by Joe Minihane
I looked out of the window onto the red-brick wall, a smudgy London evening turning things dark and grey well before 6 p.m. Rain sloshed down the double glazing, which stopped the sound of splashes and spray from penetrating into the room. I’d spent the first half an hour of my session with Mark talking about Jura, about the sense of being able to feel the water without stripping down to my shorts and getting in. About how I felt able to float above it all and not hold myself accountable for not emulating Roger to the letter.
‘It sounds to me like you turned this project into something like work,’ said Mark. ‘And you’ve been holding yourself up to the same impossible-to-attain standards that you set in your professional career. It’s good that you’ve remembered that it’s meant to be about fun.’
I couldn’t deny that I had been applying the same religiously held beliefs about work, to my retracing of Roger’s journey. What was supposed to be an escape had become a chore at times, but my trips to the Wissey and to Jura had helped me realise that I needed to hold on to some of that original impetus of water’s life-giving promise of happiness and possibility in the face of anxiety, while remembering that it wasn’t the be-all and end-all. It was just one part of a larger story that made up my life.
As the weeks passed, Mark steered me away from the water. We began touching on the reasons why I might be so anxious all the time. Why I held myself up to unrealistic assumptions about work. Why I never wanted to rock the boat either professionally or personally.
Time and again we would come back to my sensitivity to shame. I didn’t like being told off as a kid and I hated it just as much as an adult. Over the years I’d built up this idea that being in the wrong and doing wrong, of breaking the rules, to be an inherently bad thing, something to be avoided at all costs. I wanted things to be perfect and I wanted to please everyone, all of the time. I would always apologise for things even if they weren’t my fault. Somewhere along the line, I had begun attaching blame to everything. Stuff had to be someone’s fault. It could never just be. This idea of wanting things to be just so made me a nervous wreck. I hated not having everything in its right place and lashed out or became anxious if I felt that it wasn’t.
I told Mark about dropping a mug and accidentally smashing it while Keeley was cooking dinner. How I was to blame and had got hopelessly wound up about it when she told me it wasn’t a big deal.
‘Hold on,’ he said. ‘Blame? Can’t something just be an accident, especially something as minor as that?’
‘Er, I suppose so.’
Mark uncrossed his legs, pushed his white hair from out of his eyes and started scribbling on the whiteboard which was hung on the wall. Together, we worked out stages of a scenario. I would, for example, spill a glass of water, break a mug. I’d then blame myself and start apologising profusely for it. I wouldn’t be able to let it go and got increasingly wound up and stressed, allowing myself to grow frustrated and angry. Then I’d go away and brood for a while and feel anxious, before feeling ashamed about how I’d behaved.
Seeing that written down made me feel ridiculous. And it also made me realise that I did it in plenty of other situations too. I’d get a piece of work and spend so much time worrying about how I was going to do it that I’d take days to actually sit down and get it done. I’d tell myself I wasn’t good enough to work for this newspaper or that magazine, so wouldn’t ever bother trying to see if I could. But when it came to actually having to do the work, it was never as hard or stressful as I made it out to be.
If I did something ‘wrong’, like file work late or tell a lie about why I couldn’t meet a friend for a beer after work, I’d feel acutely sensitive to the shame and guilt attached to those actions. Always wanting to do the right thing was stultifying and frustrating, but I tried to do it anyway. I’d managed to subvert those feelings somewhat on my journey following Waterlog, jumping from that Fladbury window and dropping into the Itchen. I told Mark all of this with mild embarrassment.
‘And did it matter that you did things? Of course not. There’s nothing wrong with trying something and there’s nothing wrong with making mistakes or doing something that leads to a minor blip or accident. That’s what happens in life.’
As more and more sessions passed and I talked more to Mark about how I felt, I painted a picture of myself that often seemed ludicrous to me as I spoke, but felt honest and real at the same time. It was becoming ever clearer that I was a sensitive person, perhaps too much so, acutely attuned to feeling guilty about everything, even the most minor indiscretions. Catholic school had given me a solid moral grounding but had left me with a yearning never to do wrong and always be in the right.
This had come to the forefront when I went freelance. Setting my own agenda, I allowed myself to feel bad for ever having a good time or enjoying myself when I thought I should be doing something ‘productive’. Swimming had become one of the things I beat myself up about and felt guilty for doing, because it meant I wasn’t earning or living the freelance life I thought others, whoever they were, expected of me. It was why I had placed too much emphasis in finding meaning in it, hoping it wouldn’t make me anxious any more, when in fact it was just something I loved and made me happy.
‘A little bit of guilt is a good thing,’ said Mark in our last session. ‘But this much can leave you paralysed. You get to choose what you do and you need to take an objective look and see that what you’re doing is just fine. In fact, it’s better than fine. You just need to not put so much stock in any one thing at any one time.’
I considered my life at that point. A loving partner, a successful career in an industry everyone had been saying was dying for the past decade, a hobby which had reignited friendships and indulged my love of travel.
‘It’s like I said, it’s all about learning to float. Bob along, recognise when things require a big response and when they don’t. You’re already doing it. I think you’re going to be fine.’
