Swimming in the Sink

by Lynne Cox

  Joe lifted my bag with one hand and placed it in the back of his truck.

  We climbed into the truck; it was an instant oasis. The air conditioner was turned on high. I relaxed and breathed easier in the cool.

  Joe asked me why I was wearing a jacket.

  I didn’t want to tell him. It would have sounded dumb. I told him it was made from light fishnet fabric.

  “You look hot. It would be smart to take it off,” he said.

  He handed me a chilled water bottle and started to drive.

  I held the water on my neck to cool the carotid artery and to cool my body and then took a long drink. Cold water always tasted good, but even better in the heat.

  Joe looked at me like he was trying to figure me out, like I was a puzzle.

  “Why don’t you lose the jacket? You’re going to get hyperthermia. You’re going to overheat.” He shook his head.

  I told him my arms were flabby. All the muscles were gone. They looked awful. I didn’t want him to see them like that.

  He said no one cared. It was Miami. People walked around in light clothes and swimsuits. “You should see South Beach. Some people wear almost nothing.”

  I didn’t think he understood the way I felt about my arms. His arms and shoulders looked great. It looked like he had been lifting weights, but I couldn’t do that.

  I took the jacket off, and it was a good thing that I did. I was overheating.

  He reminded me that my focus had been to get my heart back in shape, but he thought I could also get my arms back in shape. He knew Dr. Rawal didn’t want me to lift heavy weights because that would put pressure on the heart, but why not lift light weights?

  Maybe I could lift light weights and use multiple repetitions to rebuild my muscles.

  He suggested talking with Dr. Teri Engelberg, a friend of mine who was a neurologist, who worked out daily and had studied exercise physiology.

  It seemed that I always learned the most from the most uncomfortable situations.

  I asked Joe if he was lifting weights. He said he wasn’t able to. He had been injured on the job and was forced to retire earlier than he expected. The doctors he was seeing weren’t helping him, so he was working on his own recovery. Suddenly I realized why he understood what was happening with me; he was on the biggest mountain climb of his life, just as I was challenged by the most difficult swim of my life.

  I continued working on healing and I felt stronger. I felt like I was reborn, and for the first time in years, I was free to spend an evening in Paris, to hike the Himalayas, but now I listened to my heart, and what I wanted most was to fall in love and have a life with someone special.

  28

  THE HEART KNOWS

  In October, Dr. Rawal’s follow-up echocardiogram confirmed that my ejection fraction had continued to improve and that my heart was normal. I was feeling great and couldn’t remember ever being so happy. Dr. Rawal didn’t want to see me again for six months.

  I was lucky. I had been given another chance at life, and I was enjoying each day, and everything more.

  I was contacted about doing a segment for the Weather Channel. I told producer Shawn Efran I was out of shape. He said it didn’t matter; all he needed was some B-roll and ten minutes of swimming.

  Shawn was a perfectionist and I knew he would want to take more footage. When he produced a segment for 60 Minutes about my swim to Antarctica, his film crew shot more than ninety hours of footage. I was excited about working with him again, but I was unsure of how long I could swim in cold water. I had lost my acclimatization.

  I started in the shallow waters of Alamitos Bay in Long Beach, where I had trained when I was fourteen for my first swim across the Catalina Channel. As I swam I thought about the miles I had swum and the life I had lived. It felt right to be there, the bay where my channel swimming began, and the place where the next chapter of my life would begin.

  Shawn Efran, and his cameraman, Adam Ravetch, met me at the boat in San Pedro, California. Adam had filmed polar bears and sharks and the underwater segment of my Antarctic swim. He had watched for aggressive leopard seals to make sure that neither of us was attacked.

  We climbed on board the dive boat and sailed slowly through Los Angeles Harbor and past the breakwater. The hum from the boat’s engines and the slow rocking-horse motion over the rolling waves felt familiar, like the start of our great Antarctic adventure. As I looked down into the dark, deep blue water, I felt nervous. I no longer knew what I could do.

  The captain turned south and paralleled the breakwater and positioned the boat so the sunlight would be on our backs. I had a choice. I could be afraid of doing things all the rest of my life or I could jump back into the water and live my life.

  I took off my sweat suit, stepped onto the dive platform, and dove into the water. I popped to the surface, floated, and laughed. The water was colder than I expected, but it felt good. I looked at Shawn and Adam standing on deck putting on their wetsuits. Memories of Antarctica and the impossible things we did flooded my mind.

  “How’s the water?” Adam shouted.

  “It’s great,” I said.

  Adam and Shawn grinned. We were on another great adventure.

  I took a deep breath, put my face in the water, and swam fifty meters, and a surge of energy went through my body and I felt alive. I swam past Long Beach and Los Angeles Harbor, past San Pedro and Point Fermin Lighthouse. The land glowed in the morning light and the Pacific sparkled.

  A school of anchovy glittered below; a sea lion glided beside me and looked at me for a few moments, inhaled, and dove. I put my face in the water and watched him swim under me. The ocean was a symphony of sounds: fish were humming, purring, hooting, and crackling, dolphins squeaking and clicking.

