Mary Swims

There is a new baby orca in the Salish Sea.

A happy report on the radio today also noted that several resident  pods gathered together for some kind of orca convention recently (none of them were wearing masks!) and  local scientists shared more good news—the whales are looking good, well fed. They are finding fish to eat.

I didn’t see any whales today on my swim. But the news lifted my spirits even before reaching the shore.  To call it refreshing today would be a vast understatement. Today’s lesson was on making plans….the lesson was….don’t. The second lesson was to mitigate instead, in the event of dirty water, freezing cold water, high waves, strong winds and fatigue. 

The third lesson was on runoff.

It started with my usual walk to the head of the bay during high tide, where I prepared myself to expect the water to be fairly murky due to all of the rain we have been having the past couple of days. It wasn’t sort of murky—it was solid poop brown, top to bottom. I held onto a small tree and leaned out to get a better view, hoping to find acceptable water. Nope.  I scanned the bay and quickly decided that this was a line I was unwilling to cross, and a trip to Fletcher Landing was in order. Out there I would most certainly find clearer water—and colder water too.

Out of the truck I quickly hit the beach, where decent sized waves were crashing in, pushed by a nice steady southerly wind. Happy to find clear water at my feet, I stepped in up to my waist, as the ice water made its way into my skin. Time for another adjustment—this was going to take serious time to acclimate.

The blessed sun was peaking through the clouds, highlighting white caps on the crests of waves. I placed my focus on the shimmering sunlight bouncing in all directions, weighing the pros and cons of striking South into the biggest chop I’ve yet to experience with no boat to float in. No sails to raise.

I had experienced an icy swim before—not too long ago—but this was different. I felt my resolve begin to cave. A quick splash on both arms, with both hands already feeling chilled, I ended by forcing water onto my face.

It was time to commit or surrender. I did both. I dove under, pulled forward beneath the surface and popped up breathless, my face aching.

This is crazy, I thought. What am I doing here? Why?

I quickly turned my thoughts off, focusing on the world before me.

I looked North, adjusted my plan, decided to attempt one more time, and before I knew it I was carving towards the entrance to the bay. I had committed to this swim and somehow also surrendered to the water. There was no other choice.

At the mouth of the bay I hugged the south side and circled in along the spit, suddenly gleeful as I found myself buoyed by warm water dancing with bright green seaweed like little clouds below the surface.

The seaweed was suspended in the warmer waters and I marveled at how it hovered so perfectly around me.

The calm of the bay was another gift, but fatigue and cold felt near and I did not wish to push my luck.

Midway up the bay I headed across to the far shore and headed back out to the entrance, where the wind was picking up strength.

My last ten minutes south along the spit to my starting point, thrashing my way through a strong wind and decent chop left me winded, and wondering as I found my foot hold in the shallows.

Wonder is what keeps me coming back.

My swimming routes have not extended more than a couple miles out of the bay in either direction, and yet these swims take me to places I never imagined. And are making me pay more attention—to my own feelings and to this fragile and beautiful place I live in.

The brown runoff at the head of the bay today gave me pause.  Likely carrying more or less of all manner of human waste, and natural debris, soaps and lawn fertilizer, oil, gas, plastics, horse manure, dog poop, worms, silt, old beer, spit—it’s all there. We might not see it, but it is there.

Unlike the baby orca, I can choose to swim or not. These waters, this Salish Sea, this Pacific Ocean—all of this water. It’s all we’ve got.

And, in fact, all of our lives depend on it.

Everything runs downhill. Everywhere.

Think of the baby orca. Every. Day.

She needs us. And we need her.

Sea otters sometimes store snacks in their armpits. I did not know that until today.

I also didn’t know until today that wool knee high socks would feel so good after my first official autumnal swim. Marking the Fall equinox was not intentional, but swimming today most certainly was.

The bay was mostly quiet again today. Usually the only sounds are the flapping swish of an occasional flock of geese overhead, or the intermittent hum of traffic on the main road across the bay. Or the cry of a seagull or the sound of some tool being fired up or shut down. Sound travels so easily over the water, Mother Nature’s natural amplifier.

