If I Can Just Get In the Water

I was starting to wonder if I would ever swim again. I feel like I’m at a 12-step meeting or a confessional - it’s been 9 days since my last swim. Anyways, it has been a combination of busy schedule, dense weekend fog and larger surf early this week. Today however, I was committed to get in the water even if the waves were the biggest I had ever seen. Of course that’s what I said yesterday too.

I find myself actually having these thoughts last night and this morning: what if I can’t ever get myself in the water again? Perhaps I somehow lack the necessary will to get myself to the beach. These are not happy thoughts. I’ll admit as I’m heading out the door a little after 11:00 this morning, I’m not super excited to swim. The cold, the surf, the grey sky all seem to be conspiring against me. However, I know in my heart of hearts that if I can just get in the water, I’ll be so glad I did and it will be great. I KNOW this. It is a faith that runs deep.

So I put on my trunks, grab my stuff and just go, and, spoiler alert, it was fantastic. The water wasn’t warm, the sky was dreary, the water was murky (even a little scummy in parts) and not super smooth. There were no spectacular wildlife sightings with the exception of a handsome Calico Bass and a flock of Pelicans. All in all it was a sort of blah blah mid-Autumn day. Yet I walked out of that water a different person than the one who walked in. I felt truly refreshed and cleansed by the experience.

The air temperature was just on the edge of pleasant, and once my feet hit the water, I could tell it did not feel any cooler than my last swim early last week. Once I started swimming, it was cool but I have to say it felt like things were just a little warmer. It was truly nice. My expectations of “nice” have come down a couple notches since mid-September and I’m sure they will continue to fall as the next few months unfold. The key thing is that I did not feel particularly cold.

Or perhaps I meditated so much on cold and coldness during the drive to the beach and the walk down the stairs that by the time I got in the water I was ready for early Spring temperatures. I do find the concept of cold, the visceral reaction to cold, and most of all, our anticipation of cold to be a fascinating object of study. I think of getting into cold water from my warm car and it sometimes seems more than unpleasant. It feels almost existentially frightening and dark. Then I wonder why is that? Why such a strong and deep reaction? Then equally fascinating, once I actually am in the cold, it’s like the mist falls away and I realize it is not the big deal I had thought it was.

The temperature slightly fluctuated over the course of the swim but it was like going back and forth between slightly cool and neutral. It was just cool enough to hold my awareness and keep me fully in my body through the swim. I found myself swimming and never wanting to stop. The clouds above kept me insulated in a blanket of peace and well being. Staring towards the shore I felt as if I had never left the beach since last week and gazing into the horizon I could see my entire future playing out in the vapor of the clouds over the water before me.