Catherine Joy White - Learning to Float

 

 

So, the first time I went swimming, I was five years old. I was bouncing in my car seat with this untamable excitement. And it felt like freedom. So, we pulled up in the car park, and I made my way to this leisure center, taking in its bright lights and these loud voices and this sharp tang of chlorine. It's a leisure center right in rural East Midlands. But to me, it felt like Disneyland. I got in there, and I got changed in the cubicle and I made my way to the edge of the pool, taking extra care to walk, not run, even though every single part of me-- I didn't want to run, I wanted to fly. And when I got in that water for the first time, that's exactly what it felt like. I swam whenever and wherever I could. Lakes, the swimming lessons I learned to snorkel and then later to scuba dive, because that wasn't enough. I just loved it. 

 

But then, fast forward 10 years, and that childhood jubilation has become locked in a prison of my teenage body. So, puberty is happening, and the thought of stripping down, much like the Jamaican booty shorts in a swimsuit every week, was a form of fresh hell. And it wasn't just these changes to my body, but I also relaxed my hair at that time to make it really straight, because that was the cool thing to do. And of course, relaxer is destroyed the moment water goes anywhere near it. But if I didn't relax my hair, then not only would I be ridiculed at school, but my swimming cap wouldn't fit over my afro. So, I was in a lose-lose situation. 

 

I became really disillusioned and miserable with it all. I looked around and I thought, “There's no one here who looks like me. I don't fit here.” So, I stopped. Swimming's not for me. In January 2020, just as the earliest strains of coronavirus were being reported at the bottom of our weekly news cycle, I unexpectedly lost my uncle Delroy. And it was so unexpected that when I got that news, all I could say was, “What?” Because we'd just been together at Christmas, which was 10 days earlier. We'd had the annual Christmas quiz, and he'd been quizmaster, and we'd had this big argument about Stormzy, of all things. He helmed our family since we'd lost our grandfather. So, it just made no sense to me that he was no longer there. 

 

And I fell apart, I think my family fell apart and then weeks later, we're in a global pandemic, the world fell apart. I developed this sort of thing that was just pushing down on my chest. And at every moment, I felt like I was looking behind, looking over my shoulder, just waiting for this next bad thing to happen, because something bad was happening, I was sure of it. But then, I would try and reassure myself I'm a positive person, “No, no, no, you're fine. You're absolutely fine, because the worst possible thing has already happened.” So, okay, deep breaths. 

 

And then, in January 2021, one year later, I got a message in a group chat with my friends. I still remember this really surreal detail of an apology for the way the message was being conveyed, not for the actual message itself. And the message said that my friend Simon had ended his life by suicide. Well, I couldn't utter the word what this time, because it was beyond all comprehension, so I just paused. I wanted to scream, but I couldn't because this thing was weighing deeper and deeper on my chest. And in lockdown, there was no other option available to me, so I walked. 

 

I walked every day and I passed this lake. It became quite intriguing to me. It was vast and mysterious and imposing, and I went back to it again and again and again. And one day, I stopped at this lake and looked at it. I just thought, I've got to get in. It was an icy English January, so there wasn't really anyone else around, but I still have my teenage fears in the back of my head. So, I glanced in the bushes, made sure there was no creepy stalker lurking and stripped off my clothes, bra and pants, and I got in. Oh, my God, it was freezing, [audience laughter] like a thousand needles stabbing every single inch of my body, freezing. But as I gasped for breath and tried to remember those motions, I'd been taught all those years earlier, I felt something. 

 

So, I went back the next morning, in proper swimsuit this time, and I felt it again. I went back again the next day and the next, and days turned into weeks. And one day, I'm in this routine and I'm swimming, and something happened with that same thing and it came up and up and up and up and I just started to sob. I don't know if anyone's actually experienced the feeling of crying in a body of water before, but it's actually quite hard to stay afloat. [audience laughter] So, I was panicking and swam to the shore, because I didn't want to drown. I got to the shore and I sat with my arms around my knees and I cried like a baby. But I knew in that moment I'd found something with this swimming. 

 

I carried on and carried on and the weather was getting a bit warmer. And one day, there I am headphones in walking to the lake and there's this woman in my spot. [audience laughter] I'm looking at her thinking, this is my place, this is my space. I spend my life making polite chit-chat conversations with older people. I just want to swim. So, I got in the water and swam as quickly as possible and got out, so I wouldn't have to speak to her whilst we got dressed. She's there smiling at me all kind and nice. And I just thought, leave me alone. 

 

Came back the next morning, there she is again, smiling. Instead of feeling this childhood jubilation of the five-year-old, I just felt like a five-year-old, this is my space. Why are you invading it? And every morning that week, same time, same place, there she is. And I started to just feel trapped. Anyway, one morning, we swim, we're out same time, getting dressed as usual, and she offers me a slice of lemon cake, homemade. So, obviously, I thought to myself, I'm going to have to eat this, aren't I? [audience laughter] 

 

I gritted my teeth preparing for this polite conversation about the weather or something that I really didn't want to have. But weirdly, she didn't seem to want to talk to me, she didn't seem to want to disturb me and we just sat and ate the cake in peace and went home. I began to grow quite accustomed to her presence. It felt really nice. We didn't bother each other. We were both just there, doing our thing separately, but together. 

 

And then, one morning, I came up to the lake and she wasn't there. And the next morning, she wasn't there again. And I looked for her. I looked for her every morning that week, but she didn't come back. I felt that thing in my chest again coming up as I wondered what was happening to her. I didn't even know her name. And she didn't come back. So, I did the only thing I knew how to do, I kept swimming. 

 

One day, I walk up to the lake and she's back. So, I'm smiling at her first this time, probably like a weirdo, because I was so happy to see her. And the next morning, probably like everyone here, I'd got into baking during lockdown, and I brought her a slice of banana bread and we shared that by the edge of the lake together. She told me that she had buried her husband and described the socially distanced funeral broadcast over Zoom and the goodbye that she hadn't said. It was the strangest feeling, because I was listening to her, and she's 40 years older than me, and she's German and I've tried with all my might not to like her, but we so intrinsically understood each other. 

 

I spoke to her about my uncle and about Simon. She didn't ask how he did it, or was he depressed or any of those questions that I'd become really resistant to hearing. She just listened without need for any explanation. I realized we've both come filled with sadness to this lake. Spring turns into summer, and we keep swimming and now we're not just in the fair-weather territory. We've got other swimmers coming in, so we welcome them into our weird gang of [chuckles] misfits. We slowly all swim together. We have a WhatsApp group. And you message in it and see when you want to go for a swim and there's always someone to swim with. I began to realize actually we're all in this strange place of coming to the water, because we're looking for some form of connection. 

 

Now, I left that house which was in Oxford, and that lake. I moved to London last summer and I don't swim every day anymore. I think I don't need it in that same visceral way. But every time I'm back in the water, I still feel that childhood excitement and I feel that first icy dip and I feel that sacred ritual of the time when I swam every morning, because it kept me here, and I especially feel the healing that I found in the kindness of a stranger.