I do not swim

I do not swim.

For years, at the cottage, I made my way down the dock ladder and into the lake about twice a season. I would not call it swimming, or floating, or even wading. I stood in the water. I was not enjoying it. I was making an appearance in front of the kids.

They found this very funny. When a friend once asked them how often I took the boat out for a swim, they just laughed. The question itself was the joke.

How it started

I grew up afraid of the water, and I blame my mother. She watched every Jacques Cousteau episode on television, and from a very early age I understood that every lake and ocean held hundreds of very strange creatures who did not want company. If you insisted on visiting them, you should be wearing a full body suit and a mask.

When I was nine, my cousin talked me into going out into the dark unknown of the lake on an inflatable raft. (In reality it was a sandy beach.) I was doing all right. I was in the middle of the bay and nothing from the television had come for me yet. Then my cousin somehow flipped the raft, and I went in feet over head with a nose full of water, sure this was the end.

In a way it was. I did not go into the water again for twenty years.

The raft

When we bought the cottage, Gord and the children never came out of the water. I watched happily from the shore with my book. I never felt I was missing a thing.

We had a raft out in the lake and the kids swam to it countless times a day. They became very good swimmers. One day Gord talked me into swimming out to it. The waves made me doubtful, but I felt I should try.

I almost made it. Then a big wave hit me, filled my mouth with water, and I froze. I could not breathe and I could not stay up. Gord did not notice. Spenser, who was nine, jumped in and pulled me to the raft.

Another nine years went by before I went in past my knees.

The sea doo

Then one summer a good friend talked me onto the back of his brand new, shiny sea doo. For me that was about the same as asking someone with a terror of flying to get on a plane. So I got on, carefully, in a very secure life jacket, along with Grayson, who was five and fearless. He never laughed at my fear. He just told me he would look after me, because he was a very good boater.

The ride was close to a miracle. It felt safe and secure and a little magical. We went around the bay, not at the speed the teenagers would have gone, and I had the most wonderful calm feeling. It was quiet. The water was not frightening, only serene. The shoreline, the sailboats, that sky. For the first time in my life I loved the water.

It was almost meditative. I remember deciding I would ride one on my own the next summer, and being amazed to hear myself say it.

When we pulled up to the dock, it was time for me to jump in and climb out. Gray looked at my face. He smiled and said, "It's okay, Mom. I'll hold the sea doo so you can just climb the ladder. You don't have to go in the water."

My spiritual teacher knows me well.

From the archive. First written for my journal years ago, and rewritten for life after 50.