Trust The Wave You Come In On

I’ve waited five years for this challenge…

Twenty years if I start counting from the day that I almost drown…

Before I dive into that story, I want to share how life offered me a chance to liberate myself from a fear of the ocean…

From talking to my patients in Stone Harbor, NJ, I’ve found that my move to the shore during the pandemic was not a unique story. When faced with the unknown, we “migrators” were drawn to the simple familiar of where we were raised; like salamanders travelling great distances to return to their birth environment. After seven years in the Midwest for schooling and work, I was officially back on the island where I was born. Somehow, despite the condition of the world, I could breathe there. Away from city crowds and busy lifestyles, the salty surf air helped me to trust both my lungs and life all at once.

It was around that time that I looked to the ocean, knowing that alongside love, it was the sea that called me back: for we had unfinished business to address.

I’d been afraid of the water since childhood and that fear only escalated while living far from the waves. I had forgotten how to live in sync with the tides.

Now back home and encouraging my patients to utilize the healing of the coast, I felt like an imposter; I wanted to live at the safety of the sea, but safely out of its reach.

I was such a terrible swimmer that I used to joke, “for someone named Marina, a gift from the sea, I was more like a gift for the bottom of the sea.” But in 2020, I made a bargain with the gods that got me through the tough transition home and committed myself to their ocean, “If I’m going to truly embrace a life of an oceanic resident, I want to make peace with the water and utilize this special area to the fullest.”

So, I started that year. When the weather warmed up, I tagged along with my soon-to-be father-in-law as he and a group of his aging buddies swam out past the waves, about 300 yards off the beach at a depth of 15-20 feet deep. They were a funny looking group, these three to five men of all shapes: tall and hairy, short and thick, stocky and stiff. Despite any challenges in their hearing and looking, well, unathletic, they squeezed themselves into tight wetsuits before kicking my ass in the water. To speak plainly, I had no idea what I was getting into.

It was brutally obvious that I couldn’t keep up with these men, but I was warmly welcomed into their group each day that I begrudgingly waded into the freezing water. With leaky goggles that covered most of my eyes and an orange inner tube that they slapped onto my waist for safety, they joked that I made “good shark bait,” failing frantically far behind the group.

Still, they never left me. They swam slowly, gave me pointers on form, breaks to hug my floaty in a panic, and constantly asked if I was okay when I came up choking for air or spitting salt. My father-in-law kindly swam circles around me just to maintain some pace for his own exercise, but, smirking, I didn’t let it discourage me.

I kept showing up to swim, despite being worthless the rest of day at work and yelling at patients through clogged ears. While I couldn’t enjoy swimming at that time, I did thrive on the feeling of hard work, witnessing the sleepy morning waves, utilizing my hometown beach for its true purpose, and occasionally, seeing its guardians, the dolphins.

That first summer of forcing myself on the group swims, I focused only on surviving and learning to monitor myself in the water. Just getting out past the waves was often enough of a challenge that I had to be done for the day. For reference, my chaperones’ swim didn’t start for another 100 yards past that but reaching a level of exhaustion far offshore made me panic.

The ocean is a tough place to find peace when you feel unprepared to interact with it but there is only one way to get stronger, calmer, and more aware out there….by practicing. So, I went to the pool that off-season to stay in touch with swimming. Without the bliss of the ocean, consistency was hard to commit to.

Slowly, my confidence and form grew strong as the wintery sea a few blocks east, kept rolling…

The next summer in 2021, I showed up again with my mer-men. Collectively they were a little balder, a few surgeries deeper, and took a few extra squats to zip into those shrinking wetsuits. My focus that season was to learn to athletically swim. I was beyond trying to survive, but there were lessons I could learn to make things easier. I picked appropriate weather days for calmer conditions and never hesitated to call the swim if I was running low on steam, “Go ahead guys and I’m going to head in.” To which my father-in-law famously responds, “Marina, one more to the other buoy first?” His childlike love for having someone to exercise and play with usually won me over.

Still, I made sure to keep something in the bank so I could navigate the waves on my return. He never let me swim to shore alone, choosing to tackle to sets twice just to watch me get home safely. And I watched his technique in return. He could time his swim in perfectly, breathing every stroke with a sneaky eye over his shoulder to watch the growing swells come up behind him. Like clockwork, he’d catch a wave that could coast him back to shore with little to no effort or extra swim strokes. “Work smarter not harder” came to mind as I took a few nose dives with the wrong wave that season. Timing was everything, but to capitalize on the rhythm of the ocean, strength had to get you through the door to that easy ride.

