The Fellowship of the Swim

I start most days with a merry, motley band of ocean swimmers in a cove tucked into the east side of a small island.  We have weathered all kinds of challenges together: northeast winds, wicked currents, crab larvae. The summer of 2018, the Kavanaugh hearings tested our civility, yet we listened to one another’s reasons and feelings.

For years, I would return for summer vacations to this island that is the birthplace of my parents and ancestors. I decided nearly a decade ago that I wanted to participate in the annual Save the Bay Swim, two miles across Narragansett Bay. I had never swum any distance in open water, so I decided I should do some recon before the big event. I went to scout the finish line. I squinted my eyes and searched across the channel for the starting point, Naval Station Newport. A small group of swimmers was exiting the water. We struck up a conversation, and they invited me to swim with them. Great. I had a week to train, and people who knew the waters.

I swam the two miles and loved every minute of it. Hooked. 

Two years ago, I decided to make Rhode Island my home and this group of swimmers was among the top three reasons I made the choice. With no job waiting for me and no backup plan, I was still all in.

We come from different backgrounds, political affiliations, religious beliefs, socio-economic levels. We are fishermen, surfers, lawyers, a dentist, a veterinarian, tech types. We are employed, retired, self-employed, unemployed (that’s me.)

For years, we have gathered each morning. We swim to a boat anchored near shore. We chat a bit then swim to the next boat, a sailboat named Picante. It’s no longer there but we still reference it, in legit Rhode Island fashion. On days when we feel strong or optimistic or long for a longer swim, we head out of the cove, along the island to a pier, about a 2.5-mile round-trip. Back on shore, we chat as we prepare to go our separate ways.

Every day is different. Every swim is different. Tides, weather, the swimmers who show, the wind, the seaweed all change. And we’ve swum through all of it in all kinds of conditions: in a blanket of fog, through pummeling swells, under threat of storms and random jet skiers. A hardy few even swam through the winter—without wetsuits (all women, I among them.) 

This pandemic year has introduced a new element to our swims. 

A few weeks ago, I had this vision of the scene in Tolkien’s “The Fellowship of the Ring,” when the hobbits, dwarves, elves and men have made it to the Elvish forest of Lothlórien and Elrond’s council. They must decide who will bear the ring to Mordor. As the ring exerts its power, the members, who have confronted natural and supernatural perils while defending and protecting one another, begin to bicker and argue. The noise of the arguments and the angry tones escalate. The fellowship is fracturing.

I may be the only one who feels this way. I have octogenarian parents facing health crises thousands of miles away—in the middle of a pandemic.

At the start of the lockdown, we did a great job of respecting the governor’s guidelines on gatherings and social distancing. We gathered in groups of no more than five and kept our towels and ourselves at least six feet apart during the hard days of the climbing numbers of coronavirus cases and deaths. Granted, the water was still chilly and fewer were braving the waters.

And yet, we may not weather this pandemic. This pandemic feels, to me, as if it is splintering our group.

In the last month or so, people have started swimming at 6:00 a.m., in addition to the time-honored 6:30 a.m. start. And there’s an afternoon swim some days, too. With the changing times, people have broken into smaller groups, based on the hour of the day and distances that suit them. 

I tried doing daily doubles—to catch up on the swimming I’d missed while I’d been out of state helping my parents. And to catch up with all my friends who were swimming at different times. I couldn’t sustain it.

I swim for the camaraderie. I swim for the joy. And I miss that camaraderie as we split into different groups. My fellow swimmers say change is good. I am well acquainted with change. Change may be good, but that doesn’t mean that it doesn’t hurt.

This splintering does not suit me. It saddens me. Perhaps because I am already swimming in sadness.

In our fellowship, in the ocean, I often find comfort. I have worked hard over the years to lose the competitive compulsion that robbed me of appreciating the beauty and joy of moments. I do swim from buoy to buoy; however, I pause to dive down to the eelgrass and rise up through the water, facing the sun, so that the refracted light sparkles around me. I linger behind, so I can see my own bubbles as my hand plunges into the water and pulls back along my side. I stop to watch a cormorant stand on a flat-topped buoy and hold its wide wings in a sustained sun salutation. 

This morning a group of swimmers went out early. Some didn’t show, though Fay didn’t bring the inclement forecasted weather. 

The water welcomed us. The dark clouds drifted away. 

On the return, we swam against the wind and a current, like cycling on an incline into a headwind. I like these swims where I need to tuck my head and pull a bit stronger. 

I stayed near the back of the group. When the swimmers left the last marker heading for shore, I hung back. I floated, vertically, and let the current carry me. I looked at the blue sky and the drifting clouds—and I said a prayer in that holy space.

I asked God to help my family be true to ourselves while being kind to one another, to bring my parents comfort and grace as they face difficult decisions and hard choices, sorrow and inevitable pain.

As my mother said, “I didn’t expect our final years to be like this.”

And yet, as much as we’d like it, we can’t stay in the ocean forever, floating on the current that carries us. We all have to return to the shore.

On this morning as I head for shore, the salt water stinging my eyes is the tears in my goggles.