May 14, 2021

Moon jellyfish and sunshine—a recipe for happiness.

My swims of late have been sporadic, with life on land pushing my water life aside. I’ve missed the open water, and with the sun burning bright this week, the call of the Salish Sea has grown strong again along with my resolve to get back in more regularly to my watery home.

Especially now—there are moon jellyfish out there needing company.

We here in the Pacific Northwest are entering that magical time of year when the sun comes out, burning through miles of grey clouds and the world is aglow in every shade of green, making people smile more, plant seeds and frolic outside and birds go crazy in the bushes as new life explodes like a party popper everywhere you turn.

Inspired by a perfect day of warm sunshine and an open schedule, I set my evening course for open water, filling my car with all the necessary gear before work and cleared my slate to make room to swim as long as I liked. Alone. My need to swim, and swim alone yesterday was as clear as the blue sky above me.

Swimming requires a lot of room, especially open water swimming. And yesterday was one of those moments when I wanted the entire sea to myself, room for all of my thoughts and whispered musings to float freely around me uninterrupted. The silence is where I do my best thinking and writing as I swim, filling the corners of my brain with fragments of sentences and ideas to store up and transfer to page once the water has dried to salt on my skin. Or the place to let the heavy, unhelpful thoughts drift away on the tide.

When I can’t get a swim in for days at a time, I’ll find myself stopping in to see what wet adventures my other fellow swimmers have been getting into around the world, via various online groups.

Here is where I go to revel in the pictures and happy faces of strangers I’ll likely never meet, but despite this fact, their splashes and dips and watery posts bring me joy and help me stay connected to that part of myself that is always at sea. I have made a few friends there, including a talented water color artist in the UK, of whose paintings I am now a proud owner.

The paintings are small, not much larger than an oversized postcard, rendered seemingly effortlessly by this man’s hand, with water drops I imagine just dried. He takes dips in a river near his home, often biking there and back, carrying his paints and brushes and papers with him.

His posts always include a snapshot of his happy eyes, often hovering a few inches above his fresh water swimming hole, or a snapshot of his body suspended midair, arms outstretched, on his headlong dive of delight into the cold. And always, always photos of lively, fresh executed paintings.

A kindred spirit, working tirelessly to capture in paint the world he loves, images brimming with light and colors, he too, shares his reflections through his chosen medium. I often wish to paint like he does, to share in colors what I see, but words set down in patterns seem to be my truest paints, my strongest brush strokes.

A high tide met me at the landing yesterday, along with silken water, waves kissed with golden light, a light breeze, and a few bright white gulls. The birds soared lazily, etching pathways in the cloudless sky, their black pearl eyes scanning the beach for dinner.

My limited swims of late have softened my tolerance to the bright cold, but the water won me over—in time. A blizzard of tiny algae and organisms of unknown variety blurred my view, as I took the plunge northward, madly blowing bubbles out to distract my mind from the cold, my arms pulling rapidly as I fought through a brain freeze. Lifting my head, the headache peaked, then dulled within seconds, enough time to square my goggles and carry on.

Autopilot kicked in and in no time I was headed into the still bay, the water noticeably warmer here…and then….

A moon jellyfish.

My hand cupped and slid over the unmistakable and other worldly feel that can only be a jellyfish. The silken texture is as close to the sensation of the feel of a baby moving inside ones womb as anything else I have ever felt. Water on water, zero friction. Just perfect symbiosis, two bodies meant to touch.

I doubted my assessment, even as I soon cupped another invisible friend inside the bay. With a pause to catch my breath, consider the water temperature and recognize the fact that it is mid-May, and the air temperature like the water has crept slowly upwards, I deduced that I must be swimming with moon jellies.

Head down again I squinted through the cloudy water and finally started catching glimpses of these translucent creatures. The few I was able to spot measured about the size of half an orange, or a standard paper weight (for those old enough to remember what they used to look like).

I swam from dock to dock, cutting across at the halfway mark, my mind wandering to seals and summer. Anxiety crept in as I reminded myself that a seal might be with me at any moment and I worked to calm my breathing reminding myself that seals are really like friendly dogs—curious and harmless, and due proper respect and space.

No seals appeared, and I swam westward towards the mouth of the bay, blinded by the glare of the lowering sun, pausing to shade my eyes and do sight checks for boats, buoys and other possible hazards.

I found myself peering through dark water, as I pulled along, feeling strong and free, tension flowing outwards as peaceful thoughts floated in.

In the shadow of a large sailboat the water turned an inky black. And in this shadow I did a spot check and thought about how we sometimes have to enter the shadows to find our way back to the light. The darkness startled me for a moment, as I reminded myself that below me lay nothing but a wonderland of clams and seaweed, baby oysters, hermit crabs, minnows and all manner of finned creature. There was nothing to fear here in the shadows, only my own runaway thoughts.

The darkness under and above the water gave me a clear view to my path back to the mouth of the bay, where the brilliant sun radiated warmth and light, drawing every magnificent color to my eyes—a perfect painting.

*Below—Original watercolor by artist and kindred swimmer, Alan Turner