I woke to a burst of sunshine, and reconsidered my plan to avoid the ocean because of high surf. I can handle the swells, as long as I can see. But soon a fog crept along the grasslands of the marsh. I turned back to look over the fresh water lake opposite the marsh, and could see the far side clearly a quarter mile away. That was enough visibility, so I packed my bag for the swim, throwing my running shoes in for good measure, because if the fog was thicker on the beach, I was not going in.

The ocean showed just the haze of the marsh. The tide was low, but there were walkers on the beach who would clearly see me as I swam, so I headed to the water. It is almost never as warm as I hope. At 67, it is nearly 10 degrees warmer than when I started this season, but still bracing. The waves rolled in just over two feet, but were steady, so I had to push through them to get to the calmer water before they break. High winds had kicked up a chop between the waves, which meant no part of the water was calm, but I can adjust to swells and chops, as long as I could see.

While I curse the cold water, there was no shock to adjust to. It didn’t even shorten my breath today. My first strokes always seem to be the fastest. I start my swim where the navy blue canopy of a hotel stands out like a beacon when I look back at the shore. After what seems like just a few strokes, it seems like it is in the rear view mirror. Only today it doesn’t look as much like a beacon. I could barely see it through my fogged up goggles. I straightened up, reached my toes for the bottom, and found it. Solid ground. At least for a second, before a wave lifted me up, but that was enough to dip the goggles to clear them, and I was back on my way.

The sun had gotten lazy behind clouds, but I could see flashes of reflections of stones or shells on the bottom when the lull between the waves sank me low enough. There is something very comfortable about seeing the earth. I can just touch with my imagination what an astronaut must feel on seeing our blue planet on his way back. So, imagine my consternation when I looked for the shore and couldn’t find it. There wasn’t much fog in the air, but it was brutal on my goggles. I cleared them again, but they fogged up just as quickly. I took some comfort in knowing that I didn’t have to worry about the jelly fish from earlier in the season, and the sharks had not shown up yet. Who needs to see when there is nothing to look out for? I could still make out the hulk of a white apartment building on the far shore to give me a general direction, so I duck my head in and started stroking. I got this.

When you think about breathing, you realize it is something you don’t need to think about. Your body does it well when untutored by your intellect. That can be the case in the water as well, for expert swimmers who balance their stroke with their nose and mouth turned out of the water to give themselves ample time to draw a breath, before turning back for another stroke. It is all balance. Novice swimmers pull their head up to breathe, and so their butt sinks down. Every action has an opposite and equal reaction. The buoyant butt immediately starts to pop back up to the surface, so what is the opposite reaction? Their head sinks down before they’ve finished their breath. The lungs burn. Panic creeps along the hairline. Swimming sucks.

My perfect swimmer’s balance is imperfect in the powerful waves. I turn to the side, expecting air, but what I get is up to the rhythm of the water. I get air when in the brief lull between the waves, and even when rising with a swell, but not so much when the wave throws by body down. I sink, taste salt, and miss a breath. I swallow the spray, just a taste, with no time to spit it out because I need air. Now. Lack of oxygen has a way of demanding immediate attention. Suddenly it is all I can think about. When do I breathe? When do I breathe? I try to fight through the water to maintain my balance when I am thrown down. Do you imagine you might be able to maintain balance as you fight the ocean? I failed. I was feeling pretty sorry for myself. What the hell was I doing out here? There was no one to complain to but myself. Just me, and the water. Well, the shore was right there. I could throw in the towel, but then I would have no towel on the cold and humiliating walk to the car. I looked up for the white building to realize I had picked out the wrong building through my foggy goggles. I was heading in toward the shore, not the cliff above the turn around point. Off course. Time to reset. But when I do, I feel like I am heading straight out to sea. Thankfully I have made it to where I can just make out the familiar long-winged pergola of a bathhouse as a navigation point. But now that bathhouse mocked my every stroke as I failed to put it in the rear view mirror through these irregular waves. Some of the waves seemed to slap me in the face. Were they pushing me back? I’m getting nowhere. It’s deep here to see even a glint of the bottom. I can see almost nothing at all, and imagine the anxiety a blind person must feel in making their way in the world, except I realize the ones I have known are not anxious. They have adjusted to a sightless world, and compensate with other senses as they make their way through it. I can do that. I told myself again. I got this. I fought for balance. I fought for a breath. But I couldn’t win that fight. I couldn’t breathe. It was miserable. I was miserable. So, I gave up.

There is a power in surrender that is very different from the power of victory. It can immediately bring you into line with what is most true about your life. You are vulnerable. You will fail, at some point, in every goal that does not contemplate your vulnerability. And so you let go, and let the ocean take over. My body rolls, just slightly, and then rolls back. For every action there is an opposite and equal reaction. The waves have a rhythm. Not a consistent rhythm, but a sway and swell like an unscripted dance. My body can feel what is coming. I let go of math, of measurement, and literally go with the flow. In seconds, my body knows when to breathe. And it is right then that I realize why I love my ocean swims. It is not because it is easy, and it is not because it is sometimes impossible, it is because it is never the same, and I am always learning. There’s a feeling in my belly when the wave pulls me up, like driving fast over a bump. A moment later it will let me go. I will lose balance. When I am pulled up on my third stroke, I will not be able to breathe on my fourth. Head down. Five. Six, turn and breathe. One. Two. Second breath. All is well. I pull harder now on my strokes, with confidence. The bathhouse has faded behind me.

Our mothers warn us to always buddy swim. It makes sense to always have someone to turn to if times get rough. Yet sometimes there is no one there, like when you ocean swim. Even when you start out with a buddy right next to you, the next time you look he is ten feet off to the right, and next time he is almost out of sight to your left, and after that he has gone into the mystery. At some level, we are always alone in this life. At another level, we need to know a connection is there. We depend on each other. I rely more on those beach walkers on shore, without their knowing it, than I can rely on another person in the water who is too insulated by the waves to be likely to notice me if I need him.