20-08-2018

=====================================================================

Two Summers ago I went swimming for the first time in what must've 
been the best part of 12 years, or more. The last time I can remember 
going swimming before this was in Italy, off the Amalfi coast, when 
some friends and I went backpacking before we all went off to college. 
We were a bit younger than some of the more experienced backpackers 
we'd met, but we persuaded ourselves to join them for a moonlight dip 
in the ocean. After that, twelve years somehow go by, and I haven't 
got a single memory in that time of jumping into a pool or an ocean to 
go for a swim.

This massive time-gap is significant to me to think about now, as I 
recognise now it's a big window of time wherein I would later realise 
that I was experiencing some personal struggles, and trying to work 
out a few things. But that's not the point of this post so I'll cut 
this transgression short: right now I want to talk about swimming.

                                 *  *  *

A friend of mine had been talking about outdoor & wild swimming for a 
little while and it finally got through to me and struck a chord. Some 
friends and I started hitting outdoor swimming spots and for those 
first couple of summers, before this year, I would take a cautious dip 
and a careful few strides in the water. I was soon aware that I had a 
hell of a lot more caution, and somewhat less energy, than I seemed to 
remember of swimming when I was a kid.

All throughout school and before adulthood I had been a strong 
swimmer. Back at my folks house I still have a swimming towel with 
dozens of badges and awards sewn on to it for all the achievements 
myself and classmates earned for various lessons and challenges; 
swimming 100-metres, 200-metres & onwards, diving, picking up weights 
and items from the bottom of the pool, and swimming in our clothes as 
a kind-of test for emergency situations. I loved all this and I guess 
I didn't realise at the time just how confident and strong in all of 
it I was - no more than most people in my class, I'd guess, but 
certainly not uncomfortable, struggling or cautious as I'm sure, 
though I might not have realised at the time, some of my classmates 
must have been.

I remember just having energy for this stuff and no fear at all when 
it came to holding my breath and getting down into depths or lengths 
under the water. One time a friend and I were out one weekend at a 
massive out-of-town swimming complex - one of those places with loads 
of different pools, slides, wave machines, etc. At one point we snuck 
into a closed-off pool that had diving boards set at three different 
heights, and climbed the top one to jump into the pool below. I 
remember this vividly, as I think that's the first time I can remember 
being scared around the water (though I reckon that was the height and 
the jump more than anything).

                              *   *   *

So, this year, after a couple of cautious dips over the last two 
summers, something sank in and struck a chord - about the ways I was 
spending my spare time, and activities I was comfortable in, and all 
of a sudden I felt like I just remembered again what it is to be 
excited, like a kid, about an activity like this. We've been having a 
heatwave this summer, which hasn't been good in many ways, but it has 
meant that outdoor swimming has been on the cards all summer - and at 
least once a week I've been out either wild swimming or hitting one of 
the local outdoor pools.

At first I just started slowly swimming a few laps, just 
breast-stroke. I'd get maybe half-way in the pool and then have some 
mild panic about being in the depths, or not quite get the breathing 
right so I'd be chugging on water at times, or worrying that I would 
be. Strange: this process has been trying to re-learn the basics of 
something I once knew so intuitively; something that was once 
hard-wired and almost second-nature.

After doing this quite often throughout the whole summer, and now that 
the weather is getting cooler and the outdoor pools are a bit of a 
no-go, I've signed up for membership at some local indoor pools and 
I'm going routinely, at least twice a week. I now have no issues about 
swimming lengths, no mild panics in the middle, and I've got a hell of 
a lot more energy also: I can feel my whole body and my lungs working 
and I'm constantly learning little improvements and tricks in how to 
be efficient with breath/energy and move through the water at ease. 
Few 'play-like' things in adulthood have helped reorient this grasp of 
child-like confidence in some activity in this way.

The last two times I went to the pool, I started branching out even 
more and swimming into the depths again: I swim a length down to the 
deep end and then kick-off from the edge, taking a breath and plunge 
myself to the bottom of the pool and start to crawl the length back 
towards the shallow end. This is my new challenge. I can't get too far 
just yet, at least not as far as I reckon I could go when I was a kid. 
I haven't yet re-learned the intuitive stuff around holding breath 
underwater, and I get some mild panic like I'm going to mistakenly 
breathe in underwater, or need to breathe urgently and won't be able 
to surface in time. I really enjoy these fears when they come up, 
because they present little barriers and challenges to recognise and 
work towards overcoming. I know that if I keep at it I'll keep setting 
new barriers, or pushing and recognising my limits and working within 
that, and improving all the techniques to make it a second-nature 
process again. It feels like I've rediscovered something significant 
that once got away from me.

                              *   *   *

n.b. many thanks to solderpunk for the space here and for the welcome 
note.