Today the bay gifted me with the sound of music. The tide was fairly low, and as I surveyed the mud, eyeing the shore and steadying my mind to cross the threshold into cold, I heard voices and the sound of digging, and happy banter in Spanish through the trees to my left, just across the bay.

And then one man started singing.

Easy, steady notes floated across the bay. I stood still, listening. I wished I spoke Spanish, could know what the song was about. Most of all I was just happy for the man singing—he sounded happy.

We are all so tied up right now, trapped, trying to work through this unbelievable mess. Like swimming, music also liberates me. Hearing this music added lightness to my mood and drew me forward.

I was reminded how important it is to just let myself sing and swim for the sake of it. This man singing was working very hard I am sure, in the company of a few others, and he was joyful.

He sounded free. Light. At ease, even amidst his hard labors. Forcing me out of my own head, the music brought me into the moment.

The music continued as I waded up to my waist. The signs of Fall were everywhere —golden oblong leaves and brown, lacy maple leaves and tiny bright orange cedar leaves bedazzled the surface of the bay.

I swam steadily outside the bay, passing an elderly gentleman in a rowboat. The tide slowed my exit out the mouth of the bay, where I was struck in the forehead by a large wet maple leaf. I swept it away, feeling the significance of this run-in, as I swam beneath cloudy skies threatening rain. A very clear reminder that Summer is behind us now—dead leaves and spiders now reign supreme.

At Fletcher Landing I waved to a couple sitting on the bench and turned West, looping out around the twin pilings, one of which is topped by a bouquet of man-made bird nests. A lone seagull perched atop the other piling, clearly not interested in the nests or me, and as I neared his perch he took flight.

I did a figure eight around the pilings, peering down into the depths, both completely enshrouded in barnacles and crawling with a few fiesty spider crabs.

The water was deep out by the pilings and I reveled in the feeling of so much water below me.  As I swam back towards shore I daydreamed of deep water crossings and contemplated doing an assisted crossing soon, to the west or south, if I can secure a boat.

If I do expand my aquatic adventuring to Blake Island, or Brownsville or across Hood Canal, I will most certainly bring my wool socks along to warm up afterwards.

And maybe I’ll try packing some snacks in my armpits like the sea otters.

I am swimming again.

Yesterday I finally got back in.

Anticipating colder water after eight days of a smoke-choked sky, and unsure of how my time away would impact my tolerance, I opted for my selkie-hybrid: thermal cap instead of my regular cap, and otherwise my red suit and goggles per the usual.

I considered the wetsuit, but wanted to feel the cold, absorb every drop, as the smoke-induced claustrophobia of days indoors left me feeling like a dried out furnace. Cracked and brittle.

I stomped down to the muddy entrance, determined to swim, aching to swim, weary of the world after what felt like an eternally long, frightening week of smoke and worsening news. My lungs would survive this swim—my emotional well being depended on returning to my watery home. I couldn’t wait another day.

What I found at the water’s edge was solitude, a very high tide and the surface riddled with little bubbles. It’s striking how different the surface appears every time. I decided to interpret the bubbles as an invitation from the fish to hop in and swing my tail around with them.

I stashed warm clothes and a towel at the foot of a tree, my acknowledgment that yes, Fall is here, and it is time to pack accordingly—have the means to dry off quickly and minimize chances of getting too cold once out.

I eased down the roots, stepped in, slipped in the mud and was to my waist sooner than expected.

I waited.

My body remembered this. And my week away spent watching open water videos on ice swimming and free diving and free diving fisher women, How-to videos on winter open water swimming, and finishing reading “Why We Swim”, an ode to all things swimming had helped me prepare my mind for this return.

My weeklong quest to stay connected to this passion I have found, learn from others and day dream helped me tolerate the time away and also made me crave getting back all the more.

In the water, I set my mind to take the first dive, and under I went into clear green water. I instantly felt complete. Whole again. Exuberant and calm at the same time. This was the right choice.

Aware of the mediocre air quality, I took my time, forcing myself to only do a short swim.  I alternated between free and breast stroke, pausing often to just float and peer around at the awakening sky, as the shapes of actual clouds slowly broke through as the smoke dissipated ever so slowly.

