I am a fish out of water today.
Like most everyone able to avoid the outside world today due to the smoke, I stayed inside all day, leaving me feelIng cagey, taut muscles, tight jaw, edgy, hot, too dry. Even our dog moped around, listless, at a loss for the inactivity of his day.
No swimming today. All I want to do is swim right now. I actually contemplated a late night plunge, but fatigue got the better of me.
As I stepped into the shower to cool down tonight, I passed my other silkie suit. It’s red, and hangs limp on a hook in our tiny bathroom. Sad. Waiting.
It hit me tonight that I have become accustomed to being “grounded” this surreal summer by leaving the ground, lifting my feet up out of the mud and giving the weight of my body over to floating in salt water.
I crave the weightlessness tonight.
I anxiously wait for the air to clear as I reflect on the source of all this smoke— millions of trees, grasses, countless acres of wild lands, and the homes of thousands and thousands of creatures, nimble mice and soaring eagles and agile deer and beetles and grubs and baby owls and possums—and the homes of people, towns, neighborhoods. Gone. No way to wrap my head around the magnitude of these losses, and the people and animals that will not see the sky ever again. Or the water. Gone.
Last night I mapped out the smokey swim I took yesterday with my friend, Heidi.
I sent her the route we accomplished together, 1.07 miles, on her second open water swim with me. I cheered her on and congratulated her accomplishment—we were both struck by the cold, and the brief currents of warm water that surprised us as we circled the inner edges of the bay.
Yesterday’s swim feels like days ago. Time is so slippery right now.
I let my thoughts sink to the bottom of the bay tonight. After reading yet another honest and disheartening article about our country’s circular (Non) handling of the pandemic and so much inequality, and a post from a teacher discouraged by the reality of online school for countless students, I am looking for a calming place for my mind.
Hermit crabs. The hermit crabs and clams are burbling away down there, out of the smoke, completely protected from the fires, tucked snugly in their shells while flounder and sculpins dart over them. Sounds nice doesn’t it?
There is no escaping this moment. And I can’t go to the watery world forever and escape what is happening here. But my brief forays into that other world gift me with a different perspective and clarity that I can’t find any other way. The icy cold itself provides an instant reset.
Yesterday as we floated back in, we talked about the rush of the cold water. I said I have always hated the cold, or thought I did, but somehow don’t in the water. She replied, “But here you are choosing the cold.”
That’s exactly it. I choose this. In a time when we are all spinning in circles, an endless spiral, where so much feels out of our control. Every time I enter the water, I am exhilarated by the sensation of cold and the endless freedom I feel that once in the water I can swim in any direction, any manner I choose. Utterly free, and in charge of my destiny.
No matter what happens, water will be there for us. And like the land, we must know the water, study what lives below the surface, listen to the cries of the sea birds and squabbles of the pesky river otters, the hushes of the waves, and all the while keep listening to our own lungs fill with air and blow it all out and trust that tomorrow will be a better day. The skies will clear, the fires die down, the waters will keep calling and we will all keep swimming home.
Mary Swims 