Leap In by Alexandra Heminsley

Author:Alexandra Heminsley
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Random House
Published: 2017-01-12T05:00:00+00:00

As I read those lines, they crystallised what was both so liberating and so terrifying about open-water swimming: when you’re in the water, it’s all down to you. You are boat, cargo and crew. That solitude, the space to let your eyeballs slacken and your mind, breath and being follow suit – that is the essence of why we swim. A sort of vertigo swept over me, rendering me dizzy with the possibilities.

As I stared down into the water, a dolphin’s fin broke the surface and danced ahead of us. I yelped; the captain cut the engine. Emotion bubbled up in me as if I’d swallowed a lifetime of inspirational quotes and was struggling to keep them down. Sure, dolphins were lovely, I’d always thought, but I was far from being the sort of dreamer who felt that swimming with them would render my life better lived. In that instant, I saw I had been a fool. Not because the dolphins themselves were going to change the colour and texture of my life, but because only seconds before, I had been feeling so utterly alone, while mere metres from such a magnificent sight. The dolphin leapt and pranced ahead, before approaching the boat and swimming alongside it for a little while. I sobbed, overwhelmed at how appallingly close the lowest and the most beautiful moments can be to each other. Yes, we swim alone. But we can never truly know what swims alongside us.

Half an hour later, people started to ready themselves to head into the water. The tub of Vaseline was out, cotton clothing was coming off, and the volume of chatter began to rise. My heart was hammering.

It’s all about the breath, I reminded myself. Keep the breath steady and you’ll keep yourself steady.

Michael, one of my group, saw me standing on the edge of the boat, trying to take deep breaths. He was one of the swimmers I admired the most. A week ago we hadn’t known each other, but we had since discovered that he had family in Trinidad who knew my grandparents, we had books we loved in common, and he had been nothing but gentle and patient with me and my attempts in the water all week. He had no athletic ambition for the trip, but that was presumably easy for him to say, as he had the most effortless stroke I had ever seen. He moved with such ease and grace that he seemed almost amphibian. I had never – and still haven’t – seen anything as elegant in the water. Each stroke lasted an eternity. He dawdled, looked around, seemed to be putting minimal effort in yet getting maximum pleasure. A true inspiration.

He asked me if I was nervous, and we chatted about how much the swim meant to me: the challenge, the years of dreaming of Ithaca, and what might possibly be a last chance to have my body be all mine, and within the sphere of my understanding. In only

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