A Mile in the Ocean

We drove down to Coronado on the third of July, to be there for the Fourth. It has become a family tradition.

We camp in the backyard of my favorite aunt, hang out with my sister, and walk and scoot all over the island-- a place, my uncle informed me, that once had more Admirals per square inch than any other spot on earth.

I learned strange family stories, like how one uncle I thought was an Air Force officer was actually a CIA agent working in South America for years as a mid-level Kentucky Fried Chicken manager. (Really? Unbelievable! How had I not heard this? And yet, when we met them, they lived in Langley. Hmmmm...)

But one of the highlights of the year, one of the events that keeps me on track, through good times and bad, is swimming the Coronado Rough Water Swim. In bad years it just makes me feel good. In good years, like last year, it is serious training for Alcatraz.

This year I felt a little cocky. I mean how bad could it be after Alcatraz?

Last year the temperature was 55 degrees. Enough to stop you in your tracks when you ran into the water. I swam in a wet suit last year and still couldn't breathe for a quarter of a mile.

This year I told myself if it was under 58 degrees I did not need to do it. The day dawned moist and wet. The island was wrapped in fog. And chilly. But when I signed up they told me the water was 65 degrees. Balmy! Like the Caribbean! Warm enough to go snorkeling!

So I swam, this year alone, without a wetsuit, and without even my beloved aunt. The water was pretty warm. It was strangely choppy and I ended up getting tossed around and a little disoriented, and swallowing a gallon of seawater, but I was fast.

Now I have stomach cramps from imbibing bad Mexican water washed up from Tijuana, but it was worth it.

The ocean always makes me happy. Always.

Even when I can't get warm for two days after.

Maybe there really are positive ions floating in clouds above the water, lifting your mood like a drug, as the surfers always claim.

The water carries me, it holds me, it tosses and plays with me, and I know, again, for certain, that the world is a magical place.

Trips We Never Forget

Isn't it strange those trips you take when you are a child, that are important, but you don't realize until 30 years later that they have changed the course of your life?

I think about it a lot now, because I feel like I am planting the seeds of the future in my boys with every little thing we do. And as I do it, planting seeds intentional and unintentional, I wonder what will stick, what will take root, what will last? Will it be the things I try so hard to set up? Or the spontaneous things I never even meant to teach, that stick in their minds forever?

My father is from California--Coronado to be exact. At least as much as he is from anywhere. He denies it, and has culturally renounced California and all it stands for, but despite that, Coronado is the place that seems to make him the happiest in the world. Except for perhaps Naples, Italy. But this part of him was hidden from us, because we lived on the East Coast and Europe. Coronado, California and Hawaii were only places in bedtime stories, where his most exciting childhood exploits took place.

When I was 11 we finally flew west to California to see my Aunt Judy and her family. We stayed in Coronado. It was June, so the island was fogged in. But I remember every detail. My father leapt into the water and body surfed huge waves, his head sticking out like a lion in the middle of a frothy mane. I had never seen anything like it, nor did I know that my father possessed such magical skills. He would leap out of the water whooping for joy. The waves were huge. I tried it myself and got so tumbled in the waves (they flipped me and pinned me to the bottom) I got a little freaked, but i LOVED it. We ate at Taco Bell. We watched my cousin Kristin swim (she later went onto the Olympic trials and I spent years trying to be like her, begging and begging my mother to let me be on a swim team like Kristin, and with intervention from my aunt, it happened--I joined the Sub Base Barracudas, where they told me, at 11, I was too old to ever be very good, or learn butterfly like my cousin--my dream--but I could do it if I wanted. I did. ) We ate honeycomb for breakfast (no sugar cereals in our house) rode bikes everywhere, and wandered around the castle-like Hotel Del, where my father had once roamed the underground tunnels and stolen dinner plates, which still graced our table at home-- a childhood prize.

...and, my aunt made this unforgettable dessert. It was made of fried tortillas, sprinkled with cinammon sugar, served still hot, with vanilla ice-cream and honey drizzled over the top. I have travelled the world and never had it again. Finally, on the Fourth, I cornered my aunt and quizzed her. What were they? How did you make them?

They are called Bunuelos (imagine an accent waving over the "n"). She couldn't remember exactly, but she told me the basics. I came home and tried it. I fried up my tortillas, sprinkled them with cinnamon sugar, scooped on the ice cream and drizzled. My family was silent. But I was orgasmic. I had waited 30 years and they were as good as I remembered.

And I thought of how that trip changed my life. I live in California, I love the Pacific beaches. I body surf, surf and boogie board with my boys. I eat tacos and burritos several times a week and swimming became a huge part of my life. All from that trip when I was 11 years old.

