Here are a few excerpts from a book I recently read, "Thicker Than Water: A Memoir," by Kerry Washington.
At times, I felt unhappy and alone. I hungered for siblings; I noticed in other families that having a sibling relationship made people feel less lonely and more able to make sense of the homes they shared and the parents who raised them. One afternoon, when I was about ten years old, I asked my mother why my parents chose not to have more children.
“You were a long–wished for child,” she said. “You were not easy to conceive.”
And then, as if to silence me and end the conversation, she shared, without emotion and very matter-of-factly, that she had given birth to another child, a half sibling (though she left that detail out), but that child had been stillborn. I had no follow-up questions. I could tell that this was not an easy topic to talk about, and I felt like the proper response from me was to just be grateful that I existed.
Like so much of the information that was exchanged in my household, this truth seemed to be delivered reluctantly and was wrapped in an implicit warning—almost an entreaty—to not ask any further questions.
I remember being in the pool, surrounded by crystal blue threads of light shimmering all around me; I remember the sounds of other kids laughing, playing, splashing. I remember a whistle blowing in the distance because someone was running, much to the annoyance of a lifeguard. I have no memories of not being able to swim, no recollection of learning how to move underwater. Being in water, moving through water, has always felt more natural to me than walking on land. When I am in the water, I am at peace, and when I am submerged, between breaths, I feel most at home with myself, in my body. As a child, even when I hated my body, I loved being in the water. I remember going to my mother one day in my bathing suit and pointing out the protruding shape of my belly as a flaw I wanted to fix. She said, “Just hold in your tummy. That’s what everyone does.”
So, on land, in my bathing suit, I learned to restrict my body, to hold my breath, and to pretend. But in the water, I could be free.
I have always loved the ways in which water manipulates sound. The way noise races across the surface, amplifying sound for miles, and then the muffled distance created by being underwater. This so often feels like an escape to me because the world gets quieter, my heartbeat grows louder, and my thoughts and feelings become precise, clear. When I’m stressed, swimming allows me a safe route out of myself, helping me to escape my thoughts and then return to a calmer, more centered version of me.
If my life as Kerry Washington was relegated to chasing safety and love through the performance of low-maintenance, good-girl perfectionism, then the characters I played became my necessary escape into messy creativity, big bold feelings, and living out loud. In every character, I got to be somebody else. And that person got to be a real human being—in fact, it was my job to try to make her so. Each role I took on gave me permission to escape the trappings of my family’s dance and explore what being human could feel like. Each character needed me to feel deeply, to take risks, and to tell their truth.
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