I stood up and offered Mark my good hand and said a brief thank you. I knew he saw people in far worse predicaments than mine, but his willingness to listen, his sound advice and his calm and understanding made me feel I could go on without seeing him all of the time. I gained a sense of balance and calm from therapy that made me realise what was important in life: love, people, friendship, family.
Swimming was a part of that and helped bring those essential things closer to me. My cast was due to come off in the coming days and my attention turned to a last dip before the weather set in for the winter. I didn’t feel downbeat about the cold putting a stop to my journey. It meant that I had another summer with Roger to look forward to.
CHAPTER THREE
October
Walberswick, Suffolk
You could track my path from the fracture clinic to my front door. A trail of dead human skin followed me on the short walk home, before tracing chaotic routes around the living room and kitchen as I held the phone in my newly liberated right hand and paced about while making some calls. First, I rang Keeley to tell her that my hand was free and somewhat flaky. I called my mum and did the same.
Then I dialled up Molly.
‘Mate, when can you go for a swim?’
It was one of those unseasonably warm October days, a final blast of summer heat before the curtains are drawn and the heating goes on. I was desperate for the cold slap of the sea, something to deepen that sense of happiness I’d felt while staring at the water on my past two journeys. We settled on a trip to Walberswick on the Suffolk coast in a couple of days’ time. I hung up and went to scrub my arm of dry skin and hopefully get rid of the sweet stench that had also been released along with my wrist.
On the train to meet Molly, my arm now thankfully less fragrant, I read over Roger’s passages about Walberswick. He went there for the very last swim in Waterlog, the culmination of a swing from his moat in Mellis and on through Eye and Heveningham, ‘swimming into the quiet waves’ to mark the end of an epic journey. I knew I wasn’t quite half
way in following Roger, but it felt appropriate to be going there now and to be closing the first full year of my trip at the place where he had ended his.
As the train rattled along, clunking through Essex and north to Suffolk, I put Waterlog down and marvelled at just how Roger had completed his entire trip in the short space of nine months. I was amused that, back at the start, I thought I could do the same. Now I was pleased that I was getting some more time to delve deeper into these swims, to explore and to learn about what Roger had seen and found. I had given myself extra time to think about each dip, to plan them more carefully. It gave me time to earn a living so I could finance what was turning into a full-scale exploration of some of the British Isles’ furthest-flung corners. There was no rush.
Molly sped up the hill from the main road and came to an abrupt stop where I stood outside Diss station. Her driving skills were still idiosyncratic, to say the least, but I enjoyed that. It was good to see her again. We set off for the coast, a high bank of grey cloud edging in from the North Sea and rubbing out the sun. The window I had wound down was quickly wound back up again, the temperature sliding the closer we got to the water.
In the warmth of the car, the cooler air outside didn’t bother me anyway. I wanted my first post-fracture dip to get right to my core, to feel the cold thump of nature against my chest and re-emerge invigorated and ready to tackle each swim with more vim and wider eyes.
I told Molly about my therapy sessions, about how they had helped me see things from a new, calmer, perspective by talking out my concerns and seeing them objectively. How that had helped me on a path towards gaining greater perspective. How I was worrying less as a result.
‘I’m really pleased for you, mate. I think this swim is going to make things even better.’
We parked up as close to the beach as possible, coats zipped high against the chill. We walked past a block of scruffy-looking public toilets and through the warren of beach huts that sit behind the dunes, emerging onto the beach via a neat boardwalk. The breeze was light, but still the sea crashed in, as it always does on the east coast. It’s never calm on the water in Suffolk and that’s why I love it. There was a slight drizzle in the air as we made our way to the centre of the bay and flung our kit on the floor.
The bravado I’d felt on the train and in the car quickly ebbed away as both of us stared out to sea. It was cold and damp, not dissimilar to the weather on Jura. For a fleeting moment I wished the cast was still on so I had a bona fide excuse for not getting in.
We began chatting about anything that came to mind: whether we’d ever been stung by a jellyfish (no) and how different this all was from the clear, blustery day up the coast at Covehithe just six months ago. We kicked at pebbles and began tittering at our inability to get out of our clothes and into the water. I even floated the idea of going back to the tea room in the village for some pre-swim sustenance.
Molly rightly baulked and peer-pressured me into pulling off my coat. I knew once one layer had gone that the rest would have to follow, so I yanked off jeans, jumper and T-shirt in ungainly fashion and left them to collect sand in an untidy heap.
With new-found purpose, I ran towards the sea. Long strides quickly became tentative steps as my toes felt the fizz of the ocean. I waded out to thigh depth, my body already heaving for breath, and pushed myself forward the way I’d seen Labradors enter the ponds on Hampstead Heath. It was an ugly sight, but, finally, I was swimming again.
In Waterlog, Roger speaks of how he would come here with his friend Lucy, who would set off towards the horizon at electric pace, allowing the swell to carry her off into the distance. This would have been in high summer, though, and it was far too cold for such antics. Molly and I settled for our now tried and tested tactic of swimming in small circles, huffing loudly before letting our breath fall into a steady rhythm with our stroke.
