CHAPTER 17: Just Keep Swimming

It took me a while to understand my water.

I was raised in Cleveland, Ohio, on a street named for a city in Denmark and a castle in Shakespeare’s Hamlet. The regal name did not match the neighborhood. The residents of my Elsinore were Greek, Italian, Polish, Irish, Croatian, Swedish and German. Nestled between the railroad tracks that served as our playground and rows of apartment buildings, our family enjoyed a grey stucco house with threadbare carpeting and a front porch glider. Every neighborhood has a childhood secret whispered by parents. Our secret was that the light-skinned Mrs. Cole who lived on the street was a Negro.