Wetsuit Nirvana

                                                    I.                   The Wetsuit

 

The wetsuit has arrived! I am so excited as I pull it out of the FedEx box and hold it up. Wow! It’s so small. Will it fit me?

            My sister has sent me her old wetsuit that she doesn’t use anymore for my open water swimming. She says it’s supposed to be small; otherwise, water will leak in and I’ll still be cold. Yet, as I hold it up for inspection, I wonder how I’ll get into it. It will be a tight squeeze.

            And it is! I try it on at home before heading to my swim at Keller Cove. Ian helps. But it’s a struggle. My brother in law has sent a YouTube video with tips for putting on your wetsuit. Initially, I thought this was a joke, but now, as I try to squeeze into it, I’m glad to know that it’s not an easy process. Yet, I don’t need the plastic bag or talcum powder to ease my feet into it. This I can do on my own. And pulling the legs up does take some patience, but I manage this as well as my arms. The big challenge is the Zipper.

            Ian can’t seem to get it engaged.

            “Wait a minute….” he scolds me. “I’ve almost got it….” He tugs and pulls at my back, I wriggle to try to help. “Hold still,” he commands.

            I sigh. How will I ever swim in the cold bay waters if I can’t zip it up even with Ian’s help.

            Yet, finally, he does. And, I am snug and ready to go.

            I start to unzip it. “Aren’t you gonna wear it down to the beach?” he asks.

            “Are you kidding?” I say. “It’s so tight. I can’t sit in the car and then I definitely can’t walk in it down to the beach.”

            He shakes his head as I wriggle out of it. Hand it over to him and go to gather up my stuff.

           

            Arriving at the beach, it’s crowded with parked cars, though as usual, not a lot of people walking along the sidewalk. Those that are walking all have masks on except for the kids screaming around on their bikes.

            I give them a wide berth, heading up to the sandy lookout as Ian collects all the stuff from the trunk. He’s such a great swim caddy! I love him for his patience and support in this open water swimming craziness.

            As I wait on the lookout, another swimmer, a man in a green plaid kilt, has climbed the embankment to check out the swimming.

            “Hi,” I grin, thinking what is it about men that wear skirts? There’s the walker in my neighborhood with the exotic Shepard looking dog that is always in a skirt. At first I thought it was strange, but now it’ s just part of his personality. This swimmer man may be in the same category.

            How can I tell he’s a swimmer?

            I just can. Tan, fit, strong---he’s a swimmer all right, which is why I feel fine striking up a conversation.

            He answers my greeting with his own, “How ya doing?”

            “Do you swim here often?” I jump right into the meat of my queries. I want to know all of these swimmers here at Keller and how they do it.

            “Yeah, well…I used to. I took some time off, but now I’m back at it.”

            “Do you swim with a wetsuit?”

            He laughs. Oh, one of those. Macho no wetsuit man. Like most of the swimmers here at Keller, he obviously doesn’t wear one, why did I even ask?

            “Nah.” We start to walk together with our masks at social distance when Ian’s done with the car getting process. He follows us.

            “How long do you stay in?” I ask. “Do you swim to the pylons?” This mysterious goal is something I’ve read in the Keller Cove swimmers' emails. I’m not really sure what it means, but it sounds super far away.

“Yeah, usually. It’s ½ mile out and ½ mile back, so a mile round trip.”

“Don’t you get cold? I can only last about 20 minutes  so I got a wetsuit for today.”

            He eyes me, “20 minutes is great!”

            “Really?”

            “Yeah, you have to condition yourself.”

            “Oh, that makes sense. Someone else told me that.”
            “I’ve been swimming in the open water for years, so I’m used to it.”

            “Yeah, I’m a pool swimmer. Though I do love to swim in the ocean, but only in the warm waters of Waikiki.”

            He chuckles.

            “I’m hoping today, with the wetsuit, that I can last longer. If I can get it on.”

