TODAY I SWAM THE BAY and didn’t feel afraid. I went out through The Pass and the sea was easy, if mildly resistant. Near the rocks, I bumped into a skindiver in a dark grey wetsuit. I took him for a shark. He took me for his diving buddy. When we realised we were neither of us who we thought, we laughed and wished each other well. I said hello to everyone I met, kayakers, swimmers, fish, a turtle.
The thing I love about swimming in the sea is the freedom it gives. The water and I are not so different, our bodies going where they will. The sea and I are one just for a little while. I have heard that drowning is a painful and terrifying death. I imagine it to be so, having known even in small measure what failure of breath feels like. I do not wish to drown, would feel the sea had betrayed me, for its beneficence is so pervasive when I swim that I have learned to take it for granted, for mine.
Near the end of the swim I rolled over onto my back and floated a while, as if I am the kind of person who floats a while. Soon a thousand will follow me in the swim I have just done. It is the day of the Ocean Beach Classic, and already the water is dotted with the orange buoys that will show the swimmers their route. I am glad to avoid the throng. I am a good enough swimmer. I do not wish to improve.
I walked back along the beach after my swim and tears came. They have changed just lately. No teeth chattering, no yelling, but sobbing, heart-sobbing, for all that has been lost. Me, who lost some of her youth; baby Ruth, who was torn from the mother she had a right to; and David and Otis, who lost the life they might have lived.
David who is still here beside me, Otis who has no choice about the mother he has, who continues to love me when I am not the mother I want to be. They are there now, building a castle from the stones we found on the beach on the other side of The Pass. They will be there when I arrive, and they will wave and their wave will say, We are here, we love you. And I will wave back.