I was alone in the bay. Still. Hopeful to maybe be joined by my seal friend. As I paused to spin around and peer around, I realized that I was the seal of the bay. From a distance my black cap could easily be mistaken for a seal. I smiled with the thought, and turned face down to travel farther out the bay. Mid way out, I glanced up to see distant dark clouds to the west, heard a rumble and debated an emergency exit in case of a storm.

But the rumble ended far off, while above me the clouds were lighter and the air was still. A flock of gulls flew over announcing their ownership of this place.

Playing it safe, I turned back, promising myself that my next swim would be a long one.

I don’t think I’ll ever make sense of all that has happened, in my own life, here, and all that has unfurled and swelled and thrashed in the greater world. The tidal waves that keep coming.

But I know that the water helps me find peace and bravery and hope. And maybe one of my jobs is to help others access this feeling of peace and bravery and hope through swimming, or at least through some stories of swimming.

I got into the water yesterday, tense, hot, tight, fearful, weary and scared.

I rose out of the water calm, cool, hopeful, energized, happy, feeling brave and grateful.

In Why We Swim, author Bonnie Tsui writes,

“Old Japanese texts teach that swimming in freezing water cultivates perseverance; submersion leads to patience; diving fosters bravery. Floating of the body leads to serenity of the mind. The mastery of rescue and resuscitation is a sign of wholehearted benevolence.”

Yes. I’m going to keep on swimming.

You know you’ve crossed over into crazy when you wake up and seriously consider how to convert an N-95 mask into a snorkel so you can go swim in cold water. That or consider wading out into the smoke to collect whole clam shells during the morning low tide to make a bunch of these—yes, clam shell books. Finally made my first one.

I am so lucky to even have time to consider these projects. I know that.

And I still desperately miss my swims, clean air, the sun, my friends, singing to strangers at the market and at wine bars and, most of all, waving my sweet sons off to school. And seeing their smiling friends and parents and their incredible teachers.

It’s funny how quickly habits can change—life can change in an instant. Well, funny maybe isn’t the right word here, but you catch my drift. 

One week ago I would wake up every morning and check the tides on my phone, even before the weather. Before I started open water swimming I’d check the weather first. Then I took up this crazy new adventure, that quickly became a habit, and my first task became checking for the high tide of the day. And calculating how to get everything done I needed to get done and fit in a swim. Get to my sanctuary.

I have spent almost my entire life—41 of my 47 years—on Bainbridge Island. And I never knew how much the tides fluctuate from day to day. I never realized that the tides shifted so drastically, that there were high highs and high lows and low highs and low lows.

And then our world seemed to explode in flames a few weeks ago, and last week the smoke arrived. So now I check the air quality on my weather app first, gaze out the window at the wall of brown grey skies, along with I’m guessing most everyone else along the West Coast.  Again reminding myself that we here on this island, and our close neighbors, are only suffering under the smoke of fires far away. We are not on fire. Relatively speaking.

Last night I found myself searching the BI Aquatic Center website, scanning the very limited open swim lanes and various times, looking for an opening. Longing to swim. Ready to go inside, surrender to this new reality stacked on top of the other new reality. Swim inside, in a watery box. Float. Back and forth, follow the black line.

My heart sank just thinking about flip turns.

I have grown so accustomed to, been spoiled by access to the endless, limitless, liberating experience of open water swimming just outside my back door.

Here is what I found on the website: One person per lane, 45 minutes maximum,  no access to locker rooms, masks required until pool side, no sauna, no spa, no banter. Chlorinated water, no crabs, no seaweed, no seals or otters or jellyfish. No mud between my toes, no salty air, no honest cold water to shock my mind into a state of clarity and leave me feeling exuberant after a good swim. Next available spot: September 28th or 29th. Weeks from now.

Maybe I’ll wait.

I didn’t sign up. I just can’t. I’ll wait until the smoke clears, at least to “Moderate” levels.

Then I’ll pick my own time to swim.

In the meantime, I’ll commit to checking the tides first, before the air quality, because this is a hopeful thing to do. I’ll watch more videos like I did last night of open water swimmers around the world, plowing through distant seas and oceans, pushing themselves, exhausting themselves and best of all finding themselves.