            “Yeah, that’s always the challenge.”
            Everything he’s saying to me validates what I am learning about this open water swimming. It takes time to condition. It’s hard to put on a wetsuit.

            “But to help with conditioning,” he continues, “what you try today is after you do your swim in the wetsuit, take it off and jump in again.”

            I laugh, shaking my head, thinking NO WAY will I do this, but I lie to him, “Great idea, I’ll try that…”

            We walk on till I notice that Ian isn’t behind us. “Oh, dear.” I stop, “I seem to have lost my partner.”

            Stopping to scan behind me, Skirt Man waits with me for a moment, “Go ahead,” I urge. “I’ll see ya in the water.”

            He waves goodbye, “Sure, see ya.”
            I turn and head back the way we’ve come, Mr. Ian nowhere in sight. Where the hell is he? I think. I need him! I can’t put the wetsuit on without him.

 

            I find him. He’s gone back to double-check that he’s locked the car. I’m glad he’s okay as we head down to the beach and I tell him about my chat with Skirt swimmer. How it’s great that I can last 20 minutes. How the pylons are half a mile out. How everyone has difficulty with wetsuits.

            Ian nods, telling me about his OCD around the forgetting if he’s locked the car or not. I get this, but then I don’t. He tells me why. I’ve heard it before. I’m just too excited to get down to the beach, get into the wetsuit, and swim to the pylons to pay much attention.

 

            Down on the beach, Skirt Man is behind us, donning a lime cap that says, Keller Cove Swimmers. I want one of those caps, I think. Wonder how I get one. He’s ready to go. I still have to struggle into the wetsuit.

            “Have a great swim,” I call after him as he heads down to the water.

            “Thanks, you too,” he calls back.

            I envy him is cold tolerance, but then again, I’m so happy to have the wetsuit today.

            Again, the insane process to get it on. This time a baby with shell-shaped sunglasses is staring at me. I wave. He stares. His mom laughs. I just want to get in the water.

            “You wanna come swimming with me?” I joke to the baby. He sticks his hand in his mouth. Stares at me.

            I shrug. Stupid babies. But bet they don’t need wetsuits with all that baby blubber.

            Finally, I’m in the suit. It’s so hard, but I’m so excited. Today, I’m going to swim to the pylons. 1 mile round trip. Less than I do in the pool. Yet I know that swimming in the open water is harder, with the wind, the choppy waves, and the great unknown on the ocean floor. I still get a bit creeped out by my lack of visibility. What is down there?

            I try not to think about it.

            Today, after the wetsuit application is finished, I grab my pink floaty, Penelope, my fins and jog down to the beach. I am giddy! The wetsuit is on and I’m jumping in the water.

            Ian films me. I narrate my excitement before heading into the water, which, frankly, does feel warmer. Is it the wetsuit or is it really warmer?

            Maybe a bit of both as I dive under the first wave and start stroking toward the pylons.

                            ~~~~~to be continued~~~~

       II. The Pylons

Photo by Tom van Hoogstraten

As I move through the choppy brown water, I think about my goal of the pylons. What does that word even mean? It sounds ancient and imposing! And, as I work to make headway against the current, I wonder, will I make it that far?

      The pylons, plural, are just a dark heavy-looking log standing upright in the water. They are the size of my thumb from this starting point of a half-mile away. I wonder why they are called the pylons when all I can see is one marker? Again, the mystery of the goal.

      I’m excited to try for them.

      Yet, as I swim, the waves chopping at me, I wonder if I’ll make it. I still have to keep in mind that there’s the swim back, too. The guys I talked with a couple of weeks ago here had said that’s it’s easier swimming back then swimming out. So, this is good to know. But still, I need to pace myself. I don’t know my limits yet. It’s all an unknown, unlike the pool where the finite back and forth of laps is so easy.

