Conversation | 07/21/2009 11:00 pm
The Bathing Suit Chronicles: A wOw Conversation
Lesley Stahl, Sheila Nevins and Joni Evans talk poolside.
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SHEILA: I have a pool. I have a pool that I worked hard to pay for, right? And I’ve only been in it two or three times. I cannot put a bathing suit on any longer. It’s over for me.
LESLEY: Yes, me too.
JONI: What?
SHEILA: O-V-E-R, period.
LESLEY: Me too.
SHEILA: And when I have friends that are less than perfect – and maybe it’s my own peculiar vanity – but when I have these friends and they come and they put on their little bathing suits and they go out … Some look good, some don’t; I do not. I won’t do it.
LESLEY: You won’t even join them …
SHEILA: Nope. I have a little muumuu that I wear and I sort of scrape out there in sandals. But I just won’t do it. I just don’t want to face it and maybe it’s me, myself.
| I went up to my room and I never left my room again, and I've never been in a bathing suit since – ever. |
LESLEY: Well I can remember the last time I put on a bathing suit and went to a swimming pool. It was at a resort and I went down to the pool and there was a chaise lounge and I lay down, and I had a feeling that somebody was very near me, and I opened my eyes and there was a woman who had leaned right down. Her face was right on top of me, and she recognized me.
SHEILA: Oh, no.
LESLEY: Oh, yes. And I thought, "Oh, my gosh, I’m humiliated. Oh, my God." And I went up to my room and I never left my room again, and I’ve never been in a bathing suit since – ever.
JONI: Oh, you’re kidding. You have such a gorgeous body.
SHEILA: What about you, Miss Joni?
JONI: Well, you just reminded me of my most famous (to my own self) bathing-suit story. I was at the Beverly Hills Hotel as a guest. I was an editor and I was editing and my publisher used to put me up at the Beverly Hills Hotel when I was editing a big author. And remember they had that huge swimming pool.
SHEILA: Yes.
JONI: I must have been, you know, 30 years old. This was in the early ’80s and I once had a great body and I was a great swimmer and diver, because I went to Camp Kinni Kinnic for many years and I learned how to do all those things. So I was on the diving board ready to do my spectacular dive, and I looked up and every single person at that pool was looking at me. And I thought, you know, "Is it my body?" So I looked down at the top of my two-piece bathing suit. You know, was it falling off? What were they looking at? I just could not figure it out. And then I just imagined I had the most beautiful body in the world – that must be why they were all looking.
SHEILA: Good for you.
JONI: So I dove very gracefully and swam the entire length of the pool underwater. But here’s the denouement – when I came up for air and looked back, Anita Ekberg was waiting to do a dive right after me!
SHEILA: But you still don’t know, Joni, if they weren’t looking at you.
JONI: No, they weren’t looking at me. Oh, my God, what hubris. I really thought it was my moment. I took these long underwater strokes …
LESLEY: You know what the lesson is? Never look back!
Click here for more from the wOw women’s bathing suit chronicles.
Read more about: Anita Ekberg, Bathing Suits, Beverly Hills Hilton, Body Image, Conversations, Sports, Style, Summer
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61 Reader Comments (so far…) Sign In or Register to comment
It sounds like Joni was like me: I do believe that I was a fish in another life as I couldn’t get enough of the water. I loved the era of the one piece bathing suit. Why? Some of us had the perfect build for it - broad shoulders and long legs - giving us that "look" in the water that we were just cutting thru it with no effort. And sometimes, we could pull off a dive that even an Anita Ekberg couldn’t duplicate, gathering "wows" and acclaim. I swear that swimming in a gigantic university pool that they opened at 7am each morning just for me (I begged and it worked) well after most women were giving up the ghost or hiding behind large towels at the very least was the secret of eternal youth.
Of course — who wants eternal youth anyhow, I say laughingly. So when that faded - along with the one-piece suit - I put the "CLOSED" sign on that section of my own yellow brick road — but I learned to love some wonderful new surprises that sprang up along the way of life.
It IS fun to look back at those swim suits photos though and say: "Could that have been ME?""
