After a long gravel bike ride or hike, sweating-still, I pull off clothing, pull on swim suit, step into cheap plastic Birkenstock knock-offs, and head down the trail lake-ward, a towel draped across my shoulders, glasses left inside, everything in soft focus. I drop the towel on the deck, step out of my sandals onto the large rocks arranged as a staircase, and down into the soft-cool chill of the lake. I wade out, toes feeling for smooth sand spaces between pebbles and stones or moss-green, algae-coated bottom, water colder now going from calves to knees to thighs, gradually to groin, stomach—then without pausing that first plunge sinking slow-swimming arms reaching pulling legs kicking eyes open the tan sand bottom a blur of particles hovering bits of leaves stirred up bottom holding my breath as long as possible until coming back up for air.
This summer on into fall, swimming in our small Adirondack lake has become a spiritual endeavor. This is our third summer here, but until this year I don’t think I have reveled so much in the experience.
If you ask my wife, an avid lap swimmer who wears a wet suit now to extend her lake-swimming season well into October—to swim long distances accompanied by a floating yellow bubble in case a boater should come close—she will tell you that what I do isn’t swimming. It’s “wading” or just “splashing about.” And I’m ok with that. Whatever it is I’m doing does seem to require a new word, a whole new nomenclature. “Swimming” surely doesn’t say enough.
It misses those moments when I lie back, ears beneath the surface, the sky stretched out above me, trees, distant mountains peripherally present, and I hear the below-lake-noises, pings and clicks, the steady push and pull of my own breathing, the whoosh-whooshing of my own heart in my ears…
Or treading water out where finally I can’t touch bottom without going under, drifting farther and farther out, then raising my arms and falling in super slow motion, down, down, finally toes touching, feet landing, then pushing off hard and coming back up into the air…
Or hovering, belly-down, eyes even with the surface, still as a crocodile, surveying the layers of mountains receding on the far shore then turning back toward my shore to look up the trail, see our cabin bathed in shadow.
I have recalibrated how I think about other activities around my swim. I’ll go foraging far down the snowmobile trail where I know I can find small clumps of winter chanterelles if a new flush of them has emerged, their golden-yellow stems so well hidden beneath leaf-brown caps, thinking more about the cool, bug-bite soothing swim to follow than the wild mushroom omelette I’ll make for lunch. I’ll ride extra miles on my gravel bike, as I did just yesterday, dodging basketball sized, mid-road outcroppings, feeling the forearm jarring scree, going straight through puddles when there is no choice…all in anticipation of the cooling cleansing plunge to come. When working around my property, cutting fallen trees into firewood, ripping out brambles and wild raspberry branches, trimming back the long, thin branches of trees working desperately to reclaim the small clearing where our cabin rests, it’s especially hard to resist—the lake right there, just beyond a few rows of pines, often the soft steady sounds of waves landing on the shore….but I know I can go from sweaty-bitten-scratched-back-and-arms-sore to cool, total immersion in less than a minute when I finally put down my chainsaw and start removing sweaty clothing as I head for my still-damp swimsuit hanging on the line.
As the days now shorten and the leaves begin to color and the lake cools, each swim feels like a special blessing; I find myself lingering a little longer each time. Last evening as I swam a pod of 3 loons appeared nearby from out of nowhere. They gather like this, sometimes a dozen or so of them on the lake every fall, putting aside territorial differences to fish together and call out mournfully at one another before leaving for the winter. I sank down low in the water, just the top of my head, eyes protruding, hoping they wouldn’t notice me and come closer. When they dove, I dove hoping to see them swimming beneath the surface as I did that one time looking down from my canoe to where a wholly new creature torpedoed past. I waited down there as long as I could, hands treading upward to hold me in place, eyes open, hoping to see one emerge through the double haze of bad eyesight and a medium not meant for human eyes, but they never showed, and when I surfaced they had joined several others far out now, just small dark blots amidst the surface of waves.
I did purchase some swim goggles this year, and I’ve tried, though admittedly not hard enough, to learn to really swim, turning my head sideways to steal breaths while my arms swing forward, hands cupping water, pulling myself along. Invariably I swallow a big gulp of lake water or neglect to breathe out when my head is down, so I end up hyperventilating…. It does make sense to use the lake as a place to exercise. It is excellent exercise. The lake is right there…. But part of me knows my own splashings and immersions have a value of their own.
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I loved this! I went swimming in the sea today after a long hiatus and it was glorious. I’m a very similar similar swimmer to you, more a languisher really but it’s the cool water I love. I can’t imagine how amazing it would be to have a lake on my doorstep to swim in whenever the urge took me. I’d be in twice a day I reckon.