I’ll keep reaching out to my friends, and practice guitar with my two Songbirds, Larry and Jon.

I’ll make meals for my family and lay on my dog, rub his ears. Tell myself and my sons that we will get through this. The skies will clear, the fires will go out.

But I’m scared.

Time to go collect some shells, and say hello to the water. I’ll put my hand in, feel the coolness sink in and pray for rain.

I am a fish out of water today.

Like most everyone able to avoid the outside world today due to the smoke, I stayed inside all day, leaving me feelIng cagey, taut muscles, tight jaw, edgy, hot, too dry. Even our dog moped around, listless, at a loss for the inactivity of his day.

No swimming today. All I want to do is swim right now. I actually contemplated a late night plunge, but fatigue got the better of me.

As I stepped into the shower to cool down tonight, I passed my other silkie suit. It’s red, and hangs limp on a hook in our tiny bathroom. Sad. Waiting.

It hit me tonight that I have become accustomed to being “grounded” this surreal summer by leaving the ground, lifting my feet up out of the mud and giving the weight of my body over to floating in salt water.

I crave the weightlessness tonight.

I anxiously wait for the air to clear as I reflect on the source of all this smoke— millions of trees, grasses, countless acres of wild lands, and the homes of thousands and thousands of creatures, nimble mice and soaring eagles and agile deer and beetles and grubs and baby owls and possums—and the homes of people, towns, neighborhoods. Gone. No way to wrap my head around the magnitude of these losses, and the people and animals that will not see the sky ever again. Or the water. Gone.

Last night I mapped out the smokey swim I took yesterday with my friend, Heidi.

I sent her the route we accomplished together, 1.07 miles, on her second open water swim with me.  I cheered her on and congratulated her accomplishment—we were both struck by the cold, and the brief currents of warm water that surprised us as we circled the inner edges of the bay.

Yesterday’s swim feels like days ago. Time is so slippery right now.

I let my thoughts sink to the bottom of the bay tonight. After reading yet another honest and disheartening article about our country’s circular (Non) handling of the pandemic and so much inequality,  and a post from a teacher discouraged by the reality of online school for countless students, I am looking for a calming place for my mind.

Hermit crabs. The hermit crabs and clams are burbling away down there, out of the smoke, completely protected from the fires, tucked snugly in their shells while flounder and sculpins dart over them. Sounds nice doesn’t it?

There is no escaping this moment. And I can’t go to the watery world forever and escape what is happening here. But my brief forays into that other world gift me with a different perspective and clarity that I can’t find any other way. The icy cold itself provides an instant reset.

Yesterday as we floated back in, we talked about the rush of the cold water. I said I have always hated the cold, or thought I did, but somehow don’t in the water. She replied, “But here you are choosing the cold.”

That’s exactly it. I choose this. In a time when we are all spinning in circles, an endless spiral, where so much feels out of our control. Every time I enter the water, I am exhilarated by the sensation of cold and the endless freedom I feel that once in the water I can swim in any direction, any manner I choose. Utterly free, and in charge of my destiny.

No matter what happens, water will be there for us. And like the land, we must know the water, study what lives below the surface, listen to the cries  of the sea birds and squabbles of the pesky river otters, the hushes  of the waves, and all the while keep listening to our own lungs fill with air and blow it all out and trust that tomorrow will be a better day. The skies will clear, the fires die down, the waters will keep calling and we will all keep swimming home.

Sometimes we have to dive under water, look below the surface to see clearly. And breathe easily.

If there was a day to wish for gills, this was surely it.

Today was literally one of those days. Above and below the surface I reflected on some points that needed attention.

Smoke from wildfires raging far off in every direction arrived today over the island, casting an orange haze over everything, completely obscuring the Olympics. People stayed indoors, windows closed, as eyes got scratchy, throats burned, dogs didn’t get walked, kids didn’t play outside and the gentleness of the Fall sunshine was shrouded in a smokey cloud of distant doom.

Reading a bit of the burning news, so heartbreaking and scary on so many levels, I found myself thinking about the relative safety of living on an island, surrounded by all of that cold water. Yes, today I thought a lot about islands. 

