The Second Swim

The story that inspired this newsletter

Why have I called this Substack newsletter The Second Swim? Let me explain.

William Wordsworth wrote that the origin of poetry is “emotion recollected in tranquillity” and I think this is true of the best creative non-fiction writing, too: it is a calm, considered recapitulation in the black-and-white of words of the turbulent, technicolour experiences of life—a description of the storm from the safety of shore. The following experience, which I had in Sri Lanka on my forty-ninth birthday, seemed to encapsulate that.

---

I looked down at the swirly white froth washing over my feet—striped caramel and pink from six Indian months in the same sandals—with a sense of irony. The water was bathtub tepid and the sea gathered into calm pools, fenced in by shallow banks of dead coral, which, despite its dried-out appearance, was still home to angel fish and shoals of tiny darting fluorescent green minnows and the occasional turtle. A clump of rocks to one side had been exposed by high tide and was a scuttling, squirming mass of two species: crabs in jaunty mud-and-olive striped camouflage and wriggly little fish with stalk eyes who used their fins like legs, climbing up above the water line, like their ancestors, those would-be mammals testing their brand-new lungs for the first time, whom Richard Dawkins has described as the brave little terriers of the Devonian. Well away from the rocks in the thigh-high water, tourists floated contently, rapidly turning into lobster thermidor in the sun as they squinted down through their snorkelling masks.

This is where I should have swum to begin with.

Instead, the previous day, I’d blithely left my handbag on the upturned crate which served as a lounger at my hostel, well above the waterline (it seemed) and rushed back to place my glasses, which I had almost worn into the sea, on a flat stone on the ground next to it. The sky was a curdled dark grey, but it was warm and the beach was invitingly empty. So I waded out into the curling breakers.

For a brief moment or two, I rode the swell like a giant water trampoline, an ocean rollercoaster. And then I felt a tug, as if some mischievous mermaid had grabbed me by the ankles, as if some giant funnel had suctioned me in, and I was pulled out and sideways, well away from the shore and towards a rocky outcrop which had seemed distant when I entered the water. 

Vague memories of swimming lessons returned to me—or was it something I’d read in an article somewhere?—the trick was to find the direction of the current and swim perpendicular to it. But meanwhile, the air had grown dark and the surface of the water was dimpled by fat raindrops. A storm was starting and it seemed to have given the waves extra force, which they used, what felt like vindictively, to repeatedly suck me back and throw me forward against the rocks. Each time, I thrashed my way forward a bit and then was dragged back and tossed effortlessly against the rocks again. My palms and arms and legs were painfully scraped and, at one point, I was whirled around like a bobbin, snorted water in a panic and found myself heading for the rocks, head first on my back. I just managed to cushion the collision with my hands so it was only an unpleasant bump but it felt like a close call. It felt personal. I felt as though the sea were laughing at me. And with good reason. 

A slightly longer gap between two waves gave me just enough time to push off the rocks and swim past the line of suction and back to shore, being hauled back by the undertow at every stroke. I stumbled up to the lounger to find that my handbag was waterlogged and my iPhone had quietly and sadly drowned. My spectacles were nowhere to be seen. I cried some angry tears of self-reproach.  

But I was lucky. I was fine. I emerged from my dance with Poseidon with only scuffed skin and a sore wrist from the impact of the rocks, the burning sensation of salt water in my nose and the knowledge that I was a complete idiot. 

So today I walked for hours, along the water’s edge, letting the waves froth up like a tutu and wet my swimsuit to the waist, listening to the hypnotic alternating whoosh and slurp, digging my heels in to root myself each time the receding water tugged playfully at me. Watching the overlapping sheets of sudsy water, beaten egg whites dissolving again before they could be stiffened into meringues. Until I found a spot with shallows and calm. 

It felt symbolic of my life. I embarked on an ill-advised adventure, got buffeted about and tossed in every direction, lost all my valuables, ended up scuffed and bedraggled. That’s where I am, right now. Wishing I’d done everything differently that first time round. But hoping and trusting that life will still give me the chance to find calmer waters. That the sea’s next caress will be gentler. Hoping that this is the midpoint of my life and that this midpoint might be a turning point. Hoping for a calmer second swim.