Braving the cold
Wednesday was a stunning day, by far the best of the season. There wasn’t a breath of wind and the sea was super calm without even one wave breaking on the shore. I spent some time enjoying the sunshine, thought about going to the beach, but dismissed this idea as I decided it would be too cold.
On Thursday, I talked to three people who had swum at three different beaches the day before and all proclaimed it was lovely and warm. I chided myself for not having visited the beach myself.
So that afternoon, I headed out to my favourite piece of water, a seven-minute drive away, even though there was a chilly wind dancing about. A huge cloud hung over the beach as I arrived, but I continued down the hill, shorts on, ready for my swim. I found an eaten away area to shelter from the wind and lay on my towel to warm up…and promptly fell asleep. When I awoke, the cloud had dispersed and I could feel myself burning. The idea of a swim seemed both appealing and off-putting at the same time but I knew I hadn’t come out this way for nothing. The fact I was the only person on the beach should have been a clue as to what to expect. I could see that the tide had now passed full and was on its way out, as the wet sand stretched about three metres from the water. I walked through this, then waded, one tentative step at a time, into deeper water. Slight swirls jumped onto my sun-drenched upper body, causing me to gasp. My legs were now feeling like ice cubes. And then I did it. I dived into that crystal clear, ice-cold water.
‘’Ouch’’. This was every bit as bad as I expected and then some. I was out of that water in about 20 seconds, grabbing my towel and making my way back up to the car. First swim for the season over. I generally love the sea and swimming and I don’t know what has made me so reticent this season. Genevieve and Willow have been swimming for weeks now and loving it. Normally I am one of the first too. Perhaps it is because we have had so much rain that I have had less sun than I normally would have had for this time of year, so lying in it as I did at the beach made me super-hot and thus susceptible to feeling super-cold as I entered the water. When one has been lying in the sun, the water always feels cold initially, but I could tell that Thursday’s temperature was always going to feel cold. The biting wind didn’t help.
I have mentioned twice in my blogs the last few days about having opposing thoughts at the same time. Today, about wanting to swim and not wanting to swim, and in Tusday’s blog of feeling happy and sad at the same time. It reminds me of the Cheroke proverb that goes something like this: A grandfather is telling his grandson about two wolves that are battling inside of people. On one side is the evil wolf with traits, such as greed, jealousy and anger, while on the other side is the good wolf, that harbours peace and love and everything good. When the grandson asks who will win the battle, the grandfather replies that it is the wolf that one feeds.
I love these words of wisdom. Jason, my son, was given this proverb, written on a poster, when he was a teenager. He hung it on his wall and I am sure it has helped both him and me over the years. We are fortunate that these wonderful words have been made available for us all to hear.