Dead Calm - A Wild Swimming Adventure
“Inside I think
Forest lights reveal a fire
One with myself
Now I sit with steady land underfoot
The morning appears
With its calm against the storm
And now the surface ripples
And now we break the dead calm”
A lone track leads through the snow to darkness. Barely a moonlit glisten penetrates the trees. Kill the engine, kill the lights. Eyes patiently adjust to the inverted world as the pristine blanket underfoot sheds the only light. It's a small gaze into an alternate reality painted without colour.
The first foot prints.
Crunching boots, the only interruption of silence.
Dead calm.
A distant promise of warmth from the horizon as the frozen water beckons.
Why do we run? What do we run from? What are we escaping?
And what happens when it's yourself that you're trying to escape?
This year I've had more time that I'd have liked to think about this. It's been more time than ever, but it hasn't been productive time. Remember those weeks and months full of medium posts and tweets telling us to learn Russian and write a novel or two? Who followed through?
It feels reflective of a bigger picture, of a culture focussed on non-stop attaining, setting impossible goals and giving in to the perpetual hustle (what's up, Gary Vee?). What happens when or if we don't get to our own finish line? Brush it off with a "next time"?
Maybe, but I'm not so sure I can. These lost chances seem just that to me, lost. I am very guilty of holding on, vying with myself and refusing to let go of the moments that I didn't want or the moments I missed and wish I'd caught.
That's what I run from. That's my escapism. A break from the thoughts of projects unfinished, of potential unfulfilled, or photographs untaken, shutters left closed. Each one was probably the best image never committed to pixels. Obviously.
The escape doesn't come easily. It's work to find the narrow channel leading to where you need to be. A moment lived freely will outlast the depths of the days that we run from. An affirming arm around the shoulder assuring you it's going to be ok and that there is a bigger picture that isn't always out of reach.
“Only in the quietest moments
do we see
the reviving sun
and taste the dew
on bending blades of grass.
We rise with shouts
against the darkness
and claw our way
toward daylight.”
Since I can remember, I've had such a dear affection for water. I'm not at all religious, but I see clearly why the ideas of baptism and renewal hold such weight and why water plays such an important part. There is a purifying, cleansing quality that's confounded by scale.
Washing your face is nice, plunging yourself into the ocean is incomparable. I was so intrigued when Carrie told me about her early morning trips, breaking ice and welcoming the day from a frozen loch.
From first toe-dipping to towel-wrapping, she's in for minutes. They aren't comfortable minutes. In sub zero temperatures she is literally powering through ice with her stroke. She gasps for the first breath as the water surrounds her but the sense of calm is palpable. I feel it from the shore, warmly wrapped with camera to me eye, this is the escape.
Shoulders drop and breath slows, just to be here, to be in the world outside. To be somewhere that other people are not, for a brief time. To see the sun break the horizon and bring a new day. The birds sing with no-one around to answer back. All we can do is listen. An invigorating fix of nature nurtures the soul.
The low morning sun paints pictures with eyes closed. Specks of dust floating under my control, warmth on my face. Welcoming the break of day and the release of all that tension.
For just the briefest of moments, pause, reset and let the water wash over, before the wind blows it all away.
Adventures aren't reserved for the Arctic explorers and the Everest climbers, it lives inside. If we wait for adventure to find us, it'll belong to somebody else.
Be your own adventure.
“Now I can feel, I am free like forever
Heart strong as steel
And light as a feather”
Thanks to Carrie of Carrie Wilde Yoga for letting me tag along on her own adventure.
Buy music by Sigur Rós & Lissie at your local record shop.
Thanks to Francis Daulerio for letting me reproduce his beautiful words here. Find out about his book “If & When We Wake” here and buy it here or from your local indie book store.