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My husband often hears me say that all I need to be happy is a sunny day and a pool. (He would argue that I don’t say this so much as I whine it.) No matter how bad a day I’m having, if I can squeeze in just 10 minutes coursing through the water, watching the dappled sun reflect off my arms, life feels bearable again. When I dive my head underwater, I feel temporarily hidden from my problems, as if nothing can find me down there.
我丈夫经常听到我说我需要快乐的只是晴天和游泳池。（他会争辩说，我不会这么说话。）无论我一天有多糟糕，如果我只能在10分钟内挤入水中，看着斑斑的阳光从我的手臂上反射出来，生活又可以忍受。当我在水下潜水时，我会暂时隐藏在问题上，好像什么都没有能找到我在那里。
Pools are so important to me that in 2020, one of my biggest concerns was whether the pandemic would prevent public pools from opening. I couldn’t bear to watch a whole swimming season pass me by. (In defense of my screwed-up priorities, this was before I had kids.)
游泳池对我来说是如此重要，以至于在2020年，我最大的担忧之一是大流行是否会阻止公共游泳池开放。我忍不住要看整个游泳季节让我过去。（为了捍卫我的工作重点，这是在我生孩子之前。）
That may seem melodramatic, but for decades, experts have argued that pools are essential for mental, physical, and social health. Swimming has been shown to boost moods; it routinely ranks among people’s favorite forms of exercise. When I interviewed Bonnie Tsui, the author of Why We Swim, she told me that being in water gives you “the feeling of both being buoyed and being embraced.” The pressure of the water combined with the release of gravity does something uniquely salubrious to our brains. Sure, you can get this same zing from an ocean or a lake, but not everyone lives near one of those. A pool is a bit of backyard magic, a chance to find transcendence in the everyday.
这似乎是戏剧性的，但是几十年来，专家一直认为，池对于精神，身体和社会健康至关重要。游泳已被证明可以增强心情；它通常在人们最喜欢的运动形式中排名。当我采访我们游泳的作者邦妮·托伊（Bonnie Tsui）时，她告诉我，在水中会给你“既受到浮力又被拥抱的感觉”。水的压力与重力的释放相结合，对我们的大脑具有独特的作用。当然，您可以从海洋或湖泊中获得相同的Zing，但并不是每个人都住在其中一个附近。游泳池有点像后院的魔术，是每天都有超越的机会。
For decades, writers have been documenting the wonders of pools in our pages. In 1967, Leonard Conversi described how his swimming lessons left him flabbergasted by “unanticipated ease, when the world seems to divide before us like a perforation and the body feels itself inebriate, or falling.” However, after Conversi did a “jig of triumph” at the end of the diving board, he was asked to leave the swimming club and find “an organization more suited to your needs and temperament.” Conversi was unfazed: “To have learned to breathe while moving in an alien element is to have begun to master the secret of animal life.”
几十年来，作家一直在记录我们页面中的泳池奇观。1967年，伦纳德·森德（Leonard Consersi）描述了他的游泳课程如何使他感到“意外的轻松”使他感到沮丧，当时世界似乎像穿孔一样在我们面前分裂，身体感到自己不脾气或跌倒。”然而，在跳水委员会结束时，Conspersi进行了“胜利夹具”之后，他被要求离开游泳俱乐部并找到“一个更适合您的需求和气质的组织”。Conspersi毫不动摇：“在外星元素中移动时学会了呼吸，就是开始掌握动物生活的秘密。”
Even people who aren’t sun-seekers can recognize the salutary effect of immersion. In 2006, the journalist Wayne Curtis traveled to the thermal pools of Iceland and noted that “stepping into thermal waters is like stepping into Oz: life changes from the black-and-white of imminent hypothermia to a lustrous, multidimensional world of color and warmth.” The pools are a social hub in Iceland; people gather there with their friends and kids. Sounds heavenly.
