February 17, 2007

The Sea

I swim in the sea most days. I run along the beach and slip into the English Channel before running back up the hill to my apartment with its warm bath and raspberry-scented black-red roses against a white sun-splashed wall. Sometimes, particularly when it's cold, I start out not wanting to be in the icy water, but by the time I am warm from running I find it easy to wade through the waves and dive underneath.

This boost to my circulation, immune system, and will power takes only a few minutes. As I walk, naked except for running shorts, towards the fiercely foaming force-of-nature there is a distant memory of resistance, but I have committed and there is every reason in favor.

The cold envelopes my body as I dive over and into a wave that would otherwise sweep my feet from beneath me. The daylight can barely penetrate the sandy surf the color of a jam jar filled with artists brushes encrusted from painting beaches and craggy headlands.

And as I swim out over waves that obscure the sky and threaten to engulf me in their air-free hugeness, I feel fear in my heart and a chill that oozes through each subcutaneous layer in turn until it begins to bite into my bones and my feet scream for the shore.

Over my shoulder I see a wave chasing me, a hopeless bug struggling in the meniscus, as the force of my arms is challenged by the wash drawn under me, feeding that swelling monster. I turn to look along the ridge of water as it pulls up against the pebbly drop-off and towers above me before pounding my body onto the bed of smooth stones.

In the dark silence, pressed against a thin, lumpy mattress of compressed water, I feel myself being drawn back and down into the drop-off. I remember: relax and curl up. And then I am rolled, surrendered and naked, into the shallows, my feet gripping their goal as the retreating sea pulls at my knees and I desperately struggle to find my breath before the next wave engulfs me.

As I stride back to my shoes and shirt, out of breath, cold on the surface and warm in the middle, I know that I have been given everything that I need for my journey; I take with me the force of the sea; entrusted not because I have mastered it but because I have allowed it to master me.