with wild hair curling like mine into stubborn ringlets. A grainy snapshot shows Stefanie’s father standing before a shop window; above, a white awning reads “Paraply-Fabrik” (umbrella factory). On the last page is a photo of her Olympic dive. The water is out of the shot, and it looks like she is suspended in the air. Flying. As I study the portraits, my mother reminds me that Stefanie’s strength is in us, no matter how different our lives may be. It travels through the generations in her story.

I write to add my chapter to the family history and pass Stefanie’s strength along. The story will never be completed; each generation provides a new revision, strengthening the record of the past into the perennial present. Another page awaits.