So, I swam laps all winter in a chlorine-soaked pool as the freezing ocean a few blocks east, kept rolling…

In 2022, I signed up for my first tri-athlon. I wanted to continue my challenge to make peace with the ocean but without buoys and a safety net of people who supported my apprehensions. Intuitively, I had a sense that time was running out for personal challenges, a selfishness that I couldn’t yet name. So, I stood alone in a sea of strangers, frantically waiting for the whistle to blow on the beach of my first race. On the line with other fit looking women, I rationalized with myself to “just get through the swim.” Everything else would be a familiar effort of endurance.

The 400-meter dash into Avalon’s surf-only beach was known for its swells and overhead sets. That first race was less of a swim and more of a “hold your breath as the waves go overhead,” but I had prepared for it with the mer-men. Beyond the sets, it was time to swim. Forgotten by the collegiate swimmers, I distanced myself from the apprehensive portion of the group. Somewhere in between, I found peace within a personal hole. In rhythm with the brownish gray arena around me, I fell into stroke. 

I was the recipient of two major surprises that day, the first being that despite my lack of experience in the race, I placed second in my age group! I planned to relish that achievement for the rest of the day, but my self-focus was short lived. I felt off. I bounced between freezing and sweating for hours, assuming that it was a natural result of such exertion. Why couldn’t my body normalize? The realization slowly dawned on me, welcoming my second surprise of the day, I was pregnant.

I wasn’t sure if the exhaustion I felt came from the first consecutive swim, bike, and run of my life or a chemical cocktail of a first-time pregnancy. So, to put it to the test, I signed up for one more race at the end of that summer. Joined by my husband, we slowly made it through the race where we revealed our ultrasound at the finish line. Four months pregnant, and starting to feel my structure changing, I accepted that my body could potentially be altered forever.

As it does, life swelled, I grew, and a few blocks east, the ocean kept rolling...

In 2023, I once again registered for a few races that summer. Using them as motivation to get back on the proverbial horse, I was driven to prove, both to myself and the ocean, that I hadn’t been beaten by pregnancy or delivery. My beautiful son came out in his own way that March, leaving me an emergency C-section deeper, a little balder, and needing a few extra squats to zip into my wetsuit. That first postpartum summer, I didn’t expect any achievements from my swimming, I simply wanted to enjoy the water. I attribute my acceptance of new motherhood to swimming, placing myself in a challenging medium you can never control. In the waves, I wove myself back together and learned yet again, to trust in life.

Most recently, at the start of 2024, I caved and registered for a locally famous race that I had been dodging since my first invitation to join in 2020.Escape the Cape is a triathlon that takes around 2,000 athletes offshore on our local ferry. To start the race, you either jump or are cajoled off the bow of the boat, falling 12 feet into the cold June waters. Sounds fun, right?

Well, it’s a local rite of passage and my husband was officially hooked on triathlons at this point. He trained harder than ever and was ready to seriously compete in his age group. Me? After hustling the year prior through postpartum racing, I had nothing to prove to my body or mind. I was entering a peaceful time in life where I found balance between work, creativity, and simple routines at home with the baby…a “flow state,” if you will. 2024 was the year that swimming, and all exercise really, became spiritual.

In baby watching shifts, my husband and I trained for the upcoming race season. When I was alone and feeling well, I could focus on nature around me and less on analytics or pace. I liked to swim and mentally speak to the water or nearby dolphin. I biked past a variety of coastal birds and embodied their aerodynamics. I ran on the coastline and appreciated the easy breath that enabled me to be there. Amongst this peace, despite months of planning and training, we received a powerful spiritual lesson reminding us that the universe is the only thing in control.

Two nights before the race, my husband got violently sick. A stomach bug would knock him out of the event, leaving me to decide if I’d swim alone that weekend or wait another year to compete together. I tried to help him recover but it wouldn’t be safe for him to swim offshore so severely dehydrated. Packing the night before the race, I crept around him and felt guilty about our opposite predicaments. He was devastated to miss out but obviously wanted me to participate. I knew I didn’t want to do the race alone, but never want a “why not” to overpower a normally positive “why” to compete.  