即使是不是寻求阳光的人，也可以认识到沉浸式的有益效果。2006年，记者韦恩·柯蒂斯（Wayne Curtis）前往冰岛的热水池，并指出：“进入热水就像踏入绿野仙踪一样：从迫在眉睫的低温到迫在眉睫的黑白变化到一个有光泽的，多维的色彩和温暖世界。”游泳池是冰岛的社会枢纽。人们和他们的朋友和孩子一起聚会。听起来天堂。
This idea, that pools can be a “third place” for people to meet and chill, has existed for decades. In a 1952 call for cities to revitalize themselves, the developer William Zeckendorf suggested building parks with swimming pools as one way to keep urban workers from fleeing to the suburbs:
这个想法是，池可能是人们见面和放松的“第三名”，已经存在数十年了。在1952年呼吁城市振兴自己的呼吁中，开发商威廉·泽克多夫（William Zeckendorf）建议用游泳池建造公园，以防止城市工人逃往郊区：
I visualize these fun centers as consisting of a tremendous dance hall, bowling alleys, skating rinks, merry-go-rounds for the children, a swimming pool for the children and one for the adults too—in short, a happy, functionally designed center for dancing and exercise and entertainment … People would feel that their city is a great place to live in, not a great place to get away from.
我将这些有趣的中心可视化为包括一个巨大的舞厅，保龄球馆，滑冰溜冰场，为孩子们旋转的旋转木马，一个为孩子们提供的游泳池和一个成年人的游泳池 - 简而言之，一个快乐，功能设计的舞蹈和娱乐和娱乐的中心……人们会觉得自己的城市是一个不错的选择的好地方，不错的地方。
His entreaty serves as a somewhat tragic companion piece to one that Yoni Appelbaum, an Atlantic deputy executive editor, wrote a decade ago. Starting in the 1920s, pools did become the kinds of recreation hot spots that Zeckendorf hailed—until they began to desegregate in the ’50s. Rather than continue to use public pools, which welcomed all races, some suburbanites retreated to private club pools, such as the one at the center of a racist incident in McKinney, Texas—the town where I went to high school and where my parents still live. During a party at a private-subdivision pool in 2015, teens who allegedly didn’t live in the community showed up, someone called the police, and an officer tackled a young Black girl to the ground, pinning her with both knees on her back. (The officer was placed on administrative leave and then resigned; the McKinney police chief said that the department’s policies didn’t “support his actions.” A grand jury later declined to bring criminal charges against him.)
他的恳求是十年前大西洋副执行编辑Yoni Appelbaum的一件悲惨的伴侣作品。从1920年代开始，泳池确实成为Zeckendorf赞扬的娱乐热点，直到他们在50年代开始分离。与其继续使用欢迎所有种族的公共游泳池，不如撤退到私人俱乐部游泳池，例如在德克萨斯州麦金尼的一场种族主义事件中心的郊区，这是我去高中和父母仍然住的小镇。在2015年在一个私人助人游泳池举行的一个聚会上，据称没有住在社区中的青少年出现，有人叫警察，一名警官将一个年轻的黑人女孩靠在地上，将她的两个膝盖钉在她的背上。（该官员被安排休假，然后辞职；麦金尼警察局长说，该部门的政策没有“支持他的行动”。大陪审团后来拒绝对他提起刑事指控。）
Public pools have been “frequent battlefields” of racial tension, Appelbaum wrote. “That complicated legacy persists across the United States. The public pools of mid-century—with their sandy beaches, manicured lawns, and well-tended facilities—are vanishingly rare.” Many public pools have become neglected and underfunded, usurped by private pools funded by HOA fees.
阿佩鲍姆写道，公共游泳池一直是种族紧张的“经常战场”。“整个美国，这种复杂的遗产仍然存在。世纪中叶的公共游泳池，他们的沙滩，修剪整齐的草坪和富裕的设施 - 消失了罕见。”许多公共游泳池已被忽视和资金不足，被HOA费用资助的私人游泳池篡夺。
I say we start the backlash to this backlash: in the spirit of Zeckendorf, dig up some unused parking lots and fallow fields, and open public pools again. Though this would be a resource-intensive endeavor, it would be worth it. Take it from the famed New York City urban planner Robert Moses: “It is no exaggeration to say that the health, happiness, efficiency, and orderliness of a large number of the city’s residents, especially in the summer months, are tremendously affected by the presence or absence of adequate bathing facilities.” This summer and in the hot, hot summers to come, America needs pools—for everyone.
我说我们对这种反弹的反弹开始了强烈反对：本着Zeckendorf的精神，挖掘一些未使用的停车场和休耕地，然后再次开放公共游泳池。尽管这将是一项资源密集型的努力，但这是值得的。从著名的纽约城市规划师罗伯特·摩西（Robert Moses）那里拿走它：“毫不夸张地说，这座城市的许多居民的健康，幸福，效率和秩序，尤其是在夏季的月份，受到充分或缺乏充足沐浴设施的影响。”今年夏天以及在未来炎热的夏天，美国需要游泳池 - 每个人。