I don’t know Joan. I bet you would still hear them shout, GERONIMO !!
This once great body of mine, over time, turned out like the stock market: what goes up must come down [and it landed in my thighs].
Age has added some pounds but in spite of it I still put on the bathing suits and go sailing with friends. I’ve graduated from bikini to two piece, to one piece, to Miracle Suits……but so what? All I know is that out on the water or on the beach or in the water I’m free as a bird and don’t care if they laugh.
However, no way you’ll never get me to strip at a nude beach. A girl’s got to have SOME boundaries, you know.
I’m a heavy woman still losing the weight slowly, but that doesn’t stop me. I am very comfortable in my skin. If people don’t want to see me in a bathing suit, then they shouldn’t look.
Comes down to what is your comfort level.
As a lifelong swimmer (only thing Polio permitted me to have remaining - water!), the only thing I want to ‘get into’ is water - in a suit or nude. I could care less where, when, how, or with whom. Those of us who do swim do not notice bodies, per se - so live, let go, and enjoy life.
I have been removed from this part of my life for a while, how long, I can only hold my breath - but the news destroyed me for a day in hospital - it’s my life. I adore the no-bra tank suits too - cannot get enough of them, but they’re all made so well now they don’t wear out - maybe that’s what I’m doing (but the doctors said they were shocked at my inner health - they have seen it all - and not a shred of plaque!
Never underestimate the Y or Arthritis Foundation water exercise classes or what they do for chronic health condtions. Remember too - it buoys the cardiovascular system!
This is probably a stupid statement I’m about to make, being a guy. But why do you need a bathing suit? Couldn’t you just wear a pair of bathing trunks or shorts, and a long, thin T-shirt, if you want to go swimming? if you wear a halter underneath, couldn’t you take the T-shirt off after you’re in the water, if fear of being seen is the case? (Stupid, I’m sure, but this is the way guys think).
This may be another ignorant thought - please forgive- but I really believe many women hyper-obsess over this stuff. As heavy as Americans are nowadays, who’s going to bat an eyelash in the first place? As for that weird woman who peered down into Lesley’s face, that woman is a weirdo.
And Joni, I promise you those people were looking at you, too, not just Anita Ekberg.
Eileen, I either have a brace on, or a power chair taking me to my pool (well an accessible van, too), and all I care about is being rolled into my beloved depths and moving - I can do things in the water I cannot do on land - in fact, I’d love to live in Venice so I could swim to museums, stores, events, and be totally free.
I meditated throughout a surgical procedure last week (not the 2nd one though) to avoid drugs that can stop my life, and to endure I "swam" from Malaga to Gibraltar, then as things ‘got’ rough on me, I followed the bridge over to Morocco - with both legs kicking, and 2 Dolphins at my side. (Ya, the docs were shocked, but no more than I was!).
Eileen, as a "Busman’s Holiday," I used to train the aquatic instructors, and fill in teaching too - it was such a great way to wash out a heavy week. One place I taught (a YW), I could pipe in music under the water - I select Enya and the class loved it. I still love underwater swimming b/c I have a very low breath rate (not good but I thought it was because "I’m a swimmer." Not quite but I happily deluded myself for many years after polio. ;-))
Who cares as long as we can find a way to keep on breathing, eh!
Meditate - it’s great for grabbing a quick 30 minutes of sleep in 10 minutes time, and "going to" safe places - you’d be utterly amazed. I really got into "it" with Shirley Maclaine years back. Since I’m always cold and can’t warm up once it’s 40 F outside, I had to be able to heat up my body w/o being submerged into hot water - it worked!
That "swim" must have left a huge impression on my psyche because I remember every part of that "trip," and the strokes I used. I used to listen to CDs under anesthesia (several times in fact) but once listening to what was a favorite healing sounds CD done in Stanford’s labs, I became upset - kept thinking about my reactions, and darn if I didn’t have to cease listening to it.
Then, I remembered, I had it eared in during a mastectomy! Sheesh - don’t ever do that - I mean keep something you listened to during mutilatory surgery - the brain knows! So much for my mirror neurons.