Open-Water Swimming: A Love Story...

This story really begins in the fall, because although it is now the height of summer, my love affair with open-water swimming blossomed in the fall of my first season, some five or so years ago. Until then, I was a devout "poolie," whose distant memories of being knocked over by huge waves and bumped or entangled by terrifying but unidentifiable creatures or objects still made open-water swimming unthinkable. Eventually, encouraged by seasoned open-water veterans, who sympathized with my fears but didn't coddle them, I began to venture out with them into the open water, where I gradually began to overcome my ancient fears and phobias about the unseen sea creatures and god-knows-what that occupied the water and/or my imagination.

As I grew more comfortable in the open water, I came to revel in the day-to-day and sometimes minute-to-minute changes that made each moment of every swim unique and memorable...One day's glass-like surface became the next day's roiling sea, and an ever-changing palette of blues and greys and greens and pinks colored the water, waves and sky...I learned what the morning's challenges would be only when I stepped out onto the beach, to see which way the wind was blowing, which way the tide was running, how high the waves were breaking and how friendly or menacing was the sky. Some days the water was as calm and soothing as the bed I had recently torn myself from...other days I looked out onto chaos -- with white-capped waves coming from every direction and breaking wherever and whenever they willed. Those days -- my favorites, it turns out -- I was rolled and tossed about like socks in a washing machine, struggling to find a pattern to the waves that would allow me to swim in my accustomed rhythm....The struggle was exhausting, and eventually, after enduring endless wave-slaps in the face and inhaling numerous lungfuls of water while trying desperately to swim "my swim," I stopped struggling. I stopped thinking about my "technique" and started to listen to the water, to feel myself in the water, to feel myself part of the water...As I ceased to struggle and relaxed into the water, I found that there is a rhythm even to the chaos, that -- if you listen -- tells you..."stroke now"..."breathe now"..."kick now"...and that makes swimming a partnership with the water rather than a battle....


In that partnership, there are moments of perfect happiness: The moment when, still submerged, I turn to breathe and just before my goggles break the surface of the water, I look up and see the sun sparkling and glinting through the water like diamonds....or the moment when my arm glides forward for the "catch" and I watch the sunlight slicing through the stream of bubbles caught by my open hand...or the moment when I allow myself to feel my body resting on the surface of the water, buoyed and carried by the swells as they make their way home...In those moments, I really do experience perfect happiness -- a happiness that I get to revisit with every breath, with every stroke, with every swell...
But it was in the fall of that first year of open-water swimming that I truly fell in love...In that first fall it was dark when I would get to the beach, and I would put my wetsuit on and wait until the sky lightened enough that I could see where the water met the sand...Often there was a mist over the water, which was now warmer than the air, and I witnessed the magical and mystical transition of night to day and black water to a more welcoming blue-green. The swim lines and moorings had been pulled, and the boats had been hauled to dry-dock, and the open water was more "open" than I had ever seen it -- Now, striking out from the beach, with nothing in front of me but the horizon, I literally felt like I could swim forever...Somehow, in that first fall, the water became a church, and I its most devout convert. In the church of the open water I am at my most open, my most spiritual, the closest to god, and the most connected to the sea and its creatures and the community of open-water swimmers who share my love of it....

As the days shorten and this summer season melts into fall, I already feel the pangs of impending separation and loss...but when I slip into the water tomorrow, and turn my head upwards towards the rising sun, and take my first stroke towards the horizon, I know that all will be well, and I will be happy and at peace...See you in the Salt!