Actually twenty years if I start counting from the day I thought I was going to drown…
We’ll get back to that. First, here’s 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, I imagine 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 here. 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 of love, it was the sea that called me back: for we had unfinished business to address.
I’ve been afraid of the water since childhood and that fear grew the longer I lived away from the waves, forgetting 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 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.
I obviously 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 slow, 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 I didn’t care.
I kept showing up despite being worthless at work the rest of day from exhaustion. I couldn’t enjoy swimming at that time but I thrived on the feeling of hard work, witnessing the sleepy morning waves, utilizing my hometown beach for its true purpose, and occasionally, seeing dolphin.
That first summer of forcing myself to 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 that 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 sporadically 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 a few extra squats worth of getting 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 in 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 down deep as the waves go over” but I had prepared for it with the mer-men. I even came in second in my age group despite my lack of experience!
As I bounced between freezing and sweating the rest of the day, I’d come to realize that I was pregnant for that first race. I wasn’t sure if that exhaustion came from the first consecutive swim, bike, and run of my life or a chemical cocktail of a first time pregnancy. 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 in the summer. Using them as motivation to get back on the proverbial horse, I was driven to prove to myself and the ocean that I hadn’t been beaten by pregnancy and delivery. My beautiful son came out in his own way that March, leaving me an emergency C-section deeper, a little balder, and a few extra squats worth tighter of a wetsuit. So that summer, I didn’t expect any achievements from my swimming. That year, I simply wanted to enjoy the water. I credit swimming, the challenging exercise in a medium you can never control, to playing a large role in my postpartum recovery. In the waves, I wove myself back together and learned yet again, to trust in life.
Finally, 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.
Friends and local patients: Want to sign up for Escape the Cape with me?
2020 Marina: “No way I’ll drown.”
2021 Marina: “I’m so bad at swimming, hopefully some day.”
2022 Marina: “I don’t think my first tri should be the one that people have to jump from a ferry to start.”
2023 Marina: “I was just cut open, kindly leave me alone.”
2024 Marina: “Only if my husband does it too, and, if someone can watch the baby.”
Escape the Cape is a triathlon that takes around 2,000 athletes out 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 kind of a local right of passage and my husband was officially hooked on tri’s at this point. He trained harder than ever and was ready to seriously compete in his age group. Me? I was happy to watch his hard work pay off and just complete my race in the same crowd.
After hustling the year prior through postpartum racing, I had nothing to prove to my body or mind. I was entering a really 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 night 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 severely dehydrated or exhausted. Packing the night before the race, I tip toed 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 I didn’t like my “why,” more of a “why not” actually.
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. But, just like 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. Elaborate imagery of fish impaling me with poison came off like a bad omen to skip the race, if only to avoid the dangerous swim. 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. 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 heart broken 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 to 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 in my home turf. I felt myself beginning to lighten up when my view of the ocean was suddenly cut off by a local friend and patient passing me on the deck. “What are the chances?” I asked, immediately perking 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. 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 their 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 jettys that stuck out into the sea were usually close to a run off 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 off shore 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 it’s 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, getting 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 to lifeguards when they receded. More rusty cuts as the breathlessness of awareness sunk in. I was going to die here.
In gasping intervals when waves passed I saw my brother helplessly watching me on the other side of the pipe, avoiding his own danger 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 in to shore. But from inexperience and panic, 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 danger that I put those young kids 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 their convent.
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 ring leader, 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. Their calm, goofy, and steadfast presence was the final boost I needed to feel safe on the ocean. Just their presence on the boat 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 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, the dark world under the surface lingering for a second before bobbing back toward the sky. A small death, symbolic for the new me that would resurface.
And I swam. Taking easy and deliberate breaths, I floated. I rode currents past people who looked uncomfortable in their rhythm with the chop. I felt strong enough to expend energy their way, asked the ocean to take care of them. 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.
And then I 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. Breathing, conscious of the natural surroundings, and listening to intuitive urges that made my efforts more efficient, I wound up placed in my age group. I may be the only person who crossed the finish line barefoot and carrying my race shoes, 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 that has the same ability to make change. I see now that an act of courage is an energetic conductor, a space shifting moment.
Maybe that is why the ocean rewards those who respect it? As if the ones who commit energy toward it through acts of courage contribute to its rolling tides. All I can tell you for sure, is that swimming is by far the most humbling form of movement that I've ever molded myself with. I still have leagues to learn and experience within the water, but I truly feel that I’m over the challenges that kept me from finding ease within that space.
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 reference 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 older than you, I wish that you find your outlet to rewrite the experience.
Despite the major events that you live through and learn from, the ocean is a constant presence of comfort once you learn her moody cycles. Let her again become a rhythm to live by if you get lost in an unconnected world. She is a template for consistency and stability, despite her fluid nature. 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…