I guess I spent the next 20 years trying to get back to California. Two out of three of us are here now. And if Ian ever did come back to the United States and renounce his British citizenship, I bet he would end up in California, too.

Is there anywhere better?

July 4: I DID IT!

Start:



Finish:





July 4, 9:20 a.m., Coronado California, water temperature 55 degrees!!!!!

We awoke at 7:15 a.m. in our tent in my aunt and uncle's backyard, so I could run down to the beach and sign up for the Coronado Rough Water Swim. I had gone in the day before with Theo for a few boogie board rides and the water was frigid!!! My aunt instructed (via a party invitation): "Pray for Warm Water." The race the year before had been cancelled due to fog. On some level I think we were praying it would be foggy again. But it wasn't.

Instead, the water was unbelievably cold!!! The day before (when I had gone in, and thought it was cold) the water had been a balmy 61. It had dropped six degrees overnight. My aunt, the triathlete and all around tough and amazing woman, told me she was not going to do it. She told me to talk to the man who told her not to do it. He was a former Navy seal. He said his daughter had pulled him aside and told him it was dangerous, and plead with him not to swim.

I am clueless when it comes to cold water. When does hypothermia set in? How long can a person like me swim in extremely cold water? And why was I doing this? Because I was too much of a chicken to back out?

I went into the water up to my ankles and I could barely walk out of the water. It was hard to imagine willingly throwing my entire body into that for at least half an hour.

My aunt told me that the scary thing about hypothermia is that you don't realize you are getting cold. Your body just stops and your stroke slows down, and you go under.

There were lots of lifeguards (in wetsuits) around on jet skis and paddle boards. Still.

Jonathan just stood by listening, offering no opinion for or against. He knew better than to weigh in. I wondered if I was about to say good-bye to my children. But I just couldn't bail!

Then my aunt made an offer: borrow my wetsuit. She called my uncle, who picked up her swimming wetsuit, which had been specially made to fit her and flown in from New Zealand. It had Ironman printed across the chest. Cool! It was so tight that my uncle said that at the big races they have a hot blonde going around and helping men and women into the suits. It is exhausting. Not like a surfing wetsuit at all. You have to pull and tug and grab and wiggle and writhe on the ground and your hands begin to cramp from pulling it up. I only had minutes before the race was to start. But I felt like I had an armor of good luck. I was in a totemic suit, worn by my lucky Aunt Judy, and flown from afar. I would finish. She gave me an insulated cap, too.

The race guy told us to jump in before we started to acclimate or we could go into shock. So I did. And it was a shock. Even with a wet suit on.

I ran out, kissed my husband and boys good-bye in case this was the end. I was the wimp here. Many many swimmers swam au naturel. By donning a wetsuit I was taking myself out of the competition. The horn honked and we waded into the water. Not fast. Gingerly. Slowly. With dread. Pushed from behind by other swimmers filled with dread. We all walked as far as we could. The water was so cold I could not breathe. Even in a wetsuit. (Jonathan said some swimmers waded in, then turned right around and got out of the race) My feet were going numb and so was my face, my only exposed skin. I couldn't breathe normally for a quarter of a mile.

And then I was just lost in the murky, frozen water. On my own.

The swim itself wasn't hard. It was only the cold. And after a half mile I knew I would make it.

I rounded the final buoy, halfheartedly surfed a wave to shore, and ran on wobbly legs up the beach. Benji ran out and grabbed my hand and ran with me to the finish.

I did it!! My lips moved like they were still filled with novacaine, the arches of my feet were numb, but I did it I did it I did it!

The race organizers said the swim was the second coldest on record (though another swimmer said the coldest year was 2000, when "the guy died of a heart attack."

After the race other swimmers told me that Alcatraz had been 61 degrees last year! No problem!!! That's practically lukewarm!

Now all I have to do is overcome my fear of sharks through special visualization techniques!!!!

Coronado Open Water Swim

Saturday morning (the fourth of July) I will dive into the waves with hundreds of other swimmers, a number scrawled on my arm, a red bathing cap on my head, and swim around three buoys and back to shore. The swim is one mile long and I will do it with my super cool Aunt Judy, co-creator of the Iron Man Triathlon.

I am out of shape and feeling fat. But I must swim, and prepare for Alcatraz. Next week I will have a dangerous freckle removed from my toe, and be forced to stay out of the water for 10 days. So this swim is key in building my confidence, fitness and sense of challenge.

And so today, I run down to the Y to make sure I really, truly, can swim a mile in the warm, indoor,1920s pool (I did Tuesday). If I can, I figure I can get through kicking competitors, big waves, cold water and maybe some fog.

Here goes...