For over a year I had become a person with a constant extension on her hip and a close support group for all the rest. I wasn’t sure I remembered how to be a solo Marina anymore; let alone the old athlete I was prior to this stage of life. Similarly to that nameless pressure in 2022, I had the sense that this was my time to compete and that something was going to change after the event.

I had to do it. The ocean was calling.

I rolled around the night of the race, dreaming of giant monsters coming out of the bay to latch onto swimmers. The elaborate imagery of poisonous fish felt like a bad omen. I moved through a haze the morning of the race, looking for any sign that would convince me that the risks of the swim outweighed the benefits of going. Yet despite my best efforts, everything fell into place. My French braid at 4am came out perfect, an obvious sign for a successful day ahead. The lights were all green along the way to the ferry terminal and none of the interisland bridges were blocked by fishing boats. Parking at the event? Simple. There’s no getting out of this now, I thought while checking in. I was fully committed in body but couldn’t wrap my mind around the present moment. It kept getting pulled back somewhere. Somewhere old. Somewhere angry.

 I stood in line as the sun rose up over the ferry terminal. Standing around couples competing together and groups of friends looking excited, I boarded the boat feeling more alone than ever. I knew how much this meant to my husband and I was heartbroken that he wasn’t with me. Caught up in my own spiral, I walked onto the ramp, past the fun dance music and celebrations of the ferry, to sit by myself in the back and sulk. I had two hours to mentally focus on the big jump and all that I had gotten myself into.

I looked at the ocean and focused instead on the beautiful scenery of where we lived. People travelled from all over for this race and I was getting to simply roll out of bed and swim at my home turf. I felt myself beginning to lighten up when my view of the ocean was suddenly cut off by a local friend passing me on the deck. “What are the chances?” I asked and immediately perked up as she sat next to me. We looked out at the sea together, watching as emergency boats and lifeguards circled the ferry to monitor the 2,000 swimmers. The conditions were choppy, and the overall scene was pretty daunting.

I looked away as the first round of swimmers jumped, heads high above the chop looking for colorful buoys to follow. To pass the time and distract us from the impending jump, we talked about our similar missions of overcoming a fear of the water. She pointed to deep swells that made her most nervous, and I pointed the opposite direction, toward the coastline.

I told her that I was more afraid of hitting the landmarks on the coast than being out in open water, something I hadn’t revealed to myself before. The jetties that stuck out into the sea were usually close to a runoff pipeline, very similar to the one that I got trapped under in sixth grade.

Attempting to keep up with my older brother, I went surfing with him when there was a “light” hurricane offshore of the Jersey coast. I was not a good surfer, had no upper body strength, and made the mistake of letting the strong current pull me toward a pipeline. At some point I realized I couldn’t fight against the tide and was going to hit the pipe, a looming rusty goliath of barnacles and seaweed riddled into the side.

In an immature panic, I bailed on the board and jumped onto the pipe, hugging it as my body wrapped around half its diameter. What I didn’t plan for in my quick decision was the weight of water against an immobile structure. Crushing me into the pipe as each set of waves rushed overhead, I learned what human screams sound like underwater.

My board made plans of its own and got pushed under the pipe toward the rocky jetty on the other side, yanking my ankle still attached by the leash. Conflicting forces. Rib crushing pressure of waves. A chance to breath and scream for lifeguards only once when they receded. More rusty cuts as the breathlessness of awareness sunk in. I was going to die here.

In gasping intervals when the waves passed, I saw my brother helplessly watching me on the other side of the pipe, avoiding his own impact with the rocks. Losing time, I clung to the structure that was both anchoring me in the rough sea but drowning me simultaneously. If I had let the ocean have its way with me, on the safety of a board, I would have likely been pushed out further to sea, around the pipe and down a few streets until I could make it back to shore. But from resisting my inadequacies, I ended up in this predicament, fighting with myself. The ocean wasn’t attacking me, she barely knew I was there. I came into her surf unprepared, blaming her for her power as she kept rolling…

I was running out of air when two lifeguards finally made their way to me. Timing their own safety in the waves and analyzing how to free me from my leash, I clung to my young life, feeling frail and pathetic compared to the strength of the water. To this day, I’ll never know how long this scene played out, or the path of danger that I put those young guards in to come rescue me. But we all made it out, handing me off with a beat-up board to a traumatized and crying Mother who waded into the surf fully clothed. Nun’s beach in Stone Harbor held a special grace for me that day, most likely reinforced by years of spiritual women praying over the ocean there as they visited the convent watching from the dunes.

