“You can’t cross the sea merely by standing and staring at the water.” —Rabindranath Tagore

Justine and I have been swimming a lot lately. It’s been so uncomfortably hot this summer and my good friend Sandy, who lives nearby, lets us use her pool whenever we ask. This is the same pool that I spent so many mornings in the weeks after Vernon died. It seemed like I always wanted to be in the water then. In the hospice weeks, when I stayed in hotels near the nursing home, I made sure they all had swimming pools and dipped in every afternoon. I’d never been much of a swimmer, but feeling weightless in the water must have brought some kind of comfort. Being underwater felt more like being in another world—a silent, dappled universe so distant from the dry land of humans and all its stress and death. I wanted to grow gils so I’d never have to return to the surface. I worked at holding my breath longer.

I decided I wanted to become a swimmer. The bottom had fallen out of all the systems I thought I could trust, reality was unreal. Why shouldn’t I become a swimmer if I decided to? I could be anything. After all, I had no identity for that period time: stripped down to simply being a woman vaguely in charge of some children. I bought goggles and a rubber cap. I imagined that with practice, I’d soon be doing fifty laps without stopping. But of course I was very sloppy.  Just a few laps would wind me—it’s hard on the lungs, this exercise. I had no clue how to pace myself. And after that first month or so, when the morning air got cooler, I forgot my ambitions and tried something else to ease my grief and help me move forward:  What would I be? I could be anything. I could learn anything. But I still didn’t know what I wanted. I was merely trying things out to see what would help, what would stick.  All I knew is that my old life was behind me, and I was someone new that had never existed before. I didn’t know my own self anymore. I didn’t know her yet.

Now, I’m far from an excellent swimmer, but I’m better than I used to be, and I love being in the pool. My alien new self feels at home immediately. At this significant time of year, I’ve been thinking about the water and how many times I used that metaphor to describe parts of our journey with the ailing Vernon: mermaids, scuba diving, sea mammals surfacing…the sensation of drowning,  This entry about the Ocean was posted after Vernon died exactly two years ago today. To my mind, its the most significant thing I’ve ever written. (I hope it stays that way.)

I want to stretch out a little more on the subject of swimming and talk about the healing the old stories that we’ve let define us.  The summer I was twelve, while boogie-boarding with my friends at a San Clemente beach, I got caught in a rip tide. I would have drowned if a lifeguard hadn’t finally seen me and fished me out. I was terrified and humbled, and because my family moved away at the end of that summer, I never had to face my fear by getting back in the water. When we’d visit, I’d just stay on the shore. Playing in those waves didn’t appeal to me at all. But earlier this month, at our family reunion, a group of us went to the beach. I watched my younger brother dive in and start body surfing in the waves. He looked so great and natural, as if he was part dolphin, having so much fun. As I watched him, I had such a strong impulse that I wanted to have that kind of fun too. Suddenly it was time. I marched down to the water, unusually warm for California (turns out it was a record temperature that day, lucky me!) and made my way to him. “I want to do what you are doing. Show me how!” And we played and laughed and dunked under the waves together like kids. My arms felt strong, I knew I could swim. In that  moment, my story had completely changed. I was now someone who enjoyed being in the sea. I wasn’t afraid. I was no longer living the story I’d believed for so long. At the end of the weekend, my brother and I agreed that that day was the highlight for both of us—we had so much fun together and felt so free.

Of course we all want to avoid trauma, but in time, and with work, its not without its gifts. It transforms you…and sometimes even makes pathways to healing that you never would have discovered without it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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