ONLY THE FISHIES CAN SEE MY POWER

Sometimes I Get Addicted to the Good Stuff

What gills beneath the surface

I thought about skipping my swim today, but then I remembered the sunrise. That damn alluring sunrise. That hey baby on the horizon calling out to me. That sultry bioluminescent, light-splitting, golden cumulous rosy orange was on its way and I needed to see it.

The great thing about having an addictive personality is sometimes you get addicted to the good stuff.

When you’re addicted to bad stuff, people are like, ‘You should quit that.’ When you’re addicted to good stuff, people are like, ‘How do you do that?’

Bodies of water bring humans together. When I was leaving my beach swim today, a woman noticed the cap I got this weekend at the open water race. She asked, ‘Did you do the plunge yesterday?’

“Yes,” I said. “Did you?”

“Yes,” she said. “It was crazy.”

“I know,” I said. “It was like life.”

“It was like life,” she said, laughing. “I had to keep telling myself to keep going.”

“Me too,” I said, “but I felt like a warrior when I was done.”

“So did I!” She said. “I felt incredible.”

Yesterday I didn’t know this woman. This morning, she’s my best friend. Water did that.

Every day I make it to the lake, I won life. On the rough and tumble days, where the water churns more than rests, I feel like I scaled a mountain. When I arrived today, I asked the woman on the beach, who ran the weekend open water race, why they finally decided to end the event midstream.

She said, “There was a small craft warning because of the seiche.”

“We’re all small crafts,” said a swimmer with bright sea blue eyes and one of those wicked smiles that made him look permanently happy.

I wasn’t planning on swimming today because yesterday's wild lake threw me around like I got sucked into a water tornado. In bed last night, I told myself I was off the hook. Sleep in girl, I told myself. Rest up.

Then 5 a.m. rolled in and I looked at my phone. Sunrise at 5:35 a.m. Damn.

The water was colder, but not so cold my heart stopped. My swim partner and I agreed we’d warm up once we started moving.

My swim partner today is a twinkly-eyed older gentleman with a warm sweet smile. Like me, he’s not one of the zoomers. When he showed up I was relieved since everyone else was fast fast fast.

“You ready?” I asked, goosebumps starting to rise up from my skin like beach flies biting.

“Now or never,” he said. “Let’s swim next to each other.”

This is one of the reasons I love the 6 a.m. swimmers. We look out for each other. I’ve only met this particular man three times. Now we are swimming side by side, watching each other's buoys, making sure we both stay above water.

About ten minutes into my swim, my partner looked like he was struggling. I swam over with my buoy.

“You okay?” I asked.

“Yes,” he said, still looking like he was having trouble staying above the surface. “I forgot to set my watch.” My blood pressure lowered.

If you swim long enough, you see some water drama, but not today. I was happy for him and me that he was bobbing up and down because he was adjusting his Apple watch.

We got back to the business of swimming. I was exhausted from yesterday, but I knew I had some strength left in me somewhere. My job was to find it.

The great thing about swimming is you use your whole body. My stepfather used to say before swim meets, “Don’t forget to use your arms and legs.” He hated water and he kept his advice simple.

About halfway into the swim, I was knackered. My partner stopped and asked, “Doesn’t it seem like the break wall is moving away from us?” Our goal was to swim two cigarette buoys past the break wall, about a mile and a third.

“It does,” I said, relieved I wasn't the only one feeling every stroke like Sisyphus. “Let’s go get it,” I said. He laughed and we kept at our metaphorical rock.

I started kicking harder, realizing I wasn’t using the entirety of my legs' strength. I set my hands into the water closer to my ears so I wasn’t wasting time above water.

I stretched my arms out in front of me to get a long pull. I made sure my hands were in an optimal position to push as much water out of my way as possible.

Swimming is less superficial than life. How pretty and strong my arms look on the outside of the water doesn’t matter. What matters is what happens beneath the surface.

What passers-by can see is only recovery and rest, not peacocking. Swimming isn’t a beauty contest. If I’m showing off above the surface, I’m wasting energy. The magic happens underwater. My only real power is only seen by the fishes, who couldn’t care less.

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