Syncing and Swimming
A sharp, urgent exhale on entry. Then a quick, almost panicky inhale. Then again. Then again...
My limbs flail at first, working to keep me up while I sync into the rhythm of my breath. I am moving; my natural survival impulses hard at work before I fully realise that I am actually swimming in the sharp, coldness of the sea.
Then my senses switch on. My breathing regulates. My arms, at first stinging, become numb. Followed by my legs, kicking with a strength I didn’t know before, and then suddenly - power.
I move through the water, senses fully and completely alive. The grit of the salt on my skin, and that smell: the unmistakable mineral and seaweed scent that seems to be only on the surface of the water. My nose breathing it in deeply as my face dips in and out of the cold, cold water with each stroke.
At times it’s a painful cold, jolting me to a sort of shock. Sometimes I think I might cry when I first immerse. And sometimes I do.
But the water kindly merges salt with salt. Tears and sea: the best of pairings.
Living beside the coast, I have always been a sea lover, but I haven’t always been sea-swimmer. No, like many others, lockdown made me do it. It seems that, when collectively isolated on this island, we were pulled towards its edges in our droves, bearing a sort of brazen determination to overcome the cold water, to embrace our situational location by jumping in. Or were we conquering another sort of fear? One that was wordless? I don’t know, I think so. I was anyway, I know that now.
Something happens in the sea. There is an alchemy that occurs. And for me, it happens most when I am alone in the sea.
At first, for courage, I needed the encouragement of accompaniment to get in, I needed my partner or a girlfriend of mine to be in the water near me to assuage my worries of drowning. I’m not a strong swimmer - years ago, I fell under the water in a current for a bit too long on a holiday in Thailand and nobody saw. Each time I fought to the surface and waved my hands in panic, the men on the boat who had taken us out on a day trip were looking the other way. My partner at the time was scuba diving, I was alone snorkelling, and I thought it was over. I went there in my head each time I sank down. The main thought I recall was, ‘I can’t believe it’s going to happen this way - so far from home’.
It’s a funny feeling, that - the feeling of a clock that might be counting down. It’s shockingly sudden, realising you may be at the edge of life. The real edge. The men saw me as I almost got too tired to keep swimming upwards after each pull down. But I was eventually dragged up on the boat by men who didn’t speak my language, and I lay on the deck and cried. By the time the divers came up, I was fine. The fear passes over you - but doesn’t leave entirely.
And I’ve been afraid of being out of my depth in the sea ever since
So my re-submergence needed guides this time around, which I found in the joyous joviality of the lockdown swimming tribe. Many mornings we’d walk to the edge, all shapes and sizes of humanity. Some strong, seasoned swimmers, most not. It didn’t matter.
Each of us had our breath taken away by the sharp sting, the numbness, the watery, dark space beneath our feet. Each of us feeling the fear just a little bit. The wordless fear, primarily. Wondering what was happening to the world while we were strangely gifted this precious time to take sea swims in the most beautiful parts of our island. The striking contrast of lockdown and liberty.
A camaraderie was born. Coffee was brought in flasks. There was a brunch one morning too. And now there’s a WhatsApp group. Once too, we had Irish Coffee - on June 1st - the morning I launched this website actually. Primarily for something to feel celebratory and mark the moment in the midst of the pandemic. I swam on the morning of my 45th birthday too, with my daughters, my partner and one of my best friends. I’ll never forget that - it is now etched on my soul as one of my happiest, ever, moments.
As the summer progressed, my bravery did too. I felt stronger in the water, and it felt warmer and warmer as weeks went on. Or maybe it didn’t, perhaps I became accustomed to its temperature. Whichever it was, it got easier.
I’ve always admired those notorious daily sea swimmers in their older years - the hardy annuals I call them. They display a robustness and tenacity I hold in great regard. I’ve often said I wanted to be one of them when I grow up, such is my admiration for the vibrant older swimming people - their attitude to life is sublime. They know the benefits the sea brings. And maybe they know the feeling of a clock counting down too.
And they choose to jump in regardless.
More and more now, I prefer to swim alone. I’m holding many worries presently that I find I prefer to process in the water. I don’t want a chat or company now. Sometimes I want to cry, or float, or sink under, feelings flowing over me as the waves do. That saying by Isak Dinesen may be a bit hackneyed now, often to be found on Instagram hashtagged ‘inspiration’, but its message pervades, it says “the cure for everything is salt water: sweat, tears or the sea”.
And I have found that to be true.
I have also found other things in my summer of submergence too, I have found bravery I didn’t know I had, I found courage when I thought it lost. I found a bond between fellow swimmers that somehow transcends the mundane, and I have found beauty and peace in moments of floating, where my breath is calm, my body weightless in the dark, salty water, my limbs light, my eyes up to the sky, my senses alive…
Out of my depth, in more ways than one, but held. And free. And swimming in sync.
Ellie Balfe, September 2020.
Have you found solace in the sea?
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