I’m a swimmer. I don’t swim competitively, not since my teen years, and I’m not particularly fast in the water any more. But I love it.
Even when my body pain won’t let me work very hard, simply floating and slowly moving without much gravity is healing. I’ve learned to let the water hold me, to use a kickboard when my arms ache, to let the water fill my ears and quiet my mind.
My strokes are precise, and every once in a while an older swimmer will compliment me, which is sweet. I could easily teach people to swim by breaking down the forms, and did teach many when I was all about the swim program at the Davis YMCA.
It certainly wasn’t always this way, and my early swimming disasters were a regular story told about me by my late mother. I’d had a few swim lessons before we moved to Memphis, mostly the ‘throw the toddler into the water’ and splash around with a parent kind of thing. So when we moved to Memphis, and my lifelong swimmer mom signed us up as Y members, I insisted I could swim just fine, no help.
I would get into the water and just furiously move my body -arms spinning, legs kicking, mouth gasping for air and spitting water -it was a maelstrom. But the worst part about it was that I wasn’t going anywhere. Not forwards, not backwards. I could expend all the energy my five year old body contained, but I wasn’t moving in that water.
The Halsemas, a family in which it seemed everyone was a super-duper swimmer, took me under their wing. These kids really *had* grown up in the water and really *did* know how to swim. For real. They swam like fish, or as I learned more accurately, like dolphins. I got myself into the next set of swim classes and stayed for years.
It may come as no surprise to you, and of course I laugh in retrospect, but the answer to all my problems was breath, and slowing down. Learning to trust the water enough to take the time to breathe was the only way to actually move.
And that movement itself? It had to be learned slowly and precisely in order for me to glide through the water. Each stroke had parts. Each part had a purpose. Each limb was moving in concert but also alone. Each head movement mattered.
It was by practicing these movements in a sequence that I got faster and stronger, and by controlling my breath as I moved through the water, that I became a swimmer.
For many years, people have commented on my calm presence in crises, my measured responses to outlandish things, my damn good poker face, my gift at holding difficult spaces. And it is true that I have had my moments. Some of them make great stories.
I have always considered these to be times of grace, the places and spaces wherein God has directed me, filled me with peace, told me what to say.
And yes, I am sure that these things are true. But I am also sure that during many of those times, as things unfolded, I was a mess underneath my mask of calm. Few glimpse it, and I’ve only recently begun to trust that its revelation isn’t a deal-breaker, but I have an anxiety disorder and occasional panic attacks, and a major depression diagnosis -drowning is at least a familiar metaphorical feeling.
I think we all know, even those of us who don’t swim, that water is really only a danger to you in times of fatigue or panic. Drownings most often occur when the swimmer expends unnecessary energy, panics, and begins to breathe water.
Learning to float will save your life. Learning to move with currents until breaking with them be possible will save your life. Learning to move slowly will save your life.
All of this is true not only for me as a swimmer, but also for me in life. I have learned that a hand placed on my back, or any simple touch, with the reminder to breathe can re-focus me. I have learned that I can stop my own spirals into anxious patterns with slow and controlled movement, breath, and speech. I have learned that I can channel my despair and confusion into art, poetry, if I just slow down enough to let it change.
If I just float. And wait. And breathe.
A Prayer for Slowness
May you find peace in the storms, shelter and sanctuary. May you breathe deeply through the panic of urgency, the relentless beat of want and need. May you practice and play, move with intention, and find the rhythm of your own body, your own world. For you have all you need, and you are worth the rest. This we pray in all the names we call holy. Amen.