Tucson by Felix Pasilis
“Summer”
“3 Little girls in shower in swim pool”
Well the start of early summer has begun. It is delightful. It began 4 days ago. But I didn’t recognize it for what it was. All the ingredients were there. I knew this feel was familiar somehow, but it isn’t till this morning I realize it is summery. Everything feels summery. The early mornings are so dreamy and soft and feathery and summery. You wake up to soft feathery mornings. It’s just a downy time. Even the blue of the sky is a soft blue. The air is soft, the colors are soft. It is soft world, a dreamy soft world, with the call of the morning doves echoing thru every yard in Tucson.
It is the call of the morning doves which is the sound of summer on the desert. It is 3 long notes with the third note the longest. Like rata tat taaaaaaat. Except the sound is not staccato. It is deep and throaty. O now one morning dove has answered the other’s call. I hear them calling to each other from opposite yards, one from the east of me, one from the west of me. I don’t know how to describe the sound. I guess people must call it a wail. But it is more like the sound of tugboats on the river, if the horns were more melodious and a little flutier. If the tug boats chirruped out their horns, it might sound like the morning doves. Obviously no other bird makes calls like that, they are all like penny whistles compared to the doves.
At one of the swimpools I go to-- Fort Lowell, high up by the mountains, the one where Samantha is head lifeguard-- when school is out for the summer, the day camps in Tucson bring the kids there for long afternoons of swimming in that huge wonderful pool with two diving boards. The grown-ups have lap swim from 11 to 1, and then at 1 o’clock exactly the buses arrive with the day camps kids. That is always when me and Kathleen and Moira are naked under the shower after our swim. And none of us like it that all the little girls cluster together, stare and point and giggle, at the sight of us naked. We are washing our hair, talking to each other, and suddenly we look up and there is that audience. Sometimes they run and get their friends. This goes on all summer vacation till the kids are back in school. And we have huge relief that showering naked under the blue sky and bright sunshine, that bathhouse has no roof, is once again peaceful private and pleasant.
The result is, that now each time when I finish my swim on the weekends, and come to take my shower, and see 3 little girls in there already playing in the showers, I think “O no! I won’t want to take off my bathing suit.” I don’t like being a show, neither does Kathleen nor Moira. But this is the 4th time in a row, over the past month or so, that I have been pleasantly surprised. The little girls who were in the showers didn’t want to laugh and point at me, they wanted to play with me. And I am beginning to think some of them may be the same little girls from last time.
Because when I arrived yesterday, and they were all sitting on the little bench together (little girls are so little, 3 little tushies can fit on that little shelf meant to hold your shower articles), and they had the hand-held shower splashing all over them, I didn’t recognize them. I just thought “I’m not going to want to take off my suit.” They were all there in bathing suits of course, little girls are exceptionally modest, they never take off their bathing suits in the shower.
But to my surprise they all lit up when they saw me and the very first thing they said to me was “Are we supposed to take off our bathing suits.” And I lit up, because I realized they must be the same 3 little girls I had played with last week. “YES!” I said, “we can take off our bathing suits, because no boys allowed!” Which made them giggle, which made me giggle. As we were all stripping off our bathing suits and standing under shower naked, I said “little boys two months old are allowed, and boy kitties and boy puppies.” We all giggled happily naked under the shower. How beautiful those 3 naked little girls looked, like nymphs. Which is maybe why I said, when they asked if I wanted their shower. I said “no, that is the magic shower, it only works for little girls, and angels and mermaids, but doesn’t work for ladies. The magic shower must think you are angels or mermaids, because it will work for you.”
This is actually true. That shower is the only one with great water pressure. But I can’t get it to work for love or money. It comes down a long hose, and has a big nozzle at end, that you can hold in your hand and spray yourself with. But it goes on by detecting you are there and goes off when it doesn’t detect you. I try and try to get it work for me, but it only does work for the little girls. They have the secret to it. Of course it goes on for me when I don’t want it to. When I go over to get my towel, it knows I am there, and sprays huge gush of water all over all my clothes and my pocketbook. It is always going on when I don’t want it to, and making all my possessions soaking wet. But if I ever want it to work to rinse out the soap from my hair, forget it! It won’t work no matter what I do. I simply move over to the regular shower with low water pressure.
It was so much fun chit-chatting with the little girls, all of us naked, in the showers. They, all 3 in the magic shower, me in the normal shower with low water pressure, about angels and fairies and mermaids, and how no boys are allowed in except boy kitties and boy puppies. It is one thing I have in common with little girls, these are my favorite topics of conversation. I like to giggle under the shower too. Their mother called to them, so they had to leave. But when they stay till the end, while I am drying off and spraying perfume on, then we all stand naked under the sunshine by the benches, and I spray the Angel perfume on them too. It really is angel perfume, its name is Heavenly. But I change the name to “Angel perfume” and ask if they want some and they always say yes. I loved perfume when I was little girl.
It always makes showering so much fun for me when the 3 nymphs are there. And I don’t think they are always the same nymphs. They recognize me, but I don’t recognize them. I think they are always different nymphs, or variations of the nymphs. There must be lots of variations in the 3 little girls who come swimming together.
O the summer breezes have blown in, that is a treat. And the call of the morning dove is even louder. I wonder if he is in my yard now. It will be May in a few days, and our desert has already turned into May. May, the first lovely month of summer, when summer isn’t really here yet but the dream of summer has arrived.
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