Swimming with my shadow
Rain pelts down, hammering against the roof, the plants, the vehicles in the car park. We wait, this early morning band of committed enthusiasts, shivering in our trakkies and jackets. We stamp our feet, comment on the weather, laugh as stragglers scuttle through the downpour – like us, wet before getting as far as the pool. The rain mutes the traffic sounds and has kept the cockatoos in their roosts. It’s strange not to have them wheeling overhead in the pre-dawn light, screeching and calling to one another as they welcome a new day.
The duty officer ambles towards us, flicks the door locks and turns away. We stream in behind her like trained ducklings, our entry tokens in hand, heading through the turnstiles and sliding doors into the chlorine-soaked air. We dump our bags and start to shed our outdoor gear, slightly competitive to be first into the pool.
The water is smooth against my skin, a frictionless feeling of being enfolded, welcomed. Is this what other swimmers feel when they slide into the pool – that they’re home, where they should be? Given that I’m not a crash-hot swimmer, it’s a strange thing, this feeling of oneness with water, the notion that it’s where I’m most at home. Even so, when I put my head down and start to swim, I suspend being me – just for a while.
Everyday life is left on hold and it’s just this body moving through the water, keeping pace with my shadow, noticing the changes in the light, the bubbles and ripples as other bodies pass, intent on their own journeys.
Did I always feel this relaxed in the water? My earliest memory of immersion is a seaside vignette: me on an inflatable Lilo, paddling out to sea to join my father and older siblings on a sand bank, the ocean stretching ahead of me. No fear, just determination. Could I actually swim? Not then – no, but I learned the basics that holiday. My mother made sure of it.
Swimming is one of the most primal of all activities. We start in a sea of amniotic fluid, floating, swimming and growing in the warm, wet surrounds of our mothers’ womb. We scream in anger, fear and frustration as we’re thrust or torn from our safe, secure surroundings. And then we forget, lulled by warmth and comfort, swaddled and secure.
Later in life, if we’re lucky, we’re re-introduced to the marvel of full body immersion. Some of us end up being referred to as water babies – not because of any particular skill at swimming, but because of the affinity we feel for the water, the lack of fear.
No matter the weather, I head for the pool or the beach at least four times a week. There, I feel free – my movements smooth, the water supporting and cradling my body, velvety as it slides across my legs. It asks nothing of me, it takes nothing from me. I leave it enriched – and that carries me through my day, spilling gently into all I do.