Blog Your Blessings: Swimming Sideways

Last summer Della and I swam the swim of our lives at North Topsail Beach in North Carolina. We were caught in a rip tide, and for what felt like forever, we swam and swam and swam. Sideways. Because my dad told us to. After what felt like forever, we were able to stand just as an elderly gentleman in a Speedo and swim cap was mounting his board to come get us. I loved that man even though we didn't need him after all. I was so thrilled we could stand.

I remember he and a younger fella were laughing as we found our feet. I wondered then if we had swum harder than we had needed to or whether they were simply relieved we hadn't drowned. Drownings do take the shine off a summer afternoon, after all.

There are moments I still see that gray wall of water rising (imagine a wall rising, please) and leaning and crashing over us and my screaming to my daughter to swim and to watch. She was so annoyed with me for shouting. (I tell her I am the embarrassing relative, but that argument hasn't bought me much of anything for a long time.) Those moments I see that wall are specific. These are not random flashbacks. They are moments over which I have no control, though I know damned well what outcome I want. The Atlantic says to me, "You are nothing." I can't argue.

In those moments I hear myself again: "Swim!"

Duh.

What else are you going to do when the entire Atlantic Ocean is about to land on your head because it has had about as much as it can take of the Iberian peninusula, Africa, and what have you?

You swim. Sideways. Because Grampa said so. He read the "how to survive a rip tide" sign before the dunes swallowed it, and he told you about it. So swim sideways. Let those looming gray walls crash on you and do what they will, but keep swimming.

Swim sideways, get up, go home.

That's the story. No need for drama.

Thinking of that story, I wonder how it applies to living well on dry land. I feel overwhelmed by every mistake I have ever made, banged up by every insecurity that has kicked me behind the knees every time I was about to take a step forward. I am disgusted with and disappointed in myself for the damage I have done, for the hurt I have caused, as a result. I am my own worst enemy.

I need to become a stronger swimmer, to stay low, to learn this lesson:

Tao Te Ching, Verse 61

when a country obtains great power

it becomes like the sea:

all streams run downward into it

the more powerful it grows

the greater the need for humility

humility means trusting the tao

thus never needing to be defensive

a great nation is like a great man:

when he makes a mistake, he realizes it

having realized it, he admits it

having admitted it, he corrects it

he considers those who point out his faults

as his most benevolent teachers

he thinks of his enemy

as the shadow that he himself casts