      This is hard. Much harder than the pool. And while the wetsuit is keeping me warm, my hands and feet feel the chill of the water. As I continue on toward the pylons, turning over on my back and enjoying the sky view from backstroking, I feel a tiny bit of trepidation. I know I’m a ‘good swimmer’ but still, this is the sea. And she is mighty. I do respect her.

Photo by Josefin

      I remember when I was 17. Swimming in Newport Beach during ‘red flag’—a big no no as the surf and currents were ‘dangerous’ and the lifeguards made it clear that they weren’t going to risk their lives to rescue anyone foolish enough to swim in this sea. Yet, I was young and invincible. Or so I thought. As I swam out beyond the breakers, I suddenly felt a tremendous current start to pull me out and toward the stony breakwater at 17^th street. For a moment I panicked, thinking I was going to be crushed against the rocks, but then I remembered my ocean training, wherever this came from, I don’t know, but I knew to swim parallel to the shore and not to try to swim against the riptide. Yet as I swam parallel, I got closer and closer to the rocky breakwater. Damn! I was gonna be pulled right into it.

      This is when I decided to swim out and around the breakwater. There was no other choice even though this was farther out then I’d ever been.

      Being young and in shape, I did make it around and was able to swim back to shore on the other side. Yet, I was shaken up as I dragged myself out of the sea, looking up to see a good for nothing lifeguard hanging out on his tower grinning at me.

      “Thanks a LOT for your help!” I hissed.

      “You looked like you were doing fine,” he chuckled, smug and tan in that Newport Beach Boy way.

      “Yeah, well, no thanks to you!” I declared, tramping back down the beach to my towel and friends.

      Yes, the ocean is formidable. And I had been so stupid to swim in that Red Flag sea. Today at Keller Cove though. This was a piece of cake compared to Newport Beach, right?

      Right….

The Blue Mind

Standing in line at the El Cerrito Community Pool, I prep for my 45-minute reserved lane swim. Sunscreen, shirt, pants, cap. I put all this on beforehand, while carrying on an amiable chat with a swimmer 4 spots down from me. He tells me how he’s been swimming at Lake Anza, his son is a lifeguard there. “I’ve had it with bay swimming,” he proclaims. And I have to agree. While I’m happy to be in the water again, the bay is just too damn cold for me. I can only stay in for 15-20 minutes before I start turning blue, my fingers an icy white as I stroke back to the shore.

            “I’ve just been reading the most marvelous book about swimming!” I hear the proclamation drift through the air, landing somewhere down the line from me. “It’s called, Why We Swim….”  “Oh! I read that book! I loved it!”  “Bonnie Tsui is the author….”  calls out Had it with Bay Swimming Man. And I grin. Swimmers! Not only are they fit, but they’re literate too!

            Having read Bonnie’s book myself, I could have participated in the conversation, but am too anxious about the swim ahead of me. I have paid $12 for the privilege of this 45-minute swim, reserving a lane in the Pandemic Pool situation. It’s intense as the blondie lifeguard saunters out and begins to ask all the swimmers the requisite questions about the Coronavirus before being allowed into the pool area: “Have you had any symptoms of coughing, a fever, etc.? Have you been around anyone who has?” I answer a firm NO to all of her questions, trying not to worry about how everyone here is a stranger. Who knows where they’ve all been. Would they lie about their symptoms for a swim?

            Part of me would. I’m so desperate to get in a Real Pool! But a bigger part knows that I’d just stay home if I’d had any symptoms. We don’t need any more cases of the virus, esp. among swimmers!

            I’m in the square marked Lane 1, stairs. I don’t know what this means other than I’m at the front of the line and so am let in first. Walking briskly out onto the deck, lugging my heavy bag full of all my junk (no locker room access, no bathrooms except for emergencies---whatever that means! Whenever I have to pee, it’s an emergency!), I scan the big blue empty! Pool! Well, this is one advantage of the pandemic, empty pools. I don’t miss the screaming kids or fighting for a lane or circle swimming. I’ll have my own lane! How delicious will that be!

            Except….as I walk to the lane marked 1 Stairs, I see that it’s only half a lane!? What! There are kids’ floaty lane lines going horizontally across my lane so that I can’t swim to the wall. I’m blocked from it by about 10 or 15 yards?

            The lifeguard sits on his throne. I call up to him, “Do those lane lines mean that I only have part of a lane?”
            “Yup,” he nods, not even giving me the courtesy of eye contact.

            “For this I paid 12 dollars!!! I can’t believe IT! This is outrageous!”  I’m talking loudly, not exactly to him since he seems to be ignoring me, but into the air.

            A kid jumps into the square water that should be my lane. Shit, I think. This really sucks! Here I was looking so forward to my swim in an actual pool and now this.

            “You can move to another lane if the swimmer who reserved it doesn’t show up after 10 minutes,” he calls down to me, still not making eye contact.

            “Will you let me know?” I ask, thinking how my precious 45 minutes is being eaten up by all this lane haggling.

            “Yes,” he turns away from me.

            Nothing I can do except get in the water and make the best of it, I think, walking down the stairs and then…..WOW!!! The water is SO warm! Immediately I’m in heaven! Despite the wrong lane. I dive under and take my first stroke in a pool after 4 months. It’s is so easy! I feel so at home. That moment of euphoria hits me almost immediately and I think of Bonnie Tsui’s book. How she wrote about the ‘Blue Mind’, a term coined by marine biologist and author, Wallace J. Nichols “which emphasizes the importance of drifting to discovery….water as a way to enable that process.  ‘Being around water provides a sensory-rich environment with enough ‘soft fascination’ to let our focused attention rest…’”(pp. 221-222) And, while he is writing about that idea that our best ideas come when we’re in this state, which happens, of course, in the water,  I take it another way. My ‘blue mind’ is when I’m floating in the aqua water, warm and weightless, my body out of the gravity of walking—I’m me!

            After the 10 minutes are up, the lifeguard hollers at me that lane number 2 is free. I can move! Yippee! I dive under the lane line and continue with my Blue Mind. Nothing is better than being in the pool, esp. when I’ve been out of it for so long. There’s an exquisite preciousness to this swim because of this pool drought.  I’ve been out of the pool for longer than anytime in my life. Even when I’ve had various surgeries and had been instructed to not go in the water for weeks, I always cheated and was back in the pool after 10 days.

            And I’d thought that was a long time!

            Grinning underwater, I swim on and on for what seems forever. The bay swimming has been so short because of the temperature. Part of me still can’t believe I’m swimming again. There’s a surreal quality to it. Like a dream. And isn’t this part of the Blue Mind too? That dream-like mist that inspires?

            The lifeguard yells through her bullhorn. “10 MINUTE WARNING!!!!” And then, what seems like a long time has suddenly become so short. I want to stay in the pool all afternoon, despite the blazing sun and anxiety over my melanoma history. I just don’t ever want to get out.

            “5 MINUTE WARNING!” She hollers again, and I start to warm down, knowing full well that there was no way I was going to be able to stay in even 5 extra minutes, let alone all afternoon.

            The whistle blows, its shrill hellishness a familiar pool dynamic.  I stop at the wall, reaching for my fins, pull buoy and sunglasses, then dive under the lane line back into the odious Lane 1. Well, at least I know not to reserve that lane again!

            An elderly swimmer lady is behind me, grinning as she pushes her cane along the deck. I rush to move my stuff to make room for her. “Oh, thank you,” she murmurs, the Blue Mind evident on her wizened brown face.

            I climb out of the water’s warm embrace, the cold wind whipping round me, then start shivering.

            It’s just like the bay when you get out, I muse. Can’t escape the Bay Area winds.

            Yanking off my swim shirt and pants, I do a futile dry off as Cane Woman limps by me, smiling.

            I give her a little wave as I wrap my towel round me, don my mask, and then hurry out after her, my Blue Mind sated, my pool body home.....