  I turned my head and breathed.

  All I wanted was to see how far I could swim. I felt fantastic.

  Adam leaned over the side of the boat and said, “Swim for as long as you want. We’ll film you from the deck, and then I’ll get in the water with you.”

  The strength in my arms and body was increasing and I was elated. I could swim as far as my arms would pull me.

  It felt different swimming in deep water than it did to swim in the bay. My body felt lighter, my strokes deeper and smoother. I was able to establish a cadence that allowed me to swim with ease and delight. My body danced across the currents and bounced over the curling waves. Small silvery bubbles flowed in long streams off my arms and legs and large bubbles rolled out of my mouth.

  Shawn moved to the side of the boat and said, “This is a perfect day. We’re getting what we wanted. Do you think you can swim a little longer?”

  “Sure, I’d be happy to,” I said, and checked my watch. Time had passed fast and I had done better than I expected. I had been swimming for an hour.

  Adam jumped in the water and a soundman joined him.

  “This feels great,” he said.

  “It sure does,” I said.

  “Remember the underwater camera is heavy. Swim slowly so I can stay with you,” he said.

  “No problem,” I said, and laughed.

  Adam dove under the water and filmed me for a long time. Shawn asked if I could swim longer.

  My fingers were turning white, like they had in Dr. Keatinge’s test, but my core felt warm. The longer I swam the better I felt.

  I gazed at Catalina Island floating on the Pacific Ocean in the blue haze, and I wondered if I could swim to Catalina again. My heart had healed physically and emotionally. It was strong and had almost returned to its normal shape. I could do anything I wanted, but I realized that I didn’t want to swim to Catalina again. I didn’t need to prove to myself that I had recovered.

  I would always love the sport of swimming, always love being in the water, swimming alone or with friends. I would always swim. It gave me so much pleasure and a great life of exploration. But I was freer than I had been for most of my life, and I wanted new experiences. I yearned to share them with someone
special. I hoped it wasn’t too late.

  29

  LOVE AND LIFE

  The sun was almost setting. I had more errands to run and normally would have finished them before doing anything else, but I felt I needed to drive to Seal Beach to see the sunset.

  It was rush hour and no one would let me into the right lane, so I missed the turn and considered driving home, but I listened to my heart.

  Parking on Main Street, I jogged toward the pier, but Michael Bronfenbrenner, an old friend, was sitting inside Walt’s Wharf at a table by the bar with another man and he gestured for me to come inside.

  The sky was turning periwinkle, violet, and deep blue, and the clouds were white and bright pink; the sunset was going to be spectacular. I wondered who the man was with Michael. He was attractive and well dressed, as if he had just come from work.

  I walked inside and Michael introduced me to Steven, his younger brother. When Steven stood and shook my hand I decided to pass on the sunset. Steven was tall, his handshake was as strong as an athlete’s, his eyes were bright blue, the color of the North Atlantic, and when he smiled, I felt my heart beat faster. There was something different, something special about him.

  I asked Steven if he was in Seal Beach to visit Michael. He said partly, but he was also in town to meet with the Pacific Symphony. He was a consultant and he worked with orchestras and communities across the United States to help them build concert halls. He guided them through the process, helped them figure out how to collaborate, gain support, fund, and build a new venue or renovate an old one. It often took ten years or more to complete a music hall.

  His voice was melodic, with a warm tone. He asked me if I liked music. I said I loved it and that I had been attending the Pacific Symphony’s concerts and had many questions. I asked if he could answer some for me.

  He seemed pleased to help me understand more about his world of music.

  I told him that I sat above and behind the orchestra and watched the woodwinds and strings play. They had different sheet music and I wondered how they knew when to play their parts. None of them looked at the conductor.

  Steven said that they were trained musicians—some played for the movies in Hollywood—and they were able to read their music and see when the conductor cued them to play.

  It was exciting to learn more about his world. Did he feel the vibrations of the instruments flowing through his body when he listened to the orchestra play? Was this experience like being home?

  He grinned and said he enjoyed feeling the music as much as listening to it.

  During one concert, I watched a solo violinist play a concerto with the orchestra. Between movements he stopped and tried to tighten the strings on his violin. He couldn’t do it and handed his violin to the concertmaster, the first violinist, to tighten them.

  Checking the program, I noticed that the soloist was playing a Stradivarius and wondered if he was afraid to tighten the strings too much and break the instrument.

  Steven said that a Stradivarius might be worth more than ten million dollars. If the concertmaster couldn’t fix the violin, he would give his violin to the soloist so he could complete his piece. It wasn’t unusual for violin strings or the bow to break. The bows were made from Siberian horsetail and they were stretched and held a lot of tension.

  I knew that only male Siberian horsetail was used and explained that my friend played violin with the New York Philharmonic. She said male Siberian horses were able to direct their urine away from their tails and thus their tail hair was cleaner and stronger than the females’.

  Steven seemed impressed with that bit of information. Funny the things people are impressed by. I told him I loved to watch musicians play their instruments and see their intense physical movements and concentration. It seemed like they were dancing as much as playing music. And the conductor was the choreographer of the dance. It was a beautiful thing to watch.

