There was a comedienne named Lotus Weinstock who once said, “Before, I wanted to change the world. Now, I just want to leave the room with a little bit of dignity.”
This 5k swim was my first open water competition. All week, I was preparing myself mentally for what was to come. There were intense moments as well as bits of tranquility. Myrna, who swims very well in the pool, commented on her fears of the ocean and mentioned how she feared sharks. That one word was enough to germinate a fear that had not previously existed. And like a grain of sand, it began to form a callus in my head. It didn’t help that at the pre-meet meeting, they gave us the event t-shirt, which featured a photo of a bull shark, the third most dangerous in that species in the world.
A week before, we went to swim the route so that we could see how it was going to be during the competition. The waves rocked me, at times slamming on top of me. But I was able to withstand the power of the ocean. What I couldn’t stand was the burning in my nose. The saltiness of the water made my nose burn so much that I wanted to go to the doctor who I was planning to ask to remove my stomach for the first triathlon, to remove my nose. The sensation is akin to when one has a rock in their shoe: insignificant in size but irritating nonetheless.
This was enough reason for me to think twice about my participation in this meet. My swim trainer recommended that I line my nostrils with Vaseline.
A cure. This changes things.
On the day of the competition, I arrived with my nostrils well smeared. They gave me my numbers for the meet: 66.
Six hundred more to the sign of the devil.
It could be that for that particular reason I was able to feel calm. Perhaps it gave me strength. I don’t know. I watched the ocean with silent deference. I can. I should be able to.
And then the announcement: due to time and security concerns, the course will be shortened and instead of swimming a triangle, we were going to swim parallel to the beach. Instead of 5k, we were going to do 4. In my mind, I was grateful that it was going to be shorter.
The start.
The whistle for the women’s start sounded after the men were passing the first buoy, which was an orange ball, double the size of a basketball.
In open water swim terms, this was very small, as I was about to see.
I breathe only one side, my right side and though I could see the shore the whole time I was swimming to the buoy, I angled out far too much. So much so that when I finally arrived to the buoy marking the start of my second kilometer, I came at it from open water, perpendicular to the shore, and not swimming towards it from along the coast. The waves rocked me and during the entire way, I could not see that yellow buoy. My reference point was an identical buoy that was placed on the beach, about the same distance away as the one in the water.
I never thought I would feel so happy to see that yellow buoy that looked like a triangle chunk of cheese, just like in the cartoons. I swam around it and started my journey back. I had no way of seeing the basketball buoy from the cheese buoy so I went back, going parallel to the beach and using the palapa that was level with the basketball buoy and the finish line. The current started to pick up and on several occasions, I was almost flipped over when the waves would catch me, right as I was turning to breathe.
I was starting my second lap when the problems started. I began to notice that the Vaseline in my nose was wearing off. At the 2k mark, I started to feel the burn. Upon rounding the basketball buoy, the burning incremented. By this time, the current was stronger and every now and then, when I would turn my head to breathe, I had a wave crashing in my face.
I felt how my legs dragged behind me.
I felt how I couldn’t lift my left arm out of the water without some conscious effort.
I felt how the salt water flooded my mouth and burned until my eardrum.
I repeated to myself that as long as I could breathe, everything was going to be okay. Everything was going to be okay.
But like everything, you can get to the point where you get worn out.
Breathe to the side through the mouth. Exhale through the nose. Swallow salt water that rushes through your nose. Breathe to the side through the mouth. Exhale through the nose. Wave that slaps you in the face and forces you to swallow more water.
I have never had to work so hard to breathe in my life.
I didn’t want to breathe anymore.
I wanted it to be over. I wanted to finish. And I didn’t know if I could hold out before the fatigue that was chasing me set in. Just a little while more, I said to myself, while my nasal passages kept burning. You’re going to be uncomfortable for just a little bit more.
A lifeguard in a kayak was shouting at me. Indicating in gestures, he motioned towards where I should go. Each time I tried to go where he was telling me to, he shouted at me some more. I realized that I was swimming off course and tried again. I thought he was following me in his kayak but after a while, after I didn’t see him anymore, it struck me. In the five minutes he was shouting at me, it was not because he was following me but because I couldn’t swim out of that spot: I was swimming but the current held me in one place.
My strength was slowly waning.
I was upset and felt my tears of anger and frustration fill my goggles. My legs strayed everywhere. The current broke my form into a thousand different formations that had nothing to do with the word “straight.” I fought a losing battle against the waves. Come on. You have to hold on.
Further on, there was another kayak. The lifeguard was motioning for me to leave the water. There was also a man on the beach, making me the same sign. By this time, I felt like an invertebrate. My body folded every which way because of the fatigue and the waves. I was trying to push myself forward with little success. My tongue felt raw, burnt by the acidity of the sargasso.
I left the water and even though I was conversing calmly and even buoyantly with the man from the beach, an invisible sheet covered me. I didn’t know what it was at the time but I sunk into a silence that had nothing to do with the fatigue.
I was disillusioned with myself.
The only ending of the story that I hadn’t contemplated was happening and as I got to the finish line flags walking, and not swimming, a finisher’s medal that I felt that I did not deserve was hung around my neck. I did not know how to explain it to myself. All I knew was that this moment was mine. The anger that I felt belonged only to me and to no one else.
I waited till I got home to cry.
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A co-worker, who was quoting a famous director, told me that one should do film to cure oneself.
I think writing fulfills the same function.
Today I did my first open water swim. I reproached myself for my weakness as I had walked back to the finish line, without even knowing that that was what I was doing. I realize now, however, that not everything can be achieved on the first try. And like Weinstock, I, too, want to leave the room with a little bit of my dignity intact. In confessing these very words, I feel that my dignity is salvageable in knowing that sooner or later, I will be in open waters again, competing.
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