Swimming for serenity

New Life Journal, Feb-March, 2003 by Holly Simms

You probably know the joke: "Look at the chart on the wall and read the smallest line of letters that you can see." What line? "The one on the chart." What chart? "The one on the wall." What wall? Okay, I'm not legally blind, but my myopia, or nearsightedness, has been a lifelong problem. What has this got to do with the theme of movement and breath? In my case, a great deal.

I spent my childhood in Minnesota, where it is understood that every youngster must learn to swim. You cannot imagine the difficulty this unwritten rule caused me as a small child. The Minnesota license plate boasts 10,000 lakes, but any Minnesotan worth their frostbite knows that there are over 15,000 lakes scattered pretty much everywhere you look; thus, the necessity for knowing how to swim. An innocent little soul might otherwise wander smack into a large body of water and unintentionally drown on the way to the school bus stop.

Learning to swim in the cold, murky waters of Lake Minnetonka was anything but pleasant. Immersed in water, my world was fuzzier than Aunt Olga's Norwegian sweater and comprehending the instructor's demonstration was impossible. The world of water was a cold, gray void where I felt anything but safe. By the age of eight, I accepted my dismal aquatic fate and thereafter ignored any bodies of water bigger than a bathtub. I was certain that I would never swim again.

Everyone knows the cliche, 'Never say never'! Five years ago, I not only began to swim in earnest, I formed a lasting love 'affair with water. This unexpected tryst began because everything else stopped. My life fell so completely apart that I would have had to rally in order to feel up to dying. Any reserve I possessed to continue my relationship with Life had been exhausted. I stopped going to my job because I absolutely could not face people, rooms lit by florescent lights, and responsibility. The motivation to crawl out of bed vanished. The mere contemplation of taking a shower overwhelmed me. The ability to sleep evaporated and food tasted like sawdust.

I didn't have to be immersed in water to see my world as a cold and foreboding place. I was in way over my head and all of my flailing about served only to exhaust me. The world and I had often engaged in wrestling matches, yet there had been sporadic opportunities to go to our respective corners and catch a breath. This time, I wanted to crawl off of edge of the mat forever. I wanted to die.

The early days of my emotional and physical collapse are a blur to me, yet I remember sitting in the office of a Therapist named Charlie Brown, I kid you not. The man with the namesake of Charles Schultz's guileless character made the observation that I was breathing so shallowly that he felt he had to breathe for me. Because of my depression, I was moving as little as possible. To augment my treatment plan, Mr. Brown suggested that I start swimming at the aquatic center. I balked at the idea of plunging my fragile self into cold, unfriendly waters, but good ol' Charlie Brown knew what he was talking about.

Exercise is often recommended to combat depression. Anyone who has ever suffered from this form of despair loathes the very thought of movement. However, I was so desperate for relief I gave it a try. With trepidation, I made my way to the aquatic center, where the attendant led me to the pool with lanes delineated by colorful plastic orbs. I squinted at the fuzzy frontier through my goggles and questioned my sanity as I slipped into the chilly waters. After one foray to distant shore and back, I was cursing Charlie Brown, yet something about the movement through water beckoned. That special something has continued to tantalize me through years of swimming.

How refreshing a swim is to the body! Every muscle stretches, waking and releasing to the fluid rhythm of movement. Deep breaths of air fill the lungs and are quickly expelled. Stroke after stroke, the body unwinds; oxygen courses through one's cells. As I struggled through the ravages of sleep deprivation and depression, my swims provided distraction and healing to my sad soul.

Admittedly, swimming can be dull, so I developed the practice of counting each lap over and over with every stroke. The unexpected benefit of this mantra was the muting of the persistent and negative inner dialogue, which tormented me in my illness. I focused on the solitary business of swimming and realized the value of mindfulness when out of the water as well. I learned to acknowledge an issue and turn it aside for the time being, so that I could maintain a sense of peace. Why had it taken so long for me to discover such a reasonable sense of boundaries?

Moving and breathing in ritual nurtures one's being, beckoning the memory of floating in the womb to the rhythm of heartbeat. I came to know a sense of personal and emotional safety as well as the luxury of time. The plastic tubes separating swimming lanes could just as well have been brick walls between me and the rest of the world. No one could intrude upon my lane without my permission. I would not be rushed. That sense of control was healing.