I always think about water. Well, salt water to be exact.

I spent a good portion of the day between a multitude of mundane tasks during which I weighed the pros and cons of swimming today watching the air quality readings hover at “moderate”.

Looking for an answer about the risks of sucking in smokey air while exercising, I happened upon a story about this very topic, from Australia in 2019. A time when so much tragically burned and like now, as we try to navigate safety during COVID, weighing risks and benefits of time with people we need and love versus exposure In either direction to a still giant largely unknown risk, the article touched on the importance of exercise and how to mitigate when smoke is hovering over your head. And seeping into every nook and cranny of clean air.

All of this made me stop and consider the clean air that some of us get to access on a daily basis, while others live their whole lives in smog and smoke.

Or live surrounded by islands of putrid water, by rivers and lakes too polluted to even wade in let alone swim.

It gave me pause. Yet another opportunity to feel gratitude for where I get to live and remind me that I need to do as many small things as possible to help save this planet to make it more hospitable for everyone.

After much deliberation, I chose a swim. I put in on my neighbor’s dock, with the acrid smell faintly blowing across the silent bay. Not a soul was out on the water.

This might have been my moment to reconsider, except that it had been several days since I got to take a solo swim, and ignoring my better judgement—or at least my lungs—I stepped into the cool water. I just had to. The mud oozed between my toes as a teenage crab strutted nervously by.

I felt unsure that this was the right idea, and stepping in deeper I was taken by the deep cold of the glassy water. I convinced myself that it must have been all of that thinking about fires today that perhaps left me feeling overheated. Or maybe it was seeing the leaves everywhere, spinning in the currents or settling down where the crabs roam, reminding me that winter is coming. Whatever it was, I struggled to shift my focus away from the persistent cold sinking into my skin.

I waited. I faltered. Then I made up my mind to commit, and under I dove.

My watery world was intact, and erring on the side of caution I made myself promise to do a loop just in the bay, take it easy —this was not the day to push myself and fill my lungs with smokey air for a long swim.

I glided out towards the entrance to the bay, calm and happy to be back in my element, feeling the stiffness caused by the adjustment to cold water ease up and feel my body relax and limber up.

The water was blessedly clear and green. I could look ahead and watch for stinging  jellyfish.

And then geese.

I startled them, or perhaps they startled me—I think maybe it was a tie. As I neared the mouth of the bay, rolling along over crusty oyster shells I glanced up to check for boats. To my right was a large Canadian goose just ahead standing on the shore. And another. As my mind caught up with my eyes and I registered that geese are always in a flock, and  not always friendly,  I slowed, rolled to my right side and waited as they squawked and then took flight. A few lazy seagulls stood watching the show, unimpressed. I apologized aloud to the flapping bunch as they took their formation like a group of trained dancers, lining up and striking south, again reminding me that Fall is here. And Winter is coming.

Below all still looked in order. No smoke. Just my smokey bubbles. Oh, to have gills! As promised, I stayed in the bay, crossing over the deep channel cast in darkness by seaweed forests.

Once across, I stroked south inside the spit and the waters turned warm. The temperature difference was a pleasant surprise and as I softened more to this private salty paradise I gazed out below the surface and was amazed to find visibility was at least 20 feet in all diirections. The clam beds lay burbling, littered with shells while the hazy sun shone down flickering golden upon the muddy bay floor. I paused and just gazed belly down for several minutes, just looking out below the water. Imagining what this world must be like for a seal, wondering how they manage when the water is all fogged up and cluttered with debris. Wondering if they swim more freely, catch more fish, frolick more happily when their watery world is crystal clear.

Back at the neighbors floating dock, I found my footing again.

The waters stayed clear, the smoke still hung in the air and the mud still squished between my toes and fogged up the water at my feet.

Nothing had changed since I had left. And everything looked and felt different.

And I was so glad that I went for a swim.

Yesterday I swam with silkies, today I swam alone. There were three of us yesterday, on a slow leisurely swim, our heads bobbing above the waves like seals as we looked about and I shared this joyful place with two women friends. One I’ve known over twenty years, the other I met just weeks ago, a neighbor. Whatever paths led us to this moment I am thankful for. Both women had  taken a strong interest in experiencing what and how I do what I do out there in all that salty water.

