The anticipation of getting into the water at a beach began last February. Those long, dark, cold days and weeks of recuperation both for myself and for the land were a torture for the soul eased only by the image of swimming in July.
It wasn’t a sure thing. After all, at my age, an injury can be life changing. Thankfully, mine was not. Oh sure, months later that knee which found itself smashed and swollen for what seemed like endless weeks of hell still reminds me, “spring chicken you are not.” Being vertical is no longer taken for granted and achieved at times with those shooting, painful reminders from the knee. Swimming, the very thought of doing so, sends limitations back where they belong – mind over matter, onward and upward I go.
And so with the outside temperatures finally reaching a point where water evaporating on the skin isn’t painful, where Mattapoisett Harbor’s temperature is reasonable enough for one to plunge in, albeit decked out in a wetsuit, I did just that – carefully just beyond where the toddlers and their attentive mothers splash in the chilly surf. The first swim of the season was a victory of sorts for this ol’ gal.
Advancing into the post-Fourth of July day by way of the salt water until that thin sheen of moisture lined the interior of the suit warming my torso, oh the joy of floating and then testing the knee, testing the hip, testing the shoulders and finding all in fair working order for a little swim, I allowed myself to enjoy heaven on earth.
Looking out towards the mooring field at eye level with the painted water lines of boats vacated by a work day, I bobbed about with them in unison not unlike assembled church-goers on a Sunday morning, quietly absorbing the silence of reverential contemplation and noting the light as it sparkled and changed, dancing across the water’s surface. I was in the water and it was grand.
In the far distance from my vantage point, the marina launch moved a few people from watercraft to floating dock, their voices carried across the blue-black expanse as an inaudible chant reminding me I shared the day with others of my kind, so lost had I become to my thoughts, they returned me to myself.
Newly minted raft jumpers were practicing their ability to dive head first off the platform while the guards ensured their safety in doing so, themselves so young, so full to the brim with self-confidence. I swam closer, placing myself mid-way between toddlers testing their miniature feet’s balancing on wet beach sand and latency aged youth so I could just hear the two age levels and felt myself to be ancient by contrast. “But you are here and this is good,” I told myself as encouragement and consolation.
The day before, my friend had visited, proving once again her strength of character and will to live in spite of cancer and the cure’s aftermath. There is no cure, but the purchase of precious time has been bought as her skin and eyes testify while that twinkle of mischief remains intact to delight the observer in me. I love her and will not allow myself to miss her – not now. There will be time for that, but not today.
Pushing that thought out instead, I think of her laughter the day I brought a cake to her house for a party, it must have been 1973. Thinking myself so clever, I had frosted a smiley face on the surface in orange icing on a yellow background. Silly now, but rather en vogue at the time, her laughter peeled upon my presentation of the dessert. I hear it still.
I paddle right then left, towards the raft and back towards the shore. The knee is sending a small but insistent message, “we’ll be heading out of the water shortly so best enjoy this moment.” I am. I am happy to find myself in high tide’s ebbing, frog paddling around and being rewarded by the effort. I’m happy about my life, the things I do, my loved ones, friends and family. I am content at this moment in the water swimming, more simply because I can than the fact that I am.
When I came over the finish line at the 4th of July Road Race, falling into my husband’s waiting arms, thrilled to have completed the course once again I thought, “I did it for you.” Of course, I did it for myself to prove to myself I could. Yet, throughout the hour and sixteen minutes, I walked as fast as I possibly could through the village streets and I thought of her.
We’ll always walk together as we did in my garden the following day supporting her weight against my shoulder. And today, I took her swimming with me. The people we love stay with us always – don’t they?
By Marilou Newell
