Idaho’s Own Little Mermaids, ‘Heart’s Desire,’ Make A Splash
Take a deep breath. Deeper, until your lungs expand like balloons. Good. Now hold it while you dive into the pool, push off the bottom with your hands and slowly propel your statue-still legs to the surface and on toward the ceiling.
Don’t struggle. It has to look effortless. That’s the beauty of synchronized swimming.
“You’re supposed to look as graceful as you can - and that’s hard,” says Cheri Backman, coach of the River City Swans, North Idaho’s only synchronized swimming team.
The Swans are young enough that they sprout hips overnight, and clothes that fit one day are miles too short the next. Their swimsuits bag here and grab there. They pull themselves out of the pool as delicately as football players in full gear.
But in the water, the awkwardness vanishes.
“I can twirl, and it feels so graceful,” says Melissa Seed, as if she’s been given a great gift. For three hours each week, Melissa sheds her 12-year-old persona and becomes a magical mermaid.
“I love it,” she says, leaving no doubt.
That’s all Cheri wants from her team.
“This is my heart’s desire and my biggest joy,” she says, gesturing toward the Post Falls Community Pool where her girls train. “I majored in health and recreation because I wanted to build self-esteem with my degree.”
A high school coach introduced Cheri to synchronized swimming 27 years ago.
“I loved it. It’s creative. It’s the best shape I’ve ever been in in my life,” she says.
She could find no programs as an adult until last January. She told the Post Falls pool director about her desire to join a program and ended up coaching.
Since then, the team has attracted 16 girls, including one talented 6-year-old, but no boys. The girls have raised $2,000 toward an underwater speaker system for their music and are learning basic moves for their first competition in Spokane in October.
“We run on a lot of prayer and hope,” Cheri says.
Which, apparently, are just the right ingredients.
One in a million (or so)
It figures the Latah County Historical Society would snag Idaho’s one grant from the federally funded Institute of Museum and Library Services.
Mary Reed, the society’s director, nurtures her group like a mother hen and doesn’t miss a morsel of money that could keep it going.
She’s organized garden tours and ice cream socials, public peeks at historical homes and exhibits from the Smithsonian Institute to keep a healthy community interest in Moscow’s historical society.
Her application was one of 1,061. Money went to only 202 and of those, only 16 were small museums like Mary’s. Just in case you’re wondering, the check was for $19,735 and has to last two years.
Get it together
In case you’ve forgotten because an entire year has passed since Pullman’s Sue Swanson helped Coeur d’Alene’s Dale Mason organize her life, Oct. 5-11 is National Get Organized Week.
Sue isn’t embarrassed to nag. She’s helped too many people try to organize after a fire or the death of a family member.
She suggests you make it easy on yourself and your family by updating records, writing down where everything important in the house is located and recording what you want to happen to you after death. Keep copies of everything in a safe deposit box.
Sue’s a professional organizer, so she knows what she’s talking about.
More, more
What do you want to see more often in this column? Pour your heart out to Cynthia Taggart, “Close to Home,” 608 Northwest Blvd., Suite 200, Coeur d’Alene, ID 83814; fax to 765-7149; call 765-7128; or e-mail to cynthiat@spokesman.com.
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