Wild Swimming

Evidently there’s a name for what I do: wild swimming, though I seem to be wilder than most. I usually swim without other humans; I don’t tow a brightly colored buoy; I meander, depending on the residents in view. Yesterday a big school of 2-3’ silvery stunners circled me in the dappled morning light, and last week I may (or may not) have seen a black octopus tucking under a boulder. Every day is different. Some days the water is too rough, and I can only immerse while clinging to a rock. Other days I can swim half a mile in lake-like conditions.

I wouldn’t mind a buddy, but most folks are put off by the temperature (low 60s Fahrenheit now). Or can’t figure out the logistics of changing in public. Or are hung up on a schedule. Me, I’m tidal. And lunar, which amounts to the same thing. The Bod knows – usually – how to enter and exit most water conditions, though the knee scraped a barnacled outcropping earlier this week. Getting into the water is usually easier than getting out, but not always, expecially on the rocky shore I frequent. And wind chill is a serious concern.

“Good Lord! Are you expecting a blizzard?” queried a cruiser one morning. I was wearing a parka with a faux-fur-lined hood to combat the after-drop: the decline in body temperature after a cold swim, when peripheral vasoconstriction ends, and cold blood from limbs and skin returns to the core and mixes with warmer blood. This causes the deep body temperature to drop temporarily. Thus the parka. I did not explain this to Doofus, merely strode past him back to the boat.

Rude men aside (“Are you anticipating SNOW? In Mexico?” exclaimed another last month), the endorphins are delightful. “I’m alive! Ha-ha! Whoopee! Let’s eat!” Plus I’m happier / friendlier / calmer after swimming. Anxiety is off with the whales, Worry frolics with sea lions, and Peace takes the reins for long stretches of time. I remember that I can handle anything. Even people.

Rounding a street corner post-dip, I hear a chortle. Looking to the right, I laugh: you never know when you’re going to see a man on stilts! There he is, ambling across the tarmac, a little spring in his step. I, too, can stilt-walk. I had a handmade wooden pair when I was a kid. It’s the kind a skill I should boast about more often, along with wave-boarding and surfing. Oh yeah, and rolling from standing. Maybe I should lead with that in the next boatyard chat. Slap down the boorish ones for good.

Sigh. Too bad I’m a pacifist.

Just released, Shoulds are for Saints: the true life adventures of Suzy Le Speed

—along with Dance First …ask questions later: poems and paintings