  I asked if he played an instrument. He played piano. When he was seventeen years old he was practicing six hours a day, training to become a concert pianist. I loved piano, but I’d had to choose between playing and swimming. I knew I would be a better swimmer than pianist but never lost my love of listening to music.

  He said it took intense concentration, a willingness to work on a piece over and over again until it was technically right, and then he had to pour himself into the music so it became an expression of his heart and soul. I admired him for his commitment and thought that he was exceptional to have that dedication at a young age.

  I asked if he still played and he said not much now. He traveled too much for his work, but he sang. He was a tenor and occasionally sang at Carnegie Hall. He loved singing and he had a large repertoire.

  He asked if I knew that an ocean wave and a sound wave—a wave of music—had the same physical qualities. And I was intrigued with that, and with him. Our backgrounds were different, but there were many similarities. I was fascinated. He was a teacher, listener, and learner, and during our conversation he did not look away from me nor did I glance away from him.

  The only thing that brought us back to the moment was when Michael suggested that we go for a walk on the pier. We had been sitting at the table for a long time. The restaurant was almost empty, and it was dark outside.

  When we reached the pier, the wind was blowing hard, the tide was flooding, and black waves were crashing into white spray against the pier pilings, shaking the wooden planks beneath our feet.

  I was happy walking beside Steven. His footsteps were light and energetic and he seemed happy too. He didn’t know much about me, and I felt grateful for that. It gave him a chance to discover more about me, at the same time that I was learning about him. He asked me about my training and I pointed out the course I swam between the pier and the Seal Beach jetty. It was where I discovered what I could do with my life. It was where I dreamed and worked toward big dreams. I looked at Steven and wondered if God or fate had guided me back to the pier to begin the next chapter of life with him. My grandfather fell in love the moment he met my grandmother. Maybe it was in my genes.

  We walked beneath the glowing lights on the pier. The wind was blowing hard into our faces. He tucked his head and leaned into the wind.

  Was he cold?

  He shook his head. He said he loved the wind and the smell of the ocean. When he was a child he had sailed with his parents across the Atlantic on ocean liners, not cruise ships. His father was a psychology professor at Cornell University and his mother was an artist who had raised six children. Steven was the youngest, so he traveled with his parents when his father lectured at universities in Europe and other parts of the world. They had lived in the Soviet Union during the Cold War, and in Europe. He said he loved exploring the world and sailing across the ocean in a storm, and I told him I felt the same things swimming in the ocean during a storm. He laughed until he realized that I was serious. He liked that I was different and I liked that about him. I didn’t want our walk to end, but he had to catch a flight.

  When we hugged, I felt his heart beating fast against mine.

  I hoped we would see each other again. I needed to let him know and sent him an e-mail telling him how much I enjoyed the evening and he e-mailed back and said he would be back in town in a couple of weeks with his voice coach and her husband. They were going to attend the Pacific Symphony’s concert and listen to them play the music of Leonard Bernstein’s works. He invited me to join them.

  Shirley, my friend and landlord, had already invited me to the same concert one day earlier, and I had agreed to go with her, but I didn’t want to miss the chance of seeing Steven, so I went twice.

  A day before the concert Steven heard from his friends. They couldn’t make the concert, but he wanted to know if we could have dinner together and then listen to the music.

  At the restaurant Steven suggested that we order different entrées so we could share and have more to taste. Being with him was like being with an old friend, but this was so
mething more.

  I thought he needed to know about my heart, the stress it had been through, and that I was not as strong as I had once been.

  “Are you okay now?” he asked. He looked concerned.

  “My heart is better than it’s ever been and I’m so happy being with you.”

  He smiled at me and my heart beat faster.

  He said he had been through some difficult challenges too, but he was healthy and he was making big changes in his life. Sometimes you had to go through difficult things to make those changes.

  We sat in Segerstrom Hall in the center of the room, where we could see the entire orchestra perform.

  Throughout the performance I glanced at Steven. We were floating on sound waves.

  When the orchestra played “Somewhere” from West Side Story, Steven took my hand as an opera singer on stage sang, “There’s a place for us. A time and place for us. Hold my hand and we’re halfway there…”

  We looked at each other, and I realized that he was falling in love with me. And I was falling in love with him.

  After the concert he asked me if I wanted to go for a glass of wine. It was late, but neither of us wanted the night to be over. While we were sipping our drinks, he gently touched my fingers. He expressed his heart through his fingers when he played the piano and my fingers expressed my heart when I captured water to swim across great seas.

  He explored my hand and I explored his. I felt his strength, vitality, tenderness, and love. I didn’t want to let go of his hand.

  At 2:00 a.m. he walked me to my car and we said good night. He asked if I would like to meet again in a week or two, and I said I would love to. But then he changed plans and we saw each other the following evening. I was beginning to experience a part of life I had never known. I was excited, happy, and afraid. I had lived my life so much alone and wasn’t sure if I could adjust to being with someone. He understood but said he wanted to be with me. We could take things one step at a time, and I said we would need to take two steps at a time. One step each—together.