I enjoy swimming. I still have distinct memories of the lessons I took as a child — curiously, they are more vivid than memories of some of the family friends I took those lessons with! Back then, now four decades ago, swimming wasn’t a rich kid pursuit; even growing up on the modest side of middle-class, everyone I knew could swim. Of course, Singapore is an island, one smaller than New York City. Maybe, when people are surrounded by water, such instruction is more an investment in survival than a pastime?
I go to the pool in the early morning because I prefer swimming alone. Something about the tranquility of the experience soothes me into a state of quasi-fetal consciousness, one in which each aspect of the experience is suffused with wordless sensation.
First, I survey the water. It is level and still as a mirror. Yet, the pool murmurs quietly, hidden pumps and jets sending a constant stream of runoff into the perimeter drains. The steady cascade of falling water damps all surrounding sound; the white noise blankets my thoughts, both quotidian and intrusive, alike. As I approach the water, I ritualistically pull my goggles over my head and press them into place. It is a familiar invocation; the air in each lens, first left, then right, squeaks past the rubber seal, the resulting suction tight on my eyes. I am ready.
With a final breath, I step up to the pool’s edge. The water laps my toes, my breathing slows, and in I goes.
As I dive, the world above fades, its solid shapes dissolving into rippled light. Plunging deeper, I feel pressure build in my ears, and welcome the buoyant push returning from the depth; I soak in the sensation of skating along the pool’s floor before straightening myself. Kicking forward, I adjust my line, square to the side, my eyes seeking out the far wall.
With intention and focus, I conscientiously shape my fingers and my hands. I visualize the symmetry of each stroke, reading the rivulets of feedback from the slick sensation of digits and limbs slipping through the water. I concentrate on refining one series of strokes, then the next, and the next. The faint, alien trace of chlorine lingers on my lips after each breath. I am slowly hypnotized, lulled by the aqueous gush and rhythmic whirl, its distinct sequence subtly modulating in sync with every nuanced adjustment I attempt.
Kasplish-swish-whish-breathe.
Head-legs-arms-lungs.
Kasplish-swish-whish-breathe.
Head-legs-arms-lungs.
Years ago, my kids had a swimming coach who explained that something like 8% of a human body’s mass is in the head: to fulcrum your torso towards the water’s surface, the head must first seek its recesses. This was a wonderful revelation, but, as a science experiment, is an even better sensation. Recall the fight from pushing a large ball under the water? Imagine the same physics - but working for you, not against you.
The head dips, and the body lifts.
Kasplish-dip/lift. Swish-whish-breathe.
I always start out counting laps but before long I lose track. Repetition soon becomes automation; I am a child’s wind-up toy, reaching and re-reaching for the far wall. Soon I arrive, then turn around, and reach, and reach, and reach again.
Kasplish-dip/lift. Swish-whish-breathe.
As it were, I only enjoy swimming in the pool. I like boats, but I find being in open water disconcerting. I don’t like the sensation of not knowing how deep the water is, or what’s down there. I don’t enjoy the slap of the waves, the distance of the shore, the brush of the unexpected, the surprise chill of cold currents, the randomness of it all.
So too in life. I like the things I can control. Mastery comes from ritual and repetition. If I have trained in it, my senses are honed to it, and I can improve in it. My mind perceives it, understands it, anticipates it, solves for it, subdues it. If I can know it, I can beat it. By my will I choose when to dive; by the same will I choose when to rise.
But life — life is lived in open water.
Sure, in a clear blue sea under sunny skies, life’s promise is limitless, always bright, always filled with possibility. But sunny skies are not forever. In a storm, water becomes unknowable, unbound, uncertain. If you start sinking, you cannot see the bottom; when it closes in, gasping desperation is all you know. If you’re out too far, the shore fades below the horizon’s slipping light, there is no floor or side wall to guide your touch, no far wall to seek, no compass bearings to bring you home.
I wonder if you are like me in living life as if it can be tamed, if only we put in the effort. I pass by countless people on the subway and in the streets, grouped in meeting rooms and at their desks, cloaked in headsets and crouched over lunches. Like me, they also seem to project the easy confidence the world expects of “successful” people. To the casual observer, perhaps it seems we have mastered the strokes, effortlessly freestyling from one achievement to the next.
But there are no titles or degrees, bank accounts or paychecks, corner offices or contingency plans, that can command a stormy sea. The celestial force of her pull is so great that a mere toss of her head sees us tumbling, flailing, failing. A fickle and powerful siren, she is skilled at making love of self into mockery of our bravado.
I wonder if life has ever brought you to that place, a seasick night in open water. Perhaps you are there now, soaking, shivering, exhausted; kicking, clawing, then kicking again. Feverishly paddling yet stuck in place, battling to maintain presence of self, fighting to stay afloat. I know this place, because I’ve been there myself — always but one slippery, watery gasp from the undertow’s unforgiving grip: swish-whish-sink. It is in those moments, thrashing in the flotsam, that I wonder: but who can tame the sea?
Surely, not I.
Then I remember: the head dips, and the body lifts.
I bow, and I find my breath.
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