March 11, 2021

Evening comes quickly.

Everything comes quickly.

Tides turn quickly.

Emotions turn quickly.

Cold water turns energy around quickly.

But the turn of life is slow. The unfolding, the discovery, the wisdom, the epiphanies and the acceptance. Acceptance is the slowest of all.

A few days ago I swam in the late afternoon sunlight at Fletcher’s Landing. Liz met me, all smiles and carrying her own fatigue with her. My bag was heavy too.

As we walked to the water’s edge an eagle cried from the tree tops nearby, signaling something—warning or battle cry? A birdlike call for a dinner date? These cries of the eagle never cease to amaze me, pull me into the moment, make me marvel at the magnificence of nature.

The water was like glass, the Olympic Mountains beamed brightly under the mid-March sun and the only company we had were a few birds. Tossing our fatigue aside, we zipped up our suits and waded in to the glassy water. There was not a puff of wind, the only movement the incoming tide.

South we swam, gasping at the spike of cold cutting our faces, but we rose up rosy. Our cheeks glowing pink, blood from our inner depths rising to the surface reminding us that our hearts beat strong, our bodies know how to keep us breathing. Afloat. Energy came to us like a sudden gift, and onward we swam.

We are so fragile. All of us. And so strong in the ways that matter, too.

Our thoughts and inner dreams as fragile and changeable as the surface of the water. One tiny pebble, one raindrop, one wisp of wind has the strength to break the surface. Sunbeams and cloud shadows and rainbows, twigs and herons and pilings and ships and sailboats transform the colors on the surface.

The water reflects everything. Absorbs everything. Dazzles everything. Makes cheeks turn rosy and offers calm to everyone lucky or crazy enough to get in.

As the sun touched down on the horizon, melting like a hot pat of butter, burning the tree tops, we turned northwards for the return to the landing. My view right flickered to the sideways beach, high tide, my eyes marking the familiar colors of the houses, the bulkheads and stairways. On every other stroke my view opened to the setting sun, the flash of still water, a glimpse of the bumpy distant hills growing dark below the fading light.

Days later I find myself thinking about the fading light, the momentary flashes of the world seen sideways, swimming in the Salish Sea.

I recall the heron I captured on camera, after our swim, on my drive to pick up my youngest son at his friend’s house. Wading through the shallows, fishing after the sun had set, long legged and sure footed, his body another reflection on the still water.

What a gift it is to notice the reflections upon the water, to see your own reflection in the water, and let it change you, and remind you that you are apart of the whole.

We are all apart of the whole.