October 14, 2021

There my feet, and there an arc of red wool sweater waiting for a ferry

Hovering above the sea grows one tiny fern, boldly clinging to life on a ridge of concrete

The silent scream is saltwater, crystal clear it polishes every single rock, the palette deafening in its beauty

I am taunted to return as I stall day after day

It has been a dry week for my suits, my goggles, my cap

It is getting cold now and every day I catch one or many glimpses of the sea

My will to swim is turning brown like the leaves, brittle, curled up like a baby’s fist, all instinct, reacting to the jarring surprise of cold air

Record lows this week recorded outside and subsequently inside myself

I love and hate fall time

The cold air makes my shoulders hunch inward and as I look to the water I wonder what more I wish or need to find out there

I dread the darkness

I feel like I have imposed this strange sentence upon myself as I embark in another winter of open water swimming

As the air turns damp and raw and harsh the thought of a swim out there feels almost out of reach—self-inflicted pain

How we torture and punish ourselves endlessly over these trivial matters

And for what?

Another day along with a million more excuses to stall my return—and yet—

Does my swimming change anything?

No, not really.

But I know there is beauty out there and thanksgiving

I know that the chill will shoot life into my veins, leave me breathless but ecstatic—dull the depression pushing upward—perhaps that is enough—and if I can share that watery treasure in the shine of my eyes or by drops of peace that appear upon my goose pimpled skin all the better

The leaves are dying and the darkness is coming and the water is waiting

So tomorrow I go

But perhaps I will bring a friend along—

Perhaps only in spirit, but still she will come

Alone I am not, for my selkie is always with me

If only I could pour all of my thoughts out of my head like a river, and watch them melt away into the sea

But they get caught in eddies and lodge under roots and get trapped beneath boulders

My thoughts get tangled in old fishing line and barbed hooks carelessly discarded

Some thoughts get trapped in abandoned crab pots, hung to rot with flakey fish parts and ribbons of seaweed, or nestled in a tuna can punctured and bleeding

To write of the sea is to try and write a story to describe a single wave—

As soon as a complete shape takes form the wave is absorbed and swallowed by another

All flows together—

No thought or action or swim is ever really over—

If to live is to be a river, headed for the sea than I shall be a wave—

I shall meld and bend and surge and divide and splash and grow and fall, flow, fly to my home the sea

And there I shall grow salty and I shall grow barnacles upon my back, I shall collect sand fleas and starfish, I shall keep going

For a wave I shall ride and a wave I shall be

And in fall time and winter I shall remember to reflect the sky, even in the darkest days—

For the sea always reflects the sky

And the salmon have returned to the bay

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Today I looked through glass with my aunt and uncle at the still green water where one seal glided silently along

Unhurried, effortlessly afloat, sure of herself

Pulling silence and three smiles across clear glass—liquid within liquid

The bay was hers alone

Her body a wave

A wave flanked by ripples

And ordered

Doing the work that only a seal can do

And I was glad