I blinked and was back on the boat with my friend.

Watching the waves toss around more swimmers, a group of hairy feet smacked past us on the boat. “Marina!” My group of mer-men cheered. I knew that some of the men from my father-in-law’s group would be doing the swim but never expected to recognize them on a boat of 2,000 similarly capped and wet suited people. "We’re going to join you two,” said the ringleader, sandwiching both my friend and I in on the seats. I introduced my friend to each of the men as they smacked each other, yelling, and repeated her name until everyone heard it correctly. Their calm, goofy, and steadfast presence was the final boost I needed to feel safe on the ocean. Just their presence alone reminded me how far I’ve come from “survival” swimming in 2020. Especially far from a helpless, scared, weakling caught in a surfing incident.

The mer-men jumped first, leaving me alone to monitor my watery mind for the final hour before my turn. Body to body with dancing, singing, and excited racers, I finally felt the rush of their joy. Suddenly and without fear, I knew that this jump was symbolic of something big. An initiation somehow, to commemorate the life that I’d lived until this boat ride. A celebration too, to recognize that there was nothing further to learn. I simply was being asked to be. Stepping up to the lip of the boat, placing my now perfectly fitting goggles over my eyes, I was ushered by two of the race coordinators right over the edge.

Holding my breath for impact, I crashed into the cold water. Deeper than I expected to travel, I lingered in the dark world below the surface before bobbing back toward the sky. A small death, symbolic for the new me that would resurface.

Then, I swam. Taking easy and deliberate breaths, I floated. I rode on currents past people who looked uncomfortable in their rhythm with the chop. I felt strong enough to expend energy their way, asking the ocean to take care of each swimmer. I thanked the ocean for letting me be there, to experience this body in motion. I thanked myself too for taking the steps and strokes, that enabled this opportunity.

Finally, I trusted the wave I came in on, making it back to shore.

I was so focused on the feeling of a strong swim, regardless of pace or racing, that I completed the three events in a flow state. Conscious of the natural surroundings and listening to intuitive urges that made my efforts more efficient, I even wound up placing in my age group. I may have been the only person who crossed the finish line barefoot, carrying my shoes in hand, but I wanted to finish the bulk of the beach run exactly like I started the journey, in the water.

Epilogue:

I’ve heard it said that nature loves courage. That one power can recognize another power with a similar ability to make change. I see now that an act of courage is an energetic conductor, a space shifting moment that mimics primordial power.

Maybe that is why the ocean rewards those who commune with it? As if she can sense the ones who contribute energy to the rolling tides. What I can say with full conviction is that swimming is by far the most humbling form of movement that I've ever molded myself to. And for my body, pregnancy is the natural result of that pliability.

Seven weeks after my successful escape of the cape, I solemnly walked a few blocks east to the rolling ocean. Hands cupped around a precious wad of tissues; I held the remnants of brief pregnancy. I never doubted for a moment where I’d place her, another daughter of the sea. It felt right to pass her off to a woman that I trusted, before turning inward to take care of myself. I knew that she was close to claiming me, that day on the ferry, and even if she briefly swam in my waters, I’ll swim with her forever more in hers.  

Now, I’m committed to the sea like a modern priestess who serves at the temple of its sunrise. And trust me, she is an easy deity to honor, asking for nothing but appreciation and an occasional energy exchange. One that can come from acts of courage, like swimming or surfing with her, or a simpler act of reverence such as cleaning her waters and protecting her sea life. If you’ve had a bad exposure within the water, I hope you will start the journey toward recovering that lost connection. Be it through therapy or falling into a group of mer-men thirty years your senior, I wish that you find your own outlet to rewrite the experience.

Once you learn her moody cycles, the ocean can act as a constant presence of comfort. Despite her fluid nature, she is a template for consistency and stability. Let her again become a rhythm to live by. The unchanging mother we could all use a little more of, reminding us that while decades of our life can pass, she is exactly where you last embraced her, still rolling…