Before our very eyes the Salish Sea has become a fuzzy wool sweater. Warm and soft to a surprising degree.
I can hardly believe this is the same water I battled for months to accept, endure and let in, as it bore cold and icy to my core.
Visibility remains so low that this past week during my various swims I have nary to spot a single crab skittering along the bottom, failed to make out the familiar shape of my favorite moon snail or even get a clear view of a clam shell resting on the sea floor.
My water life is fuzzy and warm. I’m just not certain this is a good thing.
I have walked steadily in to the water at the landing and barely noticed any cold. The water temperature has risen so dramatically that I love it and want to absorb every sweet drop through my sun kissed skin, but at the same time find myself unsettled by the change.
Unsettled by change. That pretty much covers it. Or maybe the trick is to revel in the change, be the change, move with the tides, shape shift like the water around us.
When I tether myself to my orange buoy and pull on my green cap and adjust my goggles over my eyes, I take comfort in this familiar ritual and find my first out breath.
This first breath marks my initial break with the land and all it requires and demands.
Two swims this week blessed me with silken water, windless skies and a bath- like thermal layer free of stinging jellyfish. No boats passed by and no seals appeared—just me alone in an immense salty bathtub full of flecks of mystery and bright green seaweed.
I swim to unwind, rewind, reframe, untether, strengthen, enliven and otherwise liberate my body—my being—from its fragile self.
I must admit much of this seems easier to accomplish quickly in warm sweater water. With the temperature so much higher, I’ve actually found myself scooping water from below me, churning up the cooler water several feet down to cool my body more.
The ease of summer swimming has helped my muscles relax, and for this I am grateful. Summer swimming smells and tastes like my childhood, warm afternoons splashing in waves along the shore, rollicking along in a speedboat, banana popsicles and lemonade stands—and phosphorus.
Phosphorus—nature’s ultimate magical fairy dust.
This is the saltwater’s unique magic. The other night I tiptoed quietly out onto our neighbor’s dock, the bay still and dark, lit only by the dim glow of an invisible moon and some twinkling stars far above, and the bright glow of lights hung from houses around the bay.
My youngest son had enjoyed a swim with friends one night prior, on the 4th of July, in this same water. He smiled recounting their joyful frolic about in the dark, their bodies lit up by bright phosphorus glowing green around them.
I felt simultaneously happy for him and sad for my private ache of missing being the one he spends his time with. I wished to have been with him, but just as with our eldest, I understand that at 14 and 18, their tribe, their focus, their need, is to be with their peers. Not me or their dad much of the time. Our job is to be ready to hear their stories, hug them when they come home, offer our unconditional love and send them off again to swim about in the fallen stars, get lost in the magical glow that is life.
When I reached the float, I dangled a rope in the black water and watched sparkles come to life like watery fire flies, shining and disappearing faster than a shooting star. I kicked off my shoes and sat down to dangle my feet in, swirling them in circles to churn up the green glow, my splashes echoing across the bay. I turned to lay on my stomach, and reached down to scoop up the twinkling droplets, watching with amazement as tiny glitters lit up upon tiny droplets in my hands before disappearing back into the bay.
I, too, was a teen once. I, too, was hungry to feel the sparkles and venture out on my own in the company of my friends.
I felt like a teen again, for a moment, sitting there in the dark on a warm summer’s night making the phosphorus glow. In that moment I shared my sons’ delight, and found myself content knowing that both of my sons have experienced the profound wonder of bathing in this magical water this summer, grateful to my core that they know how to swim and that they, too, love the water.
In the company of friends, aglow in the magic that is unique to them, and all that they are right now, my sons have touched the mystery. What a gift!
Mary Swims 