We had a pool in our backyard when I was growing up. I didn’t realize until many years later what a privilege that was, but that’s beside the point (or maybe it isn’t, we’ll both find out at the end of this post). The pool was in-ground, not quite kidney shaped, with an attached jacuzzi. Cobalt blue tiles rimmed the edges and they usually had a faint hard water line from where the mineral rich water lapped at them. The water was sparkling clear and would slosh up and over the edge in response to cannonballs and earthquakes alike. The plaster surface used to wear holes into the bottoms of my feet until we got it resurfaced with fiberglass and a new set of problems for my sensitive skin. The pool had a heater, but it never worked. It had a light too, which we got fixed once and worked for a day before never working again. The jacuzzi (or hot tub? or whirlpool spa? as not to infringe on copyrighted names) jets still worked, though. We called them “the bubbles.” As in, “Mom, can we turn on the bubbles?!” Without hot water, the jacuzzi was not a jacuzzi and became instead “the little pool” – in contrast to its companion body of water, “the big pool.”

The backyard was lined on one side with tall cypress trees that blocked the sun for most of the day and kept the unheated, uncovered water chilly. As a young adult who had moved back into the home I bought a fish that supposedly dispensed a fluid that floated on the surface of the water retaining the heat. It felt like it did – maybe a degree or two? It was probably the placebo effect. Anyway, for most of my life the water in the pool was uncomfortably cold for most of the swimming season. It was usually late August or September before it was finally warmed up enough to be pleasant. But the little pool, having less water to heat and being a little further out of the shade, was warm. Well, it was warmer.

So the little pool was a refuge. It was where the kids who were too young to know how to swim or too short to touch the bottom of the big pool shallow end played. It was a way to stay in the water a few minutes past when the night air got too cold to withstand the big pool’s frigid water temperature. It was a way to warm up a tiny bit when your lips started to turn blue but you still weren’t ready to dry off and go inside. It had bubbles!

In the the backyard, often filled with neighbors, cousins, and eventually high school friends, the little pool was a safe place. It was too small to splash around in. It could only contain a certain amount of people. It had limits and they had to be honored. The little pool was very clear about what it could contain.

There were some times, when the other swimmers and I were young enough and in small enough bodies that the limited capacity of the little pool was still too many people for my taste. For those moments, there was another body of water in the backyard that was several degrees warmer and only had room for one: “the puddle.” The puddle was an area where the pieces of concrete that made up the deck came together in a concave channel. A day’s worth of wet feet and splashy diving filled up the puddle. Or if it was a slow day, you could use the hose to get it going. The puddle was just big enough for an eight or ten year old to lie in and have most of their body rest in a 3-4″ deep reservoir of dirty, sun baked water. With a couple lawn chairs strategically placed over the puddle after the sun had warmed it, it offered privacy, sun protection, and a place to dream. When I lied there, unaware of the privilege of having a backyard pool and focusing mostly on wanting a backyard pool with a working heater, I fantasized about being at a resort in a working hot tub. In my mind, I owned this resort. It had many floors, the heated pool/hot tub were indoors on the ground level and above me (represented in this current plane by lawn furniture) were the guest rooms. It was a good time being a resort owner. The only down side was that leaving the resort left me with puddle grit all over my body that had to be washed off with a hose or dip back into the pool where washing off the accumulated warmth along with the grime.

The point of all of this, is that the more limited the space I was in… the safer I felt. The big pool was big. It could hold a lot of people. Any of whom could pretend to be the shark I was convinced lived in the pool scaring me more than I already was. Or simply people with a penchant for dunking. Or ill timed splashing. Or a lack of appreciation for synchronized swimming and other orderly activities (I have a lot of Virgo in my natal chart). The little pool reduced the variables so it was just a more comfortable place to be. The puddle reduced them even further and what emerged in that space were dreams, creativity, and imagination.

I’ve been feeling limited lately and not really knowing what to do with it. I have an innate sense that it is not a bad thing or a problem, just a change to learn how to get used to. I attribute a lot of the limits to age. I can’t lift as much, bend as easily, take on as long a day or as many projects. My body lets me know when too much is going on. My body is very insistent that we live within our limits. But this has not been my way of being. I’ve always taken on more more more and believed in my unlimited capacity to do so. I’ve learned not to do that for other reasons, but never because of feeling limited.

When I think about the little pool, or even better yet – the puddle, I recall something else my body knows. Limits are what contain the magic. Within constraints is where creativity flourishes. Boundaries that keep me safe create a container for my specific genius to thrive.

I wonder what will come out of me as I surrender to being limited.