March 9, 2021

I’ve been hiding out a bit lately. Figuratively and literally.

More out of the water than in the water, as the last two weeks have included a lot of treading water. On land.

And hesitating. Like that feeling right before you put your foot into the cold water, preparing for a swim, just before, because you know it’s going to be a jolt and you’re not sure you can bear it. You recall that it felt good in the past, but everything keeps changing so fast that you recoil in fear, unsure if the water will hold you up or pull you under. If you step forward you will have to feel. And you already are flooded with feelings. You aren’t sure you can handle more feeling right now.

You want to trust the water. It hasn’t let you down yet. But life does. People get old too fast, people get sick too young, and leave your head spinning.

And with all this spinning, sometimes the weight you carry on land is enough to make you sink like a stone. Or rise and surge forward like the crest of a wave, all bubbles and glittering watery diamonds, a million bubbles singing joy.

The crest is like when your baby boy, all smiles and sparkling blue eyes suddenly turns eighteen. Overnight. You just nursed him then swaddled him and sang him the Lion-sleeps-tonight song, and he woke the next morning having sprouted six feet overnight, now clutching car keys and a map to the moon, wearing that same wide grin that makes your heart burst.

He’s headed to outer space. But you don’t get to go with him. He is preparing to fly solo around the sun. Your job is to stand by for his return and feed him his favorite foods, help with the refueling, be available if he needs a wingnut or a silent cup of tea and a mom that will listen when the flight through the stars gets dicey.

Then there are the sink-like-a-stone moments when you just can’t wake up from the reality that is yours now—that moment over and over again that is time going by and your parents getting old. Fast. Really fast and you aren’t sure what your job is exactly anymore and you are so tired that you are already cold just thinking about a swim and you don’t want any more cold. You just want to be swaddled. Nursed back to your own babyhood. In the time before.

You just want the water. Womb time. You don’t swim to prove anything. You don’t swim to break a record or even get stronger. You swim because it helps you feel the cold but rise above it. You are reminded that you are bigger than the cold and the dark of depression.

You want to swim because you faintly recall that the last time you went you did feel better afterwards. And you saw fuzzy pale orange and white anemones. Like the first flowers of spring under the water—and you’d never seen those before.

-———————————————-————

Today I stepped into the water at the landing. It took every ounce of will to take that step back in. I didn’t bother with a wetsuit. The late afternoon March sun shone brightly and sweetly down on the water, my skin, and the seagulls scattered along the beach. An eagle startled from a nearby tree as I approached the beach, the perch not more than a few car lengths away from me.

I stood for a long time up to my knees, cinching in my float buoy over my red suit, staring at the distant mountains. Perfect mountains, etched in a hazy blue, beneath a perfect sky.

I splashed my face, I dove. And then I swam like hell, as the freezing water felt like shards of metal on my skin. I kept my face down, staring at the bottom, pulling stroke after stroke until my lungs demanded I breathe. I caught my breath and repeated my rapid swim-no-breath approach, blowing out a slow string of bubbles, my entire being focused on forward motion. Swim fast enough to not feel.

I made it as far as the swim float to the south. My skin was on fire. But I was awake, I had made it back in and I could come back again. I gazed around. A few ducks floated on the water, a few kayakers drifted near the mouth of the bay, and the sun sank in a golden buttery orb of light behind the blue mountains.

I know I can’t slow time, can’t change the tides, can’t stop my babies from leaving. Can’t stop my parents from leaving.

We all leave. But I think we all come back too. Somehow. On the crest of a wave, glimmering like diamonds over the water.