My right wrist felt sore and I twisted it this way and that. It was still stiff and couldn’t move much after weeks of being stuck fast in one place, but now it was free I knew I could make it better if I exercised it more.
After a few minutes I settled my feet on the sea bed and stood with my shoulders out of the water enjoying the marvellous way in which the sea tilts and sways on this part of the English coast. Nowhere else does this happen in quite the same way. Boats lope at odd angles while the horizon bobs this way and that. As I stood there, the crashing wave of an endorphin rush settled over me. I felt hopelessly high and had to remind myself that this was fleeting, that I couldn’t always feel like this, and that that was part of the pleasure of outdoor swimming. While it lasted, I let it fall over me and guide me back towards my clothes. Mark’s advice about being able to stand outside the scene, recognise it, assess it and deal with it worked just as well in the water as it did when I was anxious and fretting at home about work. Like my arm, my mind had been freed but needed time to start functioning properly.
I waded out, shivering and happy. We dressed quickly, trying our best to shake off the wet sand that had clogged our things, and headed for a cup of tea and some soup. I gabbled about my plans for the next twelve months to Molly as the endorphins throbbed and the adrenalin flowed: where I would swim and how I was going to finish up my retracing of Roger’s story. Perhaps breaking my wrist had been the catalyst I needed. Where before I had sometimes felt trepidation about the task at hand, now I felt only hope.
— PART THREE —
Surfacing
‘… swims are like dreams, and have the same profound effect on the mind and spirit.’
ROGER DEAKIN, WATERLOG
CHAPTER ONE
January
River Test, Hampshire
I didn’t worry about geeing myself up for winter swims. My wetsuit stayed dry for the rest of the year, tucked away next to a moth-eaten army coat in my wardrobe. I backed up my decision not to take more dips as the nights drew in with the fact that only a smattering of Roger’s Waterlog swims took place in the cold months of autumn and winter.
New Year came and went. The days were getting marginally longer and the weather was hardly worse than when Molly and I had braved the North Sea three months earlier. Heavy rain swept over the southwest, but the downpours meant the temperature was touching double figures on most days, meaning swimming with the aid of neoprene was more than possible.
I looked at my spreadsheet, the one which had made the journey feel less exciting and more like hard work during the previous summer. This time, the non-shaded destinations felt like new places to love and explore, not cells to be blocked out. It wasn’t even close to being spring but I could see the year opening out in front of me, the promise of warm weather surely not that distant a dream. Work was quiet, and rather than let that worry me, I took a few deep breaths, told myself ‘fuck it’ and decided to set off on Roger’s trail again.
I took the train to Potters Bar with Joe and met our old work colleague Tom. Tom had managed to lay his hands on a top-of-the-range wetsuit via a magazine-writing gig which seemed to bestow him with all kinds of goodies and treats, and he was keen to get involved in a wild-swimming adventure. It lay prostrate in the large boot of his vintage Jaguar saloon next to bags stuffed full of winter swimwear. I was looking forward to seeing Tom trussed up. I thought his Captain Haddock beard would look all the better when in full swimming attire.
Joe and I were also packing ‘condoms’, so to speak, and we both fully intended to get rubbered up. The air temperature may have been nudging double figures, but the water where we were going was bound to be freezing. Spending time with Joe and Tom was always easy. They were relaxing company and around them I always felt my edges were smoothed, my anxieties lessened. They were the perfect people for attempting something less than Arcadian, especially as Joe had been with me on that freezing day on the Windrush a year earlier. I didn’t feel bad about taking us on a cold dip after that particular experience. We all knew this wasn’t going to be a casual frolic in a sun-soaked stream.
Our desti
nation was Stockbridge, close to Winchester. Roger spoke of this place being alive with water, of being able to hear it before you saw it in the streams which bordered the town’s wide main thoroughfare. These little waterways flowed out into the River Test, renowned for its trout fishing, much like the nearby Itchen. And as I’d found out the previous summer, those chalky waters were icy cold even in midsummer. There’d be no stealing a swim here, though – this was open water and all the better for it.
Tom opened up the Jag and we roared down the M25 listening to old opera tapes I’d picked up while volunteering at my local Oxfam. The unidentifiable arias of Verdi and Puccini, known only to me through the music round on University Challenge, gave our winter adventure an added air of grandeur, when in fact we all knew that we’d be wading in and screaming like toddlers once it came to the actual swimming.
We passed through the well-heeled town, all gastropubs, old-style hotels and fancy delis, and drove a further mile towards a well-known local swimming spot. With the help of my map, I deduced that Roger would have passed through here on his long swim out of town, when he had crawled and paddled through the shallows, exchanging happy nods with anglers and locals out walking their dogs.
The low sun, which had hung at the top of Tom’s windscreen all the way from Hertfordshire, was enclosed by cloud within a minute of us getting out of the car. It made little difference to the temperature, but psychologically that lack of sunlight was a killer. I gathered my things and packed up, ready to tramp down a bridleway towards the banks of the Test. It had obviously been raining here solidly for days – the verge was sodden and huge muddy puddles blocked our path. The only way to negotiate them was to splash through and deal with the messy consequences later. A riverbank is not a place for vanity.