It was a treat, pulling me out of my head into a friendly place with a completely different feel. And the water blessed us with warmth and clarity and laughter.

I loved it and yet was equally thrilled to return to the shore alone today.

The waves were higher, the tide was lower. Stepping into the shallows required a teetering, awkward dance over barnacle-coated rocks. The Olympics and hills in the foreground were astonishingly clear, with layers of blue green edges under another cloudless sky.

In contrast the water again was crowded with tiny brown flecks, churned up by the steady wind and waves, and as I set out to the south through the chop the visibility deteriorated. I hugged the shore and pulled through the cold shallow water, feeling like I was on my first swim. The water clouded more as I headed south, turning a muddy red brown leaving me feeling vulnerable and lost despite the fact that I was mere feet from the shore. And the cold stayed too.

I was humbled again.

At one point I contemplated getting out and making the walk back to the landing. But I didn’t want to leave. I wanted the feel of a good swim and time to calm my racing thoughts.

I stopped and turned north, with the decision to at least swim back to the start clearly planted in my brain.

Within a few strokes after my 180 turn, the water cleared. I started to notice the barnacled rocks below and could make out the shapes of rocks and shells again. As my view cleared I could feel my whole being relax. The sunlight made waves on the rocks and seaweed below me, a promise of good things.

I raised my head slightly forward and was struck by how far forward I could now see.  A calm set in as I relaxed into the rhythm and I felt confident I could avoid a lion’s mane jellyfish now with such clear water before me giving me time to maneuver out of its path.

As I neared the north end of the spit I found myself counting my strokes, breathe, one, two, three, breathe, one, two, three and soon my eyes settled on open clam shells, still intact, their brown hinges wide open. I started spotting them, one after another. They appeared like tiny books carelessly left open.

My mother in law once showed me a book someone had made from a clam shell. Pages contained inside the curved white half moons. I always wanted to make one, haven’t yet, but I happened by a perfect specimen, got my footing and tucked it into my swim buoy to bring home. Perhaps this is the one.

At the tip of the spit, the incoming tide carried me swiftly into the bay, and I thought of the salmon returning to spawn. The power of the water was kind but also reminded me how powerless I am in this watery world. I must go where the water takes me.

To my disappointment the bay was shrouded in red brown darkness, another thick algae bloom blocking my view. I again tightly hugged the shore where I could still make out the rocks and river of clam shells, and hopefully steer clear of a jellyfish.

Again I thought better than to risk a run in and I desperately wanted to return to the clearer water, more than stay in the warmer water. Cold seemed a safer choice.

With the tide rushing in, I was forced to put my feet down and walk along the rocky steep spit in shallow water in order to exit the bay. I tried a moment of swimming, and like a salmon, tried swimming against the current. No luck. I marveled thinking about all those salmon. The strength they have to swim upstream for miles and miles. Amazing.

Once clear of the current I lifted my feet and headed south to the landing. The water gifted me again with smaller waves, as the wind had died down and below me the late summer sun danced below.

And then I saw him. A Dungeness crab. By crabbing standards definitely a keeper. I couldn’t resist. I unhooked my buoy and swam down to him, startling him with my sudden arrival. He raised his thick pincers in alarm and I backed away.

I knew he belonged there. And yet. I felt a tinge of shame as I caught myself contemplating plucking him from his home. Not to mention it was illegal—Sunday and Monday only—and I had no means to get him without a good pinch.

My job was to observe. So I did. I clipped my buoy belt back on and floated facedown on the surface, watching this strange lone creature travel sideways through a stand of seaweed, turn and then keep traveling the same direction.

As I watched him sidle away, I smiled with the knowledge that I was once again reminded to just observe.

There is a lot to learn just by watching. Our need, my need, to possess, capture, collect and own is necessary for survival, except when it isn’t.

This was my day, my moment to observe and learn.

And I still couldn’t leave the shell behind.

An open book, like me.

Everything ends up in the ocean.

We are the ocean, each one of us.

We absorb the poison, our waters sickened by oil, plastics, decaying fish, broken vessels, rotten trees. We take it all.

And we have our top layers warmed by brilliant sun, and we go still beneath starry skies with blue whales breathing in our midsts, and roil and splash in raging winds forcing up massive tidal waves with all manner of life forms.

And we rest with seaweed islands on our backs as our waters turn orange and pink and violet and deep magenta and finally black after the sun sets.

We are oceans, each one of us.

This morning I walked out in the neighborhood beneath the bluest sky, utterly heartbroken on the first day of school for my sons. For all children. This is their world and look what we have given them.

I try and wrap my mind around so much loss. The communal losses are so great I can’t count them all.

As I watched my dog wag around in the grass, pure joy and harmony in every bit of him, I yearned to feel that.

I yearned to be free of so much emotional pain.

And then I kept walking beside him and it hit me.

I am an ocean.

I can hold it all.

Like the ocean, every emotion, every thought, every hope has room here in me.

I have no choice but to hold it all. The realities of now, so terrifying to consider. The future so terrifying to ponder.

And yet, I am the ocean. Maybe I too can hold it all, take it all in, let it float around. Not attach to all of it. I can’t control what comes in—the news each day, the sadness on others faces.  The frustration in my sons’ faces.

But I can be present. I can continue to make room for the life that lives within me. The joyful leaping salmon and long legged herons getting their morning catch. I can make space for the neighbor kids to splash in my waters and look for crabs under rocks.

And I can keep swimming in me. Dive deeper and deeper, even beyond the light, where the eyeless fish roam.

Almost every wall of my house is hung with an image of  water. We sleep every night beneath this painting, a masterful work by my friend Beth Van Liere, whom I met while working at Madrona House.

A painting of Fort Warden, the beach, seagulls, the grass flowing and crashing along the path just like waves. I look at this painting every night as I climb in bed, and every morning upon rising.

Around my house I have moon snail shells collecting dust—my other constant daily visual reminder that the water is never far away. Always ready for my return.

I bought this painting from Beth’s husband, Eldon, when Beth was still alive. While employed at Madrona, in the mornings I’d time my visit to the third floor so that I might stop by to visit with Beth when her husband, Eldon, usually came by. Almost overnight we became friends the three of us. Kindred spirits. I loved hearing their banter and the way they lightly teased each other. Eldon never came empty handed. He would bring books and read aloud to her often, but with my visits he’d always pause his reading.

Beth’s room was meticulously arranged with photos and simple furniture, but most astonishing was the careful placement and choice of her original paintings that Eldon had hung upon her walls. Thinking back now, I realize that all of the works, save one of a storefront window of puppets, were images of water.  Just like in my little house.

Every time I visited we would look at her paintings together. Beth would study her largest painting and recount the trip they had made by boat halfway out to the middle of the large lake in Switzerland. “Half way” was always an important fact she shared of this story.

During our visits my eyes would always settle on the painting above her small bed of the brilliant blue of the painting of the Mediterranean Sea that she so magically rendered. Glistening green trees parted to expose the shockingly beautiful blue sea. I wanted to dive in every time.

My respect for Beth and the artist she was, and her ability to capture such fleeting beauty will always stay with me. Her travels with Eldon took them to Europe countless times, where she created her paintings and collected photographs to take back home to Michigan where they lived and she had her studio.

Beth would have appreciated my stories of swimming in the open water. Like Beth I wish to capture a few moments to try and convey the raw beauty I find out in the open water. The joy I find there. The colors. I want to help others pause and really see this water that surrounds us.

Today I had hoped to share a swim with others. I put an open invite out. A few maybes, a yes turned to no, several I wish I could but other plans. I understand. Never been great at planning ahead.

My last day of summer swim before the start of school turned out pretty darn special in its own way. I arrived first, to the smiling faces of a neighbor family I rarely see. The three children were happily getting in to the cool water, floaties at the ready. Soon my neighbor Dave came with his two children to join me. With an experienced swimmer for a dad, these two bounded in with nothing but their suits, fearlessly swimming out into deep water. Free and easy.

As things go, in my rush to get in the water, I’d removed the wrong key off my key chain and locked myself out of the truck. After a brief frolic with these jolly friends I swam north back into the bay to go retrieve a back-up key from the house.

Inside the bay, the water was murky and I got spooked by an oyster pot floating up from the bottom of the bay. I felt tired and ill at ease, deciding I’d exit at my aunt and uncle’s dock.

Anders was finishing a last swim of summer with his friend Max. He asked if I was going to swim up the bay—I replied no. Anders said, “Good. We saw two red  jellyfish up the bay.”

I felt relief. I felt looked after. Things worked out differently than I had hoped, but I had again avoided the jellyfish.  I felt refreshed and my son was having a happy afternoon with his buddy, Max.

If Beth was alive and able, I have no doubt she would have met me at the beach. Laughed with me at my silly plunder locking up the wrong keys. She would have joined me in the gentle waves. Looked out at the bands of colors made by the sound, the distant hills, the far off Olympics and commented on the different hues.

Beth noticed things. She really looked at colors, noticed the patterns. Admired the birds and flower petals blowing around outside her window.

If she was with me today, she  would plan her painting and capture the endless shades of blue and green, tinged with light.

And then she’d dive under with me and plan her next painting. Or wave me in telling me I was nuts to swim in such cold water, smiling the whole time.

Water. Yesterday morning I watched a frolicking quartet of young river otters gorge themselves on fish at the entrance to the bay, from the dry perch of my small aluminum skiff. In the afternoon I had my foot brushed by a seal, at the tail end of a companion swim with my neighbor, Dave. The seal again ushered us up the bay, back to our starting place. His body appeared below me in the murky water like a yellow shadow, slowly moving by me.

And today I reveled in the solitude of an evening solo swim,  outside the bay. The sun was going down fast and I knew I wanted the warmth and light that appeared as the day wore on, hoping to catch at least a few pockets of warmth.

Again I pushed through my thin wall of fatigue, reminded myself that the water would hold me, just as it always does. The water called. I had a window of time and the stillness of the day extended into the evening. No wind.

Today was different, however, beyond the lack of wind. It is different every time. No two swims ever feel the same. Yesterday during the seal encounter, the water felt soft like a cozy hug.

This evening the water felt hard, but looked fuzzy, murky with a late August bloom of algae.

I tried a new entry today. There was no warm top layer to soften the shock of cold. But my mind went to the story I watched yesterday about a group of Irish women —they bathe in the sea every day, year round.

As I cinched in my buoy belt, and stood surveying the waters, I thought of them. One commented that the swims were “liberating“.

I splashed my face, poured the cold water down my arms several times and took a breath in. I dove under, but this time I stayed under, pulling myself forward through the chilly liquid, liberating myself from life on land. I hugged the cold, welcomed the rush.

There is a magical thing that happens the moment I take that first plunge. Suddenly I feel  so alone, so separate, chilled but also powerful and fearless. Free. Completely liberated from my life on land and all it demands and asks of me.

When I surfaced after my first dive, I headed south and let the waters guide me. I thought about how swimming is like a perfect dance, two bodies moving through space gracefully, guiding each other. Sharing space but never colliding.

There is always room for me in the water. She is my dance partner.

I smiled throughout my swim today. My gratitude for this gift of water and a body that can swim and the gift of time to take these swims. And all that this new adventure has taught me.

As I ended my swim, I had a moment of regret, of disappointment that I didn’t discover this astoundingly awesome calling earlier. And then I thought of the seals again.

I needed to build up a thick skin. The seals arrive right on time, here to these waters, wrapped in the perfect amount of blubber and skin, swimming gracefully to wherever they must go. They swim as far as they need to go. Every day.

My life brought me here right on time, to this water. This magic. I wasn’t ready before. How strange to think that I might never have stumbled into this watery adventure had it not been for the entire world turning inside out.

I used to swim laps at the pool. A half mile usually, maybe 3/4 of a mile if I was really motivated. Ironically, out here where there are no walls, no lifeguards, no sauna, no lanes to guide me on my path I swim 4 or 6 times as far. The lack of order, of limits, of people, is liberating. I think I understand those Irish women.

They, too, have thick skins. They, too, swim with the seals.