People swim for lots of reasons.
People don’t swim for lots of reasons.
People love swimming for lots of reasons.
People hate swimming for lots of reasons.
If I could offer one thing to children everywhere, after the obvious necessities including unconditional love and education, it would be swim lessons. Drownings happen all the time, and in some countries are very common. Swimming lessons would save countless lives around the world, and especially children whom so often are the victims. Beyond the obvious life saving of swim lessons, swim lessons are life enhancing and are the gateway to a lifetime of enjoyment in and on the water.
Access to water and childhood swimming lessons and the gift of time to go swimming are all things I have been privileged to have in my life.
I took so much for granted as a kid—plenty of food, a warm bed, a good education, healthcare, access to saltwater and beaches and trails and wide open summers spent in or on the waters of the Salish Sea.
My comfort level in the water is nearly matched by my comfort on the water, be it row boat or sail boat, power boat or ferry. I am convinced I breathe more fully, lower my heart rate and may even extend my life’s trajectory with every trip to the water, be it sea or lake, river or ocean.
This comfort with the water came to me not by accident, but because I was taught how to swim at an early age. For kids growing up on an island, this island, swimming lessons were a given. In elementary school, bus loads of kids were transported to the one public pool to learn how to not drown. We learned CPR on creepy life size dolls, puddy-colored rubber lips and no legs. We learned how to blow bubbles and bob at the edge of the pool, we learned to dive in head first—from kneeling, then standing.
The changing room was always sickly damp and the dark cement walls sweat constantly. It reeked of chlorine and wet bathing suits—but we loved it.
I can’t remember clearly not knowing how to swim. I do remember trying synchronized swimming class once—I didn’t last long. It felt counterintuitive to swimming’s joyful magic, like wrestling water or fighting air in an attempt to overcome the water. While other girls tried to defy gravity and kick their way out of the water, shooting their slender legs and torsos out of the water and pointing toes like lost ballerinas, I just wanted to dive down under and sprout gills.
I still want to sprout gills. Diving remains my favorite way to enter any body of water, because to me the whole point is to get down deep. The butterfly stroke still eludes me to this day, beyond exhausting to just watch, it looks awkward and looks like a fight with water. Perhaps I’m just looking for excuses, but that stroke remains the only one I have no interest in learning or doing.
Tonight I learned that a classmate of ours just died suddenly at home. She was just 47 and a mother just like me. I didn’t know her very well, but I remember her in school. I think the last time I saw her was probably 30 years ago. Turns out she lived not far from me, a few towns away, an hours drive, and worked saving lives and fighting fires—the first female firefighter/EMT in a sizable town nearby.
Tonight with this news in hand and heart, my thoughts nudge and jostle about like waves on the beach, pushing the flotsam out of the way, beaching piles of thoughts and reflections on the fragility of life and how despite all our efforts, we humans really don’t know much after all.
I am sad for my classmate’s family, her child, her friends and colleagues. She was too young to die. Dying is supposed to happen when we are old, yet again I am reminded with the force like a tsunami that life —and death—doesn’t work that way. Life goes by fast. Rules and plans and expectations and hearts are broken all the time. It just is. No one is to blame. Again I find myself desperate to not waste time and keep doing what I love every day. Stay open, love fully, and expand my understanding of the world by meeting new people, asking questions, making new friends.
What better way than in the water.
A few days ago I went on another swimming adventure—to Lake Washington. As I wiped sleep from my eyes and felt my morning coffee buzz through my veins I pulled out of my sister’s driveway before 7 am to make a half hour trek to meet a stranger for a swim.
I was tired and giddy, acting on my intuition and riding the wave of my year of swimming and my swim stories that had brought me to this moment. This fellow swimmer, Tom, grew to know me— sharing his thoughts and kindly catching my typos—here, in this blog.
A few other swimmers met up with us at the parking lot beside Lake Washington, swim buoys, looks of ease and friendly smiles upon them. They too, were in on the secret—the joy and magic that is open water swimming. After introductions, we all stood around chatting about swimming, past swims, competitions, future swim goals, favorite swim spots and the open water swim community in and around the Salish Sea. Each person came with different reasons, but we are were held together by a shared love of swimming for swimming’s sake.
What stood out to me was the peace I felt among these kindred spirits. These strangers trusted me, a stranger, to come along, and I trusted them to not lead me astray. We stood beside the Mother, the lake. She was watching over all of us. She would hold all of us up. We trusted her.
To the south of us Mt. Rainier rose up in a white haze, and immediately before us waited a huge expanse of rippled fresh water nestled in the middle of the humming city of Seattle. The early morning sun burned down and with the first step into the warm, clear water, I fell in love with water, again.
I listened in as the four swimmers mapped out a loose route from shore. Moments later I stepped in to the bath water warm lake and swam south in calm water flecked with tiny lake confetti and ringed by an entire city, with humming highways and roads and miles upon miles of people.
Tom asked if I could see Mt. Rainier from where I usually swim, and I said,
“Oh no. I see the Olympics.”
Tom smiled.
“Oh good. Then that’s something new for you to see—sorry you are “slumming” it here in the middle of the city on this swim.” He joked.
We looked out across the blue water.
“Oh, no, it’s all so beautiful.” I replied. I felt the energy of the city, people going to work and travel and stores. The energy of this city hovering right at the edges of this enormous lake.
The lake was beautiful. And the hum of the city faded away as we made our way along the shore. As we went deeper into the lake I struggled to keep my bearings and struggled to find a spot to sight on. No longer able to spot the bottom, with nothing below me to focus on, I kept abreast of Tom’s buoy to keep myself on track, as the disorientation of swimming in a new spot, and huge lake (which also decreased my buoyancy) was a little overwhelming.
A glimmer of anxiety set in, and I stopped frequently to reorient and slow my breathing.
I knew I was in safe hands swimming with Tom, and had corresponded enough to know that he was an experienced swimmer familiar with this location. In hindsight I realize I put a lot of trust in him and myself—our common ground was our shared love of open water swimming. I trusted that the rest would fall into place as it should.
Our three swim buddies quickly out swam us by a long shot, leaving Tom and me behind, to honor our own pace. We paused and he pointed out the way the Willow trees along the shoreline reached down towards the lake, hanging perfectly parallel a few feet above the lake water, appearing as if some giant kept them trimmed to hang just so.
At our turnaround spot we brought our heads up and out of the water, to talk and reflect on why we swim, sharing stories and musings on this shared passion.
I recalled a visit years ago to my aunt and uncle’s apartment on this lake. They were fairly newly married I think, and had a small waterside apartment with a deck over the lake. My memory is that we leapt off into the water, but I don’t know if that actually happened or was just what I wanted to do. Funny how memory and dreams get mixed together that way. But I do know we went swimming and I am positive I loved every minute of it.
Tom reflected on this unique past time of swimming. The draw to floating in this clear liquid, suspended, the required kicking and arm swirling required to not go below. We enter this otherworldly place that is fantastically inviting but also fantastically dangerous to us air breathing creatures. For those who don’t know how to swim, this world is not friendly.
Learning to swim as a child made this world not only friendly and a place for me to find peace and renewal, but also a beautiful place to make new friends.
Thank